Sony CDP101

[Light Dependant Resistor]

Sony's very first CD player was the CDP101 released in 1983. In terms of history it is I think important
to listen back to such a player,( perhaps this post should go in Past Masters )
to diagnose if and in what areas it is lacking compared to well regarded players
or more modern offerings.

Compared to a Marantz CD52 with LM4562 op amps which is a very good player i use
the Sony is how to put this politely - thin, where the Marantz is revealing all, the Sony
presents the same audio as though it has been cut in half bordering on compressed
However it does have some rather nice virtues, it is able to separate instruments very
well,and has a decent amount of detail that occasionally surprises.

It is a testament to Sony's CD player building skills, and my patience maintaining it that it keeps
on going.

[Barry]

Sony's very first CD player was the CDP101 released in 1983. In terms of history it is I think important
to listen back to such a player,( perhaps this post should go in Past Masters )
to diagnose if and in what areas it is lacking compared to well regarded players
or more modern offerings.

Compared to a Marantz CD52 with LM4562 op amps which is a very good player i use
the Sony is how to put this politely - thin, where the Marantz is revealing all, the Sony
presents the same audio as though it has been cut in half bordering on compressed
However it does have some rather nice virtues, it is able to separate instruments very
well,and has a decent amount of detail that occasionally surprises.

It is a testament to Sony's CD player building skills, and my patience maintaining it that it keeps
on going.

If your Sony CDP101 is anthing like the Philips CD101, then I would agree with you wholehartedly. The forerunner to the Phillips, the CD100 was awful: flat 2-D soundstage with musicians that popped up and down like ducks at a fairground shooting gallery, or the price flags on an old-fashioned cash register! The CD101 was only slightly better, but it I had to wait untill the CD104 before I became interested in CD reproduction.

Your Sony is likely to be as well built as the Philips machine of the time, so it may be worth fettling: use separate power supplies for the audio circuitry and and for the laser servo.

[Macca]

I had an extensive listen to one many years ago now, through a Halfler pre amp and a big Harman Kardon Valve amp and Radford speakers that looked like something from the Munster's house. Don't recall it sounding thin but I suppose if it did that system would disguise it a bit. It was a very beguiling sound.

[StanleyB]

It so happens that the CDP101 was the first CDP I had to take apart and put back together so that I could get the hang of how to access the different parts. That was for the repair centre that I worked for in the eighties. It didn't work afterwards but it did teach me a lot of things about the inner working of a CDP. Sound wise I felt that it was ahead of the rest of the pack at that time.

[dowser]

It so happens that the CDP101 was the first CDP I had to take apart and put back together so that I could get the hang of how to access the different parts. That was for the repair centre that I worked for in the eighties. It didn't work afterwards but it did teach me a lot of things about the inner working of a CDP. Sound wise I felt that it was ahead of the rest of the pack at that time.

Me too - I remember a complicated setup procedure that had to be followed to the letter if the damned thing was ever going to play a disk again after changing anything in the mech.

[Macca]

http://i903.photobucket.com/albums/ac233/Macca_photos_2009/sony%20101.jpg (http://s903.photobucket.com/user/Macca_photos_2009/media/sony%20101.jpg.html)

[AlexM]

I owned one. I thought that it sounded ok at the time - quite good bass, and a not obviously rough treble. Quite good mid detail, although not exactly a high resolution device by contemporary standards. It was seriossly complicated - the main PCB spanned the full width of the machine, and there were many daughterboards connected by ribbon cables. It was quite obvious that it was a first generation device - lots of ICs , passive components, manual trim pots and other high cost complicated gubbins.

Unfortunately mine proved to be extremely unreliable. it went back and forth to the shop for repair until Sony eventually gave up trying to make it work and offered me a refund, which I took. I replaced it with a Marantz CD65SE, which was sonically superior in all respects.

Regards,
Alex

[DSJR]

The Sony 101 is, tonally, in a different league to the early Philips/Marantz and top loading MicroMega equivalents. It doesn't 'do' air and space very well in the company of later players, but neither does it 'ring' like early '14 bit' Philips based players I found.

Marantz 52SE? Coloured to hell, but sounded nice in a low cost 'raw' sounding system :)

[dowser]

I owned one. I thought that it sounded ok at the time - quite good bass, and a not obviously rough treble. Quite good mid detail, although not exactly a high resolution device by contemporary standards. It was seriossly complicated - the main PCB spanned the full width of the machine, and there were many daughterboards connected by ribbon cables. It was quite obvious that it was a first generation device - lots of ICs , passive components, manual trim pots and other high cost complicated gubbins.

Unfortunately mine proved to be extremely unreliable. it went back and forth to the shop for repair until Sony eventually gave up trying to make it work and offered me a refund, which I took. I replaced it with a Marantz CD65SE, which was sonically superior in all respects.

Regards,
Alex

Hopefully you didn't buy it at Lasky's - if you did, it may have been my fault :) Imagine all the new tangled tech being released, and then us poor schleps having to learn to repair it...my first Sony training course was long after the 101 had been replaced i guess! :)

[Light Dependant Resistor]

The Sony 101 is, tonally, in a different league to the early Philips/Marantz and top loading MicroMega equivalents. It doesn't 'do' air and space very well in the company of later players, but neither does it 'ring' like early '14 bit' Philips based players I found.

Marantz 52SE? Coloured to hell, but sounded nice in a low cost 'raw' sounding system :)

The Marantz colouration you refer to was very much the JRC model op amps they
strangely chose to use,why am unsure ? However install LM4562 in one, and diodes in the psu
to UF 4007, results in a very nice natural sounding player.

Cheers / Chris