CD player improvements

[pgarrish]

I own a T1 Teac. Just be realistic, they are 25 or so years old and AFAIK the 10 and upwards have lasers that cannot be replaced. The 1 (and 7) can be replaced, but mine has just killed the sled cog which was £45 to buy, and they also kill the drawer cog, another £45 plus fitting.... That said, I've paid to have it repaired as the rest of the box is (apparently) bomb proof, they look the biz and they do sound good (I have the matching DAC, and of course, all transports sound the same).

Can you turn off the DAC section on the Marantz? That may improve things a bit...

[Ian7633]

I own a T1 Teac. Just be realistic, they are 25 or so years old and AFAIK the 10 and upwards have lasers that cannot be replaced. The 1 (and 7) can be replaced, but mine has just killed the sled cog which was £45 to buy, and they also kill the drawer cog, another £45 plus fitting.... That said, I've paid to have it repaired as the rest of the box is (apparently) bomb proof, they look the biz and they do sound good (I have the matching DAC, and of course, all transports sound the same).

Can you turn off the DAC section on the Marantz? That may improve things a bit...

I've got the Marantz's DAC turned off, it did improve things. I guess it's the problem with all older equipment but also older stuff can be made a lot better, my 35 year old turntable a case in point. It's handy to know the potential problems with any piece of equipment so thanks for the heads up.

[Macca]

How did you disable the DAC? Is there a switch/button or did you have to do something internally?

[karma67]

If I remember correctly Ian said to me it's switches off when you plug the optical cable in.

[Macca]

Just wondered as when I try to use my Parasound as a transport I can't get a peep out of it (although it bills itself as a 'cd player/transport'). Thought there might be something I'm missing. Not tried it with optical though, only sp/dif.

[Ian7633]

How did you disable the DAC? Is there a switch/button or did you have to do something internally?

According to the manual when you plug the optical cable into the CD player the internal DAC is disabled. I did try it with a coaxial cable but the sound was no where near as good

[smithie]

i wouldn't get to carried away with a quest for "the best transport"
its really gonna be the digital output thats gonna make one better over the other along with the error correction and servo with todays cd mechs,good power supply helps too...dont cambridge do a dedicated one for around £300 or something,they usually build half decent stuff spec wise dont they?.
been through plenty in my time in this game...ironically the best sounding i ever came across to my ears was a cheap pioneer sacd/dvd..656a player or something like that...later found out it had a buffered 5-6 memory digital output and a killer sinewave....but didnt keep it because it was just way to cheap,and looked it

of course its only my opinion and ears...so worthless advice i guess,just thought i would share

regards
smithie

[Theadmans]

I am in the camp where I am unconvinced of paying out a lot for a dedicated transport.

I use a Pioneer Stable Platter PD-S705 CD player as a transport for my Beresford Caiman SEG Dac. It cost £39 in mint condition off eBay. It has a button which can switch off the analogue output (also the display can be switched off). The Stable Platter mechanism reads even beat up discs quickly and efficiently. Also there were thousands of the Pioneer sold so there are always plenty of spares available.

BTW I also run a Musical Fidelity Tube Buffer with my setup. Mine is the older X10D I had it completed overhauled by Mike the guy at Rock Grotto. I also bought one of his Little Pinkie power supplies for it. Looks like they do an upgrade and power supply for your X10 v3 too :-

Upgrade Kit:-
http://www.rock-grotto.co.uk/x10v3mods.htm

Little Pinkie Power Supply :-
http://www.rock-grotto.co.uk/pinkiepsu.htm

[Ian7633]

Trust me Paul, I know so little about this that all thoughts and advice are very welcome, after all experience is often the best information.

[steve-z]

I personally haven't owned a CD player for over 10 years having been advised by a knowledgeable person of the benefits of having ones music collection imported into iTunes as lossless files on a Mac computer and using it as a music server, the imports are all bit perfect and the replay via the Mac does away with all the problems of real time playback i.e. jitter. It's far more convenient being able to find any track or album and having it playing within seconds. It's also ideal for anyone with a stand alone DAC or amp with a digital input as the Macs have an optical digital output. CD replay is so 1980's now, get a Mac and get into the 2010's


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk