Modified SACD players?

[captain_tinker]

Tink,

I am getting my sony 900v modded very soon (hopefully in the next week or two). I'll let you know how that turns out.

Erik

Erik,
Haven't heard from you yet, how has the mod gone? Do you have it back yet? Do you like it?

-capT

 

[eknuds01]

Erik,
Haven't heard from you yet, how has the mod gone? Do you have it back yet? Do you like it?

-capT

CT (aka Tink):

They got the player earlier this week and are working on it now. The player was damaged during shipping but it looks just the case was dinged up and they can replace that. I should get it back any day now and I plan posting a nice review within the next few days.

My system is undergoing a major overhaul and this new player is the start of that process.

best,
Erik

 

[raygunn]

Not all mods come from mod shops. There are awesome examples of ....

commercially available highly modded players too! I have owned 5 such players over the past 10+ years.

For instance, back when the Pioneer Stable Platter was a big deal ( a great-sounding transport by the way), a company called Musical Designs
marketed a "balls-to-the-wall" version called the "CD One". It sported the best available capacitors in the analog stage, significant stiffening and noise reduction in the chassis, a thick heavy face-plate, hugely upgraded power supply, etc. These started out as Pioneer PD-65's and Musical Designs would gut it and sell in under their own name and also give their own warranty.

I tried the belt-drive Parrasound transport which was a modified/simplified version of a highly acclaimed C.E.C. belt drive player from Germany (think Burmeister). It was an incredibly liquid-sounding transport, but was limited to 16bit. I wanted 24/96, so I got rid of it.

My next CD Player was a Melos "DVT". This machine was a very cleverly designed player that started out as the acclaimed cheapo Pioneer DV-414 DVD player. Melos not only inproved the chassis, adderd a huge faceplate, and replaced all of the caps. with high-end Rubycons, but also jammed a tube-based analog stage that was simply their acclaimed "SHA-1" preamp with an analog volume control and single-ended as well as balanced outputs! Melos warranteed the DVT completely since they obliterated the Pioneer warranty.

Another player I had was a Music Hall CD-25. it is actually a modded Shanling player (I forget which model). It was good, but not great. I matched it up to a Musical Fidelity tube-based TriVista DAC and that was a pretty good solution for a few years.

My current Universal Player is the best player I have ever owned and it is a "twice-manufactured-as-a-mod unit" player.
It's the McCormack UDP-1 Deluxe (McCormack editiion).

This thing started its life as a Pioneer Universal Player (I don't recall the model number). McCormack did the full mod on it, silver wire, upgraded caps, big-ass power supply, thick heavy faceplate and chassis cover, vibration-controlled transport mechanism, and the fabulous McCormack/Mod Squad isolation feet. This model came out as the McCormack UDP-1. It is still a current product and is warranteed for 2 years and it is still a current model. The story doesn't end there for this thing...

When Conrad-Johnson merged with McCormack (they are actually in the same building), they immediately heard the possibilities of greatness in the UDP-1. So they decided to "mess' with it. The result is the UDP-1 Deluxe. It is a UDP-1 on steroids. The power supply is completely Conrad Johnson, all of the caps and resistors are the proprietary Conrad Johnson parts. At first it was just a $600 mod that re-set the warranty clock. Now it is a full-fledged model. The UDP-1 Deluxe is available as a McCormack with the wild McCormack logo and silver-colored faceplate, or you can buy it as a "Conrad Johnson Edition" UDP-1 Deluxe with the typical CJ Champagne-colored faceplate and no wild MCCormack logo. The cool thing is that you can still but a used UDP-1, send it to Conrad Johnson for the $600 mod, and you not only get an awesone-sounding machine, but the warranty clock gets re-started!

As far as I know, I don't think any of the mod-only shops back their products in this manner.

Cheers,
Ray

Folks,
I was looking in Audiogon yesterday just having fun looking at some Marantz SACD players :drool: and I noticed a few of them had been modified. I read up a little bit on them, and found that there are places that do modifications on a lot of different kinds of SACD and CD players. I saw Sony as being a common brand to be modified, Marantz and Pioneer too. Some were modified to add tubes, and others were all solid state. Now, I would imagine that modification of this sort would void a warranty on a piece of equipment, but perhaps one that is no longer under a warranty, it probably would not matter...

