Esoteric P-700 Transport

[Qwin]

.
Just got this from Perth, Australia.





Its the Esoteric P-700 CD Transport, but is identical to the TEAC P-700, bar the branding, they have the same service manual etc.
It's a very clean unit for its age and was checked over by the seller, who runs a HiFi restoration business, before being advertised.
The mechanism is the TEAC VRDS CMK-3.2 with Sony KSS-151A Laser assembly.
I'll be doing a few mods along the way, including re-clocking, so if anyone is interested, you can follow my progress on my blog here:
https://www.jkwynn.co.uk/VRDS/VRDS_Thumbs.html

[AJSki2fly]

Looks great, supposed to be a lovely CD transport Ken. I will be interested on how you modify it, and gains you get.

[Qwin]

Looks great, supposed to be a lovely CD transport Ken. I will be interested on how you modify it, and gains you get.

Thanks Adrian, the guy down under said he had worked on a dozen or so of these and this was the cleanest, almost like new inside.
The original remote looks as though it was made yesterday.
He even made a YouTube video of it for me, showing it run a test CD and the scope trace of the SPDIF output, nice square wave.
He said the laser diode, as measured, and compared to the manuals specified range from new to end of life, showed it had only had about 10% use.

I will be changing the fixed chord to an IEC C14 inlet socket, its a common mod on these.
I have my eye on the Tentlabs XO3.2 clock board, this also has a re-clocked SPDIF shaping/output buffer on it, I can run this to a new 75ohm BNC output socket.
The rest of the system, plus the existing RCA Coax and Toslink outputs, will benefit from the new clock, but the XO3.2 SPDIF output is supposed to be superior.
I've already worked out where to attach this to the Servo and decoder processor pins for Clock and SPDIF connections.
This board uses its own PSU separate from everything else, keeps it nice and clean.
This will all have to wait though, I have to modify my HiFi rack to accommodate this taller unit and build some stands for my speakers, so I can play the thing.

[Macca]

Good looking unit that.

[Jimbo]

I will be following your work on this CD/ transport Ken.

[Ali Tait]

Nice Ken. Used to have a P-30, wish I'd never sold it.

[Qwin]

Nice Ken. Used to have a P-30, wish I'd never sold it.

Nice machine the P-30, same VRDS version and laser as my P-700.

[Puffin]

I will be changing the fixed chord to an IEC C14 inlet socket, its a common mod on these.

I assume that as others have done this it is not double insulated? I understand that adding an earth to a DI unit is not reccommended.

[Qwin]

I assume that as others have done this it is not double insulated? I understand that adding an earth to a DI unit is not reccommended.

It is Double insulated and has just a 2 core lead. Folks just leave the earth disconnected internally on the 3 pin socket.
If you use a 2 pin IEC socket it's less compatible with ready made leads.

[Ali Tait]

How are you getting on with the amps Ken?