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Sony CDP-X33ES - How come nobody told me CDs could sound this good?

Johnny_Law

Johnny_Law

o.O
Subscriber
I've had this X33ES for a while now. It was on a shelf in the garage with one channel out. Finally, its time came, and onto the bench it went. I took off the case to find many fancy, purple Elna Duorex II, and other high quality caps, staring back at me.

However I noticed that many were clearly degraded, with green / black goo having oozed out of the caps, down the leads, and onto the board.

qeMKdMl - Imgur.jpg

OM7JACZ - Imgur.jpg

giftzVX - Imgur.jpg

In their place, I used Nichicon FG / KT and WIMA film. I upped the voltage in caps around certain ICs. It plays strong and doesn't skip even when I'm stomping around the room.

The sound - WOW! My test CD on the workbench was Kasey Musgraves - Golden Hour, through my bench Onkyo TX-82 and Polk RM101 speakers. I was IMMEDIATELY FLOORED by the sound. Bringing it inside, through my Yamaha A-1020 into my JBL XPL140s, ooh boy. Just amazing.

I didn't see much posted about this player in my searching, there's more about the bigger models in the lineup (X55ES and X77ES), so I wasn't sure what to expect. I made this thread just to say how nicely the X33ES surprised me!

I'll take better pics when I pull the cover off to clean the laser. :naughty:
 
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And I don't want to post something like this without being helpful, so here's my recap list (which I've not seen posted anywhere else, hopefully it comes in handy).

Edit2: Thanks @Bratwurst7s for the tip that I can attach zip files. So I've attached the recap list spreadsheet in a zip!
 

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Johnny_Law said:
I've had this X33ES for a while now. It was on a shelf in the garage with one channel out. Finally, its time came, and onto the bench it went. I took off the case to find many fancy, purple Elna Duorex II, and other high quality caps, staring back at me.

However I noticed that many were clearly degraded, with green / black goo having oozed out of the caps, down the leads, and onto the board.

qeMKdMlh.jpg


OM7JACZh.jpg


giftzVXh.jpg


In their place, I used Nichicon FG / KT and WIMA film. I upped the voltage in caps around certain ICs. Other than occasional skipping (I need to get back in and clean the laser and cross my fingers the KSS-271a isn't telling me it needs to be replaced), it plays strong and doesn't skip even when I'm stomping around the room.

The sound - WOW! My test CD on the workbench was Kasey Musgraves - Golden Hour, through my bench Onkyo TX-82 and Polk RM101 speakers. I was IMMEDIATELY FLOORED by the sound. Bringing it inside, through my Yamaha A-1020 into my JBL XPL140s, ooh boy. Just amazing.

I didn't see much posted about this player in my searching, there's more about the bigger models in the lineup (X55ES and X77ES), so I wasn't sure what to expect. I made this thread just to say how nicely the X33ES surprised me!

I'll take better pics when I pull the cover off to clean the laser. :naughty:
Click to expand...
Their DVP's are pretty nice too once you get away from the budget models. Wasn't much of a digital guy after a plethora of decks left me wanting. Not all were budget models per say, one retailed for $379, but all were underwhelming to say the least, even with SACD.

A few yrs ago I ran across one of their better decks that retailed for $1000 when new now $80 on eBay, figured I would give it one more try. Liked the deck so much I now have two, and two other upper tier Sony's. I now have a spot in my audio world for CD's.

Here are the three decks thst now reside in my systems.

Sony DVP NS900V, mine are black, still looking for one in silver that isn't in Russia selling for $300 lol.
sony900v.gif

Sony DVP NS999ES, have one in silver, looks great with my vintage silver faced gear.
x158dvp999s-f_LD.jpeg

Sony DVP CX777ES, hsve this also in silver, very convenient CD storage lol.
x158DVPX777-f.jpeg
 
Johnny_Law said:
And I don't want to post something like this without being helpful, so here's my recap list (which I've not seen posted anywhere else, hopefully it comes in handy).

Edit: Well this wonderful website won't let me attach excel or word files, sorry. Have attached a screen grab instead.
Click to expand...

Nice work!

When I want to upload/provide a file type that isn't supported (LibreOffice stuff for instance) I just zip it. Then it's supported. ;)

:beerchug:
James
 
@Johnny_Law
Yes, nice work on the repair. The 'es' units are really quite good. I have an es series CD changer for when I want to load and random, and it sounds great.
And I had the same surprise as you regarding the sound quality. Like, why didn't someone let me know they could sound so good on the right gear. I was using them as coasters in the '90s.

Dave
 
david1111 said:
@Johnny_Law
Yes, nice work on the repair. The 'es' units are really quite good. I have an es series CD changer for when I want to load and random, and it sounds great.
And I had the same surprise as you regarding the sound quality. Like, why didn't someone let me know they could sound so good on the right gear. I was using them as coasters in the '90s.

Dave
Click to expand...

I've dug out my old CD 'wallets' and am kicking myself for not saving all the cases & booklets. :(
 
If I can be so bold as to make another suggestion. (Note that I don't have this player but did download the SM from HiFi Engine.)

In the analog section, in the signal path, right after the buffer op-amps IC402 & 502 there is a 100µF/63v cap, C406 & 506 that you replaced with an Nichicon FG.

If you want some additional goodness take a 0.1µF and a 2.2µF film cap and attach them in parallel on those caps.
I usually use some Panasonic polypropylene but they are a bit large, Wima MKS2 will also work just fine.

https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail...EpiMZZMv1cc3ydrPrF0%2BjlB8SXIRuu%2B2RNk0A79M=
https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail...EpiMZZMv1cc3ydrPrF%2Bsu0%2BUU4qEgoHOoe4Od5j4=
https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail...GAEpiMZZMv1cc3ydrPrF0%2BXlSxdKWua5GHOuFrj6BQ=
https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail...=sGAEpiMZZMv1cc3ydrPrFwgzP98AO9idyI15Dd5SyS0=

I usually solder them directly to the large cap but if there is no room they can be tacked to the bottom of the pcb.

DSC05915.JPG DSC05918.JPG

You will be surprised what this small mod does for the quality of what you hear, especially in the mids and highs.

Cheers,
James
 
Bratwurst7s said:
If I can be so bold as to make another suggestion.
Click to expand...

James - Absolutely! Thank you! I'll add those caps to my next Mouser order. Are there any other mods I could consider elsewhere on the board?

And importantly, I'd love to understand why these caps will improve the sound. Are the new caps going to act along the same lines as small bypass caps in speaker crossovers?
 
Johnny_Law said:
James - Absolutely! Thank you! I'll add those caps to my next Mouser order. Are there any other mods I could consider elsewhere on the board?

And importantly, I'd love to understand why these caps will improve the sound. Are the new caps going to act along the same lines as small bypass caps in speaker crossovers?
Click to expand...

Exactly. They are a bypass that lets more of the mids and highs through.

I haven't looked too deeply into the schematic but some other things that I do regularly is to raise the main psu filter caps to at least 4700µF. If I'm seeing things correctly it looks like you have 1x 4700µF and 1x 2200µF, both only 16v? (C901, 902) That seems low. I'd use some United ChemiCon 4700µF/50v there if they fit, and add a 2.2µF film bypass to each. The UCC caps will have a much higher ripple current rating than the FG's as well as lower ESR.
https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail/United-Chemi-Con/EKMH500VNN472MP45T?qs=sGAEpiMZZMtZ1n0r9vR22RSFeKT/CuZ6AaPBWzO676I=
If those caps are too large then I would go with 35v or 25v. Generally if you check the specs a higher voltage cap in the same series will have a better ripple current rating than a lower voltage one, and you are looking to do what you can to reduce voltage ripple.

Then I replace the 4x diodes that make up the bridge rectifier (D901~904 it looks like in your case) with Vishay SBYV27/200 ultra-fast/soft-recovery diodes.
https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail/Vishay-Semiconductors/SBYV27-200-E3-54/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMtbRapU8LlZD0HbIjlpuZ445lIBCY%2bUM%2bs=

The object here is to add impulse delivery in the analog section with the caps and clean up the rectifying with the diodes. My results were better bass delivery with the beefed up caps and a bit better all around sound with the diodes. Anything that you can do to clean up the psu pays dividends through the entire player.

Also, it looks like the 2x voltage regulators in the psu are IC901 & 902 and they are dropping roughly 12v down to roughly 5v. That's a fair heat load on those regulators. If they don't have heat sinks I would probably look into adding some if possible.

Like you are doing, I got curious about what I could do to improve the sound in my cdp(s) a few years ago and slowly started doing some step-by-step mods. I'm going to link to my 2 main exploration threads, not to pat myself on my back but just to let you have an overview of what I did and perhaps hopefully be useful:
https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/dennon-dcd-1290-cd-player-mod-thread.688774/
https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/denon-dcd-2700-cd-player-mod-thread.755995/

Enjoy the journey!
James

edit: I really like UCC KMH caps in power supplies but sometimes they are just too large. In that case the KYB series are also very good and come in smaller sizes.
https://www.mouser.de/Search/Refine?Ntk=P_MarCom&Ntt=101717136
 
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Well, the transport has started making horrible noises and it won't read any discs. Will have to poke around inside and see what's happening.
 
Back on the bench, transport making scraping noises but it is reading discs. Need to deal with this at some point - but it became less important.

The left channel went out. Both out of the headphones and both the fixed and variable RCA outputs.

There are a lot of horrible looking solder joints underneath from those caps puking everywhere, so first thing I'll do is reflow all of them.

Thinking through other possible causes ... Is it common for any of the ICs or opamps to go bad? Is it even possible for the laser pickup to drop a channel?
 
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Reflowed all kinds of questionable looking solder joints, but left channel is still out. Time to dig into the circuit diagram. So far have verified that the power supply to IC920/IC921 and IC901/IC902 are OK.
 
The JRC op amps (IC401/IC402 and IC501/IC502) appear to be fine, I'm getting signal out of both IC502 and IC402.

The signal disappears across R521. Pulled and measured R521, it's good.

Swapped Q401 and Q501, still no left channel.

Something strange though ... Q501, there's a 23 ohm C to E short (with either 2SC2878 installed). If the signal is shorting to ground, that explains the lack of a signal on the downstream side of R521 ... I just need to find it.
 
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