The *NOT BORING!* Hi-Fi faff chat and sales

Re: The Hi-Fi Chat and sales thread

I always liked the black, rack handled AU series of amps back in the day. Out of the japanese manufacturers, Sansui were always near top of the tree for this teenager! :D
 
Re: The Hi-Fi Chat and sales thread

I had a Sansui AU-X 401 amp.......very big sounding tank like amp........i lusted for the 701 of course....................there's a 301 for fifty quit bin at the mo
 
Re: The Hi-Fi Chat and sales thread

legrandefromage":fykj1lzn said:
Will have a set of Rogers LS6a for sale soon.

Might be interested in these....

But it appears postal rates have gone through the roof.

IIRC you sent me other stuff by courier so when they're ready - send me a PM with price incl postage.
 
Re: The Hi-Fi Chat and sales thread

OK, been running this for a few days now. All is well, and it sounds rather spiffing!

Marantz CD48, cosmetically near perfect, with original remote control. Several sensible mods to improve sound quality, details of which can be found here... viewtopic.php?f=66&t=246353&start=15

DSCF0298_zps1490644d.jpg


Looking for £65 posted

If you are not 100% in agreement that this is now a seriously good CD player, send it back (at your cost) and I'll refund you. Can't say fairer than that.
 
Re: The Hi-Fi Chat and sales thread

I can't remember how much these cost when they came out.........? so how do you (as in you ) judge the sound quality changes......would you say it sounds like a player £100 more expensive, or tuned to your ear ? i was just wondering how you decide it is a good sound......do you have a reference to to which you hold this cd player up to now it has been modded........very curious to know how you know what sound you are trying to get it to sound like as it were ?
 
Re: The Hi-Fi Chat and sales thread

Well, my reference is my modified CD-67, which to my ears outperforms my Rega 3 (but hey, that's not overly surprising), but I'm not one for purely subjective assessment as it'is prone to all sorts of psychoacoustic, and psychological inaccuracy. The old 'if you expect something to be better, it is'.

Mostly, my performance assessment is based on what small measurement I can do at home (using ARTA and Visual Analyser software) and what kit I have access to in work (from Distortion Analysers, the most sensitive spectrum analysers and EMC receivers you'll find, vector impedance meters etc). Some of the ideas I applied to my CD-67 have been applied to this, and I did more significant measurement on the CD-67, so I have an idea of what works and what doesn't work. The rest is based simply on sensible and proven engineering. Splitting the digital and analogue power supplies, reducing the possibility of unwanted resonance in the clock crystal (a small step towards jitter reduction), reducing the amount of radiated RF noise from the processor etc. Those are things I've found that do make measurable difference, and therefore have more potential for positive impact on audible performance. I didn't want to go too nuts on this one so I just picked the bits from the CD-67 which seemed to have most effect.

As far as changing parts goes, the LME is probably overkill, but as the CD48 only uses one, and I have some in stock, I thought it was worth doing. Change of caps is mainly to rule out leaky old ones, as properly specced ones shouldn't have any effect on sound quality (they certainly don't on anything measurable).

I've owned so called 'better' equipment in the past, and had access to so called 'high end' stuff. Some good, some crap, some snake oil. The longer I play with this sort of thing, the more I realise NEVER listen to anything the hifi press say, and subjectivism is as reliable as a chocolate fireguard.
 
Re: The Hi-Fi Chat and sales thread

I have a rotel rcd 855 and 965bx i was thinking of doing some simple stuff on, but i don't have a clue........i'm good with a solder iron, but if i took a pic of my internals (cd player not me) would you be able to point out my 'clock' and see if it's worth securing/gromiting etc.....???

Indeed i used to demo kit years ago and some that what hi fi said was amazing was utter crap.
 
Re: The Hi-Fi Chat and sales thread

Indeed, post away! :)

Circuit diagrams here :

http://www.hifiengine.com/library/rotel/rcd-855.shtml (you need to sign up)

http://elektrotanya.com/rotel_rcd-965bx ... nload.html

I have had a quick look at the 855 schematics. Looks sensible, no mileage in just swapping bits in this one I think as it already has sensibly applied NE5532's as I/V converter, low pass filter and audio buffer, but without looking in depth at power supply strategy (cant right now, in 'real' work) it's hard to say whether it may be possible to improve this area. I'm betting the clocks are already pretty well implemented too.

Funny things, crystals. I've looked at clock output of my CD-67. Touching the crystal, tapping it very lightly etc all seem to introduce noise and / or instability (jitter) so if you can damp / isolate those little critters, it has to be worthwhile. Grounding the can reduced the amount of noise introduced by touch, so likely will reduce the amount introduced by nearby RF fields.
 
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