Show Us Your Sonys!!!

[mesut BALCI]

I hope the job in the final will not destroy the manufactured balance on musical parameters. Recapping or changing parts at the first may result optimisation but during listening session, you may not get the joy you previously had. Again fantastic Job. :thmbsp:

One of the most important things on hi-fi that I experienced is balance among parameters which is the thing causing music to be again natural. I never heard a flute or drum or anything played live outside that can be called as very transparent by listeners. Mirko has said that ta-n7 was too transparent!! A destroyed natural balance.

I have been experiencing the tae88. Another device on endless hi-fi path but this is the end, at least one of the ends, and still no miracles I waited for the price. Well it created a room having this time side walls, a complete, closed room. Secondly it has first rate musical pesentation and well defined contours that when combined all together, gives the mood of room.

I also tried my ladder type passive comparing to tae88. I connected passive to the buffered rec-out of tae88. This corrected all lacks of passives and resultng sound still has better purity than tae88 line stage. I found out which cabling is best for passive based sound and for tae88 based sound. At their best results: the music with buffered passive is smoother, more energic, has tiny bit purity obvious, better at trebles, and faster more controlled presentation and even more musical.

music with tae88 is a bit stressed, shows easily 2 times more musical nuances, dangerously dynamic in tiny nuances, mises nothing, pushes what there is on record. You get accustomed tae88 music around 1-2 days. very different presentation, very surprising. The last thing causing real difference between tae88 and buffered passive/5650 pre or all others that I have tried is that, when you are sucesfull tring a bit, you get complete closed room creation and its related mood rather than usual staging. This is the real difference, may be the thing resulting esprit name.

tae88 outputs are one of the worst thing I have ever seen. 2 of my interconnects got defect, there is gravity in practical world. I would prefer tae88 having rca's on the bottom, if this design is really a must. Either way rings must be removed to use cabling into-out of tae88. Very stupid, otherwise an engineering beauty.

I wonder what is the limiting areas of 5650 power amp when tae88 is used as preamp...Is theer really any? I am still seing things tae88 dont have but I get by using other devices. tae88 is not as smooth as buffered passive.

sony units are 5650, tae88, xa7es, sony tv, sony mini recorder, sony headphones walkmans, sony monitor and i have never been a fan of sony.

 

[Yamaha B-2]

...... and i have never been a fan of sony.

Seeing that you "have never been a fan of Sony.", could you just send over that TA-E88B? You see, I am a fan of Sony.:yes:

 

[mesut BALCI]

YB2:
I am still thinking my credit card, 500euro: GULP :sigh:
Will you really sell 8450 and 8550?? Please replace power cord of 8450+8550 with the ones of c2x+b2 and see if differences are still existant betwen yammy and sony combos.

 

[Yamaha B-2]

All power cords are currently stock. Remain unsure about selling the Sony pair. I will have to wait until I have heard the recapped TAE-8450 in action with the TAN-8550. No comparison in the looks department. While I like those B-2 meters, the unique Sony meters and matching oiled wood side-panels certainly are nice.

While I received excellent service and sound from my Bryston amps (2B-LP pair running as monoblocs and BP-25 preamp) I don't think they compare to the sound I am hearing from my VFET gear (Sony or Yamaha). Especially the refurb'd units.

 

[mesut BALCI]

My power cords are also the ones I use on my PC. I tried many pc power cords and shocked with differences on resulting sound by soem of them althogh some are equal. All those "more's, less's, a bits, tiny bits," are due to power cords used with that unit and even really serious sometimes causing main diferences. I dont trust on costly power cords but If I didnot also consider cabling and power cords in order to get best sound from a system tring a unit, I would easily and mistakenly say 5650 preamp is better than tae88. I first suitably match the all cabling tring a unit in the system and then compare best sound of new match with new unit to my reference match with previous unit, also seing their good and bad potentials and tring to find out a way to get optimum best. These lasts as A-B-A-B-A-B listening tests peventing ears or brain from woow state, then long listening periods, and then seing results on wide variety of cdroms.

 

[influx]

Time for a Forum for Sony Fans?

Thought I'd trot this idea out again. What would be the pluses and minuses. My .02 would be convenient links to archived manuals and galleries. You know useful stuff :scratch2: Any thoughts?

 

[Yamaha B-2]

Whichever set I decide to keep will definitely receive a bit more in the way of upgrades. The item I like the least on these vintage Sony pieces is the ratty brown power cord. When my ST-5000FW and ST-J75 were refurb'd the power cords were replaced. Doesn't matter which set I keep, the preamp/amp pair will undergo a power cord upgrade. Would like to go IEC, but not sure there is room without a major butcher-job on the rear panel. So will likely go with a captured power cord.

 

[totem]

The power cord on my TAE 8450 has to be one of the worst I have seen.
In fact, I found that one prong is loose and is also soon to be changed.

 

[Yamaha B-2]

Yep......think it was 1967 that Sony got an incredible deal on 100,000 miles of 15g brown zip-cord. Horrible stuff. They didn't run out until 1980.

 

[Stoffie]

Mesut, I have never heard the TA-E88B and N7 together. Only TA-E86B + crippled N7 and that was glorious already. So I'm wondering. Saturday I'll know.

 

[reggaenaut]

The power cord on my TAE 8450 has to be one of the worst I have seen.
In fact, I found that one prong is loose and is also soon to be changed.

The power cord on my 7065 is horrible. I find it inconceivable that Sony could make such a beautiful receiver and attach that power cord to it.

 

[Unda Maris]

IMO with good gear and a correct setup, the power cords have no influence on the sound.
None of the European Sony V-FET units and their associated tuners and pre amplifiers have these brown cords, all have IEC plugs ...
(There must be at least a single advantage to live in Europe )

But I know that stuff from my TA-8650, "europeanized" US model and my STR-6060F, argggh, I hate it ! Just the same thin stuff you got in the 70ies for your electrical shaver ...

Stoffie, any news from the TA-N7B front ?

I modded my SCD-777ES last friday. When it came in, the sound was already revolutionary for my setup, but what came out after some modifying back and forth is probably the biggest step forward, I had for the last few years.

The modifications were backed by computer simulations and pure technical considerations. Only one single detail showed to have a negative audible influence. It turned out, that the simulation had some wrong parameters for that modification detail. This clearly shows to me that the good old objectivist approach still works best, even on top notch equipment. You don´t need such snakeoil stuff like quantum purifiers, speaker cables with terminators of the size of a refrigerator or power cables with single crystal silver wire.

That baby really rocks, I will own/use it for the rest of my/it´s life !
Now I have to buy some spareparts as long I still get them ...

 

[tcdriver]

Sqd-2070

My Sony SQD-2070 SQ quadraphonic decoder, shown with a quadraphonic record and cassette tape. Although Sony made some very good components over the years, they also made some losers. This is a very poor SQ decoder.

 

[mesut BALCI]

IMO with good gear and a correct setup, the power cords have no influence on the sound

So tae88, xa7, 5650 are bad gears or this combination is a bad setup resulting with a creation of virtual room :thmbsp:

Like all engineers, my engineer friend also always resisted tring cords or cables. I got my cables and we tried them on my friends x779/jvc qly66f/8450/taf7 setup. One of my cables showed lack on trebles and bass, one showed deliciacy, other showed slowness and lack on trebles, one other showed no meaningfull differences when used between source and pre. He said "what is this, your costly cable lacks on trebles and also slow, my system is killed". All cables are behaving differently on all diffferent systems. If someone steals the power cord I use on 5650, I cant listen to passive anymore because when I use other cables, passive cannot show its adventageous sides and 5650 pre thus looks as better on available properties beating passive.

If we must trust only on measured properties(always issue on cables)then all amplifiers having the same specs must soudn equal, so with worst specs tae900 is thus a worse pre than tae88 and we must not mention air, staging, pinpointness, contours, brightness, openness etc because scientificaly all amplifiers having same specs must sound equal. If someone measures amount of space between instruments than I will forget my brain which is wrong.

However theer are many trciky things on cables. They limit trebles thus this prevents how bad trebles are, or they decrease treble amount thus bass looks as if more than other cable by brain perceive, or if trebles are dull, bass and midband now are perceived as more transparent than other cable. If you limit bass depth then you get more defiend and controlled part of bass only to say cable is controlled. I agree with Mirko on cabling, causes diferences but mostly false perception or very little difference per 100$

I dont know why power cords causes difference, maybe these are the nearest cables to units which radiating around. Maybe only the thickness that effects current and so the bass and by this current changes overall teh circuitry, whoel sound changes on some ways. Maybe only sockets that effects curent flow at joints. At least, the current used in amplifier is drawed from transformer and it is fed by power cords, a closed loop. My power cord representing speed causes also lack on bass and resolution. Other cable causes distortion on trebles, by one cable midband transform to an open window, other causes good timing....... At least power cords are easy and cheap to test when unit has socket.

2 years ago to find out effects of interconects, I bought
One supra with eichman rca
One supra with original rca
One vandenhul with eichman rca

Cable itself effects sound, also rca's used effects sound, rca's are around 40%. I even use cable combos, adding in serial carefully averagingly adds properties sometimes. I even tring all teh same ones and chosing best of them, labeled tiny adaptersto add interconnects together) as delicate, light, thin etc.

After all, I HATE cables, but...

