my new turntable! vinyl absolutely rules in my house....... pops and analogue hiss are my friend! bars me up
really love the two french composers bizet and berliot and i especially love "the carmen suite" listening to certain vinyl recordings of this particular piece makes me feel like i am jumping out of me skin....... so demure an exciting
pat
actually guys does anybody love the high end tape decks from the 70's to 90's?
could be worth another thread
i have had a few models of the the amazing nakamichi tape decks and i still own, but not run, a zx9
pat
Nakamichi BX2. Not by any means their top end but it still sounds great. The belt drive started slipping years ago so I upgraded to the gear-drive modification. Still have my Yamaha direct-drive turntable but haven't used it for years; the cartridge died on one channel and I've never replaced it.
Hi Pat,
What is that turntable of yours? It's a hefty piece of kit!
I have a Mitchell Syncro from years back. It's more ornament than turntable nowadays. Nice ornament though! Perhaps a seperate hi fi thread is in order.
Cheers
Lately I've been appreciating my old Teac A-450. Whacked in an old John Denver tape the other night, lovely. Awesome looking
deck the A-450, classic 70's styling, and HUGE VU meters. It has an AC induction motor and huge metal flywheel for the capstan
drive, and the whole thing is built like the proverbial masonary convenience.
Here's a pic I just shot of her on the bench (had to move the Pioneer PL-15 turntable out of the way first....).
I've been modding CD players lately too, quite interesting, and fantastic results. However, you just can't beat the feeling you get
from playing an LP or a tape. I think it all has to do with the ritual of the actions, and the 'touchability' of the physical media.
Hi Pat,
What is that turntable of yours? It's a hefty piece of kit!
I have a Mitchell Syncro from years back. It's more ornament than turntable nowadays. Nice ornament though! Perhaps a seperate hi fi thread is in order.
Cheers
ooh yeah i remember the mitchell........ wasnt one of them called the gyrodeck?
after having a rega planar 3 since about 1982 it was time for a change and the one pictured is called the "project 10.1"
i have just spent half the price of the turntable again on a fantastic moving coil cartridge for by beloved vinyls
pat
Lately I've been appreciating my old Teac A-450. Whacked in an old John Denver tape the other night, lovely. Awesome looking
deck the A-450, classic 70's styling, and HUGE VU meters. It has an AC induction motor and huge metal flywheel for the capstan
drive, and the whole thing is built like the proverbial masonary convenience.
Here's a pic I just shot of her on the bench (had to move the Pioneer PL-15 turntable out of the way first....).
I've been modding CD players lately too, quite interesting, and fantastic results. However, you just can't beat the feeling you get
from playing an LP or a tape. I think it all has to do with the ritual of the actions, and the 'touchability' of the physical media.
Cheers,
Jason.
whoa that looks fab jason......... admittedly i only had eyes for nakamichi decks
you must have noticed that you needed to play back on the same deck it was recorded upon as the slightest misalignement of the playback head turned the best recording into mud no matter what deck it was recorded on!
by the way jason, what exactly are you modding on cd players...... i am intrigued!
pat
Yep, she's a beautiful thing Pat. Yes, the Nakamichi's have a certain something don't they, especially the earlier beasts.
The CD I'm currently playing with (pic below) is a Marantz CD40, a fairly budget machine, but when you strip away the
cheap plastic, the transport is a Philips CDM4, and it has a TDA1541A DAC. The mods so far on this one:
Replace all electro's for new.
Remove all the tray mechanism and associated plastic (better mounts coming soon).
Direct FET output (dodgy veroboard at end of screwdriver). I've pulled out all circuitry after the DAC chip output, which
is a couple of op-amps for buffer, filters, protection etc. This has been replaced with a very simple output amp using a
single FET per channel and little else. You can see the output RCA's coming off the veroboard.
Removed oversampling. Below the red RCA you can see a switch. This bypasses the oversampling chip so the decoder
feeds the DAC directly. It's usually done by permanent wiring, but I put a switch in mine so I could A/B it. I must say
I haven't yet heard a discernable difference, but I haven't tested it much yet.
ha ha jason very interesting........ i do hope you have put this on the "geek" thread......... coz...... damn thats up there!
interestingly many years ago i had heard about mods done similar to yours whereby the transports were used from DVD players and then linked to separate DAC units to be played as CD players.
cannot remember the ins and outs though
pat
Yes, there are some very good transports out there with bad electronics, so CD hacking is pretty popular. Old transport/modern DAC, or modern transport/old DAC, or even just hotted up old transport/old DAC like mine. There is a lot you can do to improve the old electronics as the chipsets are great, but all the additional circuitry hamstrings it a bit.
I have a Cambridge Audio Azur 640v2 CD player which sounds fabulous (to me anyway) but have had transport problems.
I had it repaired once (a chap in Lane Cove - can't recall exactly where) and his remarks were that the electronics and power supply were beautifully put together (the spec was always good, but it's nice to know it's well built), but, oddly, the transport was cheap, and that I could expect to have it fail again.
Also, I remember lusting after a Nakamichi tape deck myself, back in the day ...
I have a Cambridge Audio Azur 640v2 CD player which sounds fabulous (to me anyway) but have had transport problems.
I had it repaired once (a chap in Lane Cove - can't recall exactly where) and his remarks were that the electronics and power supply were beautifully put together (the spec was always good, but it's nice to know it's well built), but, oddly, the transport was cheap, and that I could expect to have it fail again.
Also, I remember lusting after a Nakamichi tape deck myself, back in the day ...
jason could be our man!
i have the azure 740c.... beautiful cd player!
pat
I have a '7' Series Onkyo single disc player that has been mildly massaged and is a joy to listen to.
Greg.
P.S. The best bang for buck for new players is fat output cables, don't spend a fortune but look at the finish quality and avoid 'bling'. An inexpensive speaker cable is available at most major hardware stores in the form of '8x8' low power garden light cable, oxygen free and fat enough to avoid loss as well as being cheap.
Greg.
Yep, he's dropped himself in it. I've got a Marantz CD63 with transport problems.
david i know that cd player...... wasnt it a manual push lid with no transport?
very small player but the best of the first generation, i had the second one the cd 73
pat
No, the CD63 was a newer machine, with (sorry) a cheaper lesser transport, and an average DAC. There were a few
special versions of it, but I think they were a bit over-rated. If it's a standard one and it's faulty, it may not be
worth fixing.
However, if it's the laser that's gone you might pick a spare up on ebay for a few bucks, or even the whole transport.
If it's a KI version, people still pay decent bucks for them, so probably worth fixing.
The CD73 was very early, with a brute of a transport, very good, and a 14 bit dual DAC like my CD44 and CD54.
I've got a Marantz CD63 with transport problems.