Here is one of the many places that I found that does modifications:

http://www.audiomod.com/

Have any of you ever listened to or owned a modified cd or sacd player? Is it worth doing? I don't think I plan on doing any such thing, at least not anytime soon, but the idea is just interesting enough to want to discuss it further, for the sake of knowledge. :music:

-capT

 

[DTB300]

I have heard the UDP-1 in my setup next to my modded (Alexander and Modwright Mods) Sony. From what I remember as it was a while back, the players were almost identical in sound to each other both on redbook and SACD 2CH & MCH - no earth shattering, significant differences at all, almost as if you had to try to find a difference. The UDP-1 MSRP was around $3.5k if I remember correctly, while I spent a total of around $1200-$1300 (player + mods) on mine. I would like to hear the UDP-1 Deluxe as the UDP-1 was a nice sounding player. But with my experiences I found what I had for about 1/3 of the price was an equal player to the UDP-1.

I wonder why CJ or McCormack just did not put out a new model with the improvements instead of offering the mods???

But all this discussion about modded players is great, but when one wants to hear a player before making the decision to purchase or make the mod jump is not possible - unless you know someone who has the model and mods you are looking at. So basing a purchase decision on someone elses descriptions or reviews is all someone has to go on. But there have been many a review by the "professional reviewers" along with us amatures to help. All I can say is the "part swappers" are all out there, but there are a few who install new output sections as part of their mods. These new output section folks I feel are the best modders currently out there.

But "raygunn" talked about, when a company does an improvement on their own product and gives you a new warranty period (GREAT!!!), it is something to seriously consider. With my mods, I believe I received a 1 year warranty, not close to what CJ or McCormack would probably offer.

Dan

 

[raygunn]

They did in fact release them as models. Here's the rest of the info..

I wonder why CJ or McCormack just did not put out a new model with the improvements instead of offering the mods???
Dan

I guess maybe I was vague, but yes absolutely the models were released and are available. They have actually been out for a couple of years.

The McCormack is the UDP-1 Deluxe and the Conrad Johnson is called the UDP-1 Conrad Johnson Edition. Their MSRP is $3995, I believe. I got mine from a local dealer for $3k, a real steal as it turned out after comparing it to other much pricier players.

Unfortunately, they apparently share the same web designer and the sites have not been updated for a very long time.

I just googled UDP-1 Deluxe and found a lot more info that was not available when I bought mine.
Here's a link to a review by Greg Weaver from Positive Feedback.
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue24/mccormack.htm

His review explains the CJ story better than I did and I completely agree with his assessment of the sound of the Deluxe. It is a suberbly analog-like expereince.

Cheers,
Ray

 

[DTB300]

I guess maybe I was vague, but yes absolutely the models were released and are available. They have actually been out for a couple of years.

Then maybe is was the Deluxe I heard as it was the McCormack model and not CJ, and it was about a year to year and 1/2 ago I did the comparison.

Dan

 

[raygunn]

The only way to actually know for sure is if the front...(pic)

of the cd drawer says" Deluxe" on it. Otherwise the standard Mccormack and the Deluxe McCormack look exactly the same.

The CJ in champagne color is the only CJ Branded model of this unit and it is the Deluxe.

Cheers,
Ray

 

[DTB300]

of the cd drawer says" Deluxe" on it. Otherwise the standard Mccormack and the Deluxe McCormack look exactly the same.

Yeah I know the difference, but it was a great shot for others to note when they are looking at the players. It is just a while ago since I tested, I really cannot remember if it was the Deluxe or not. I could go back and see and ask, but this is the same shop who recently stiffed me on being able to audition a piece of equipment, so I will not be going back there again.

Dan

 

[eknuds01]

Most of the time, the people asking for the mods are those in the hard-core/purist camp, going after the most satisfying 2-channel musical experience. To them (and I am one of them), adding more hardware/channels will just make things more complicated, but not always more musical or better. In my (biased) opinion, if you are going after the multi-channel mods, the only channel needing mod will be the center channel to preserve the same signature and voicing on the front channels. (Flame-suit now on) The rear and surround channels are not that important in my view. If you inquire about the center channel mod, I'm sure the folks at Reference Audio Mods will walk you through the pros and cons of this extra mod.

Regarding tubes, they are worth it if-and-only-if done correctly! Keeping the signal path as short as possible is more important to me than to squeeze tubes into the circuitry unecessarily just to get the "tube" sound. In my view, the transformer coupled output stage makes much more sense in a player than tubes. In fact, when I discussed with Dan Wright, he agreed with me that given my excellent ModWright SWL9.0 in my system, the transformer output stage is the best solution for a modded digital source. For a digital source, I'm not that hung up on requiring tubes to be in the output stage at all. You'll be surprised what a clean, simple class-A circuitry can do :rocker:

Spike

Spike,

That's great post and I want to make sure I understand what you wrote down.

Is the tube mod there for people who don't have a tube pre-amp? Thus, if you have a decent tube pre-amp (maybe an ARC Ref-3 or something), getting the full blown tube mod (is that what you call modifying the output stage???) would not make a whole lot of sense.

thanks,
Erik

 

[DTB300]

Is the tube mod there for people who don't have a tube pre-amp? Thus, if you have a decent tube pre-amp (maybe an ARC Ref-3 or something), getting the full blown tube mod (is that what you call modifying the output stage???) would not make a whole lot of sense.

I am sure Spike will answer with his opinion.

My opinion is "maybe". Depends on the individual and the type of sound they are looking for and the type of sound they get from the player. Some may find tubes in the player, tubes in the pre, and a tube amp too much, some may find it exactly to their liking. Also depends on all the gear associated and the synergy between them. This is why you see some folks buy and sell, buy and sell, until they find the great synergy of components they are looking for.

Dan

 

[eknuds01]

I am sure Spike will answer with his opinion.

My opinion is "maybe". Depends on the individual and the type of sound they are looking for and the type of sound they get from the player. Some may find tubes in the player, tubes in the pre, and a tube amp too much, some may find it exactly to their liking. Also depends on all the gear associated and the synergy between them. This is why you see some folks buy and sell, buy and sell, until they find the great synergy of components they are looking for.

Dan

Aye. I hear ya, Dan-o.

thanks,
Erik

 

[Spike]

It depends...

Is the tube mod there for people who don't have a tube pre-amp? Thus, if you have a decent tube pre-amp (maybe an ARC Ref-3 or something), getting the full blown tube mod (is that what you call modifying the output stage???) would not make a whole lot of sense.

Let me clarify my statement a bit since there are so many variables involved, leading to...very subjective opinion. I'm a card-carrying member of the "keep-it-simple" society and I like to involve the least number of components in my signal chain. That said, I want the analogue output stage of the digital source to be as clean as possible and this can be achieve with a full-blown class-A solid-state or with tube circuitry. Now, if the solid-state circuitry can be implemented cleaner than a tube mod, I'd go for it in a heart-beat. In my opinion, tube output stage is not a critical must-have in a digital source where the signal involved is "small" and low-voltage. However, it must be a clean design (an execution) in order to preserve the signal quality to pass on to the pre-amp. If you already have a first-class pre-amp like the ARC Ref3, then you'd want as clean a signal as you can.

On the other hand, if you are thinking of direct connection to amplifiers, you'd want a good, robust analogue implementation along the line of pre-amp circuitry. The rationale being that this output stage now serves the same functionality as your pre-amplifier and it needs to be at the same caliber. Whether this output stage is tube or solid-stage is dependent on one's preference. I clearly have a preference for tubes.

Let me give some concrete examples to make things a bit more clear... The ModWright tube mod is essentially the same implementation as that in the SWL-9.0 linestage. I talked things over with Dan and we both agree that the Signature mod is redundant given that I already have the SWL-9.0 SE. On the other hand, the ARC CD3 is a great example of a well-executed solid-state design and I'm sure it'll go well with the Ref3. The ARC CD7 is a further improvement from the CD3 and it just so happens to have tube circuitry being the most optimized implementation for the player. I doubt if ARC put the tube circuitry in the CD7 just to get the tube sound.

There are others who put the tube buffer in addition to the solid-state output stage just to act as a "roll-off" filter to get the warm tube sound. I don't agree with this type of implementation.

Hope this helps...

Spike

 

[DTB300]

That said, I want the analogue output stage of the digital source to be as clean as possible and this can be achieve with a full-blown class-A solid-state or with tube circuitry. Now, if the solid-state circuitry can be implemented cleaner than a tube mod, I'd go for it in a heart-beat. In my opinion, tube output stage is not a critical must-have in a digital source where the signal involved is "small" and low-voltage. However, it must be a clean design (an execution) in order to preserve the signal quality to pass on to the pre-amp. If you already have a first-class pre-amp like the ARC Ref3, then you'd want as clean a signal as you can.

I see we have the same opinion here. I did not go for the Tube output stage mod from Modwright, but had alot of other stuff done by Dan