 

[Lefty]

So tae88, xa7, 5650 are bad gears or this combination is a bad setup resulting with a creation of virtual room :thmbsp:

Like all engineers, my engineer friend also always resisted tring cords or cables. I got my cables and we tried them on my friends x779/jvc qly66f/8450/taf7 setup. One of my cables showed lack on trebles and bass, one showed deliciacy, other showed slowness and lack on trebles, one other showed no meaningfull differences when used between source and pre. He said "what is this, your costly cable lacks on trebles and also slow, my system is killed". All cables are behaving differently on all diffferent systems. If someone steals the power cord I use on 5650, I cant listen to passive anymore because when I use other cables, passive cannot show its adventageous sides and 5650 pre thus looks as better on available properties beating passive.

If we must trust only on measured properties(always issue on cables)then all amplifiers having the same specs must soudn equal, so with worst specs tae900 is thus a worse pre than tae88 and we must not mention air, staging, pinpointness, contours, brightness, openness etc because scientificaly all amplifiers having same specs must sound equal. If someone measures amount of space between instruments than I will forget my brain which is wrong.

However theer are many trciky things on cables. They limit trebles thus this prevents how bad trebles are, or they decrease treble amount thus bass looks as if more than other cable by brain perceive, or if trebles are dull, bass and midband now are perceived as more transparent than other cable. If you limit bass depth then you get more defiend and controlled part of bass only to say cable is controlled. I agree with Mirko on cabling, causes diferences but mostly false perception or very little difference per 100$

I dont know why power cords causes difference, maybe these are the nearest cables to units which radiating around. Maybe only the thickness that effects current and so the bass and by this current changes overall teh circuitry, whoel sound changes on some ways. Maybe only sockets that effects curent flow at joints. At least, the current used in amplifier is drawed from transformer and it is fed by power cords, a closed loop. My power cord representing speed causes also lack on bass and resolution. Other cable causes distortion on trebles, by one cable midband transform to an open window, other causes good timing....... At least power cords are easy and cheap to test when unit has socket.

2 years ago to find out effects of interconects, I bought
One supra with eichman rca
One supra with original rca
One vandenhul with eichman rca

Cable itself effects sound, also rca's used effects sound, rca's are around 40%. I even use cable combos, adding in serial carefully averagingly adds properties sometimes. I even tring all teh same ones and chosing best of them, labeled tiny adaptersto add interconnects together) as delicate, light, thin etc.

After all, I HATE cables, but...

It's amazing that anyone can get a system up and operating correctly at all with all the cable dependencies

Lefty

 

[axel]

Axel - Isn't this the "Show Us Your Sonys" thread? Where are the pic's?

ok... picking up an old post from last year:

I'd rather not tell the price I paid for all this (you'd have a severe jealousy attack if you knew) but all of these units are NOS or very near that and function perfectly. Here you guys can see my Sony scores (and non Sony as well) from december 16, 2006: http://www.thevintageknob.org/scores

- enjoy

(large images ; Firefox users click on the vertical ones so they reach their 1000px of width)

 

[Stoffie]

Very nice gear Axel ! Wish I had the space to put more stuff. Already having troubles housing both my 5.1 and my stereo setup...

 

[Yamaha B-2]

That 5.1 has got to go.......

ok... picking up an old post from last year:
I'd rather not tell the price I paid for all this (you'd have a severe jealousy attack if you knew) but all of these units are NOS or very near that and function perfectly. Here you guys can see my Sony scores (and non Sony as well) from december 16, 2006: http://www.thevintageknob.org/scores
- enjoy

Nice catch!! I especially like that TC-K88Ba.


Dug into the TA-E86B to put a hit of Deoxit in the volume control. Has a bit of noise as the wiper goes across the 10 o'clock position on the volume pot. Well.....no problem until I got to the point where I wanted to remove the sheet-metal mechanical support from the front of the pots so I could either pull the pot apart or drill a couple of holes in the case of the pot to get the Deoxit into and out of (don't think they like to swim in Deoxit). Well, am not sure how they got this sucker together at the factory. There is a cap at the lower left corner of the support and a transistor at the lower right which prevent the removal of this support. The support must have been on the front of the pots when it was installed. I really don't want to unsolder the post from the board, but may have to. Anyone done this little trick before (remove the pot) with the TA-E86B? Anyone know the internal construction of this pot? Can I drill a hole centrally and get Deoxit on both control surfaces? Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[Stoffie]

I think Mirko will know more about this.

I know that for the TA-E88B he advised me specifically NOT to use any kind of Deoxit for the pots, but the disassemble them (which means desoldering it), taking it apart, clean out the grease, clean with alcohol, grease or oil again and reassemble. He said it was a major pain doing his.

Ofcourse the pots on the TA-E88B are higher grade and might be different inside, but it might be worth considering ?

Talk to him about it !

 

[Samppo]

Thought of posting a pic of my Sonys finally in their own new rack. On the right to them some less interesting equipment which I use for my active diy speakers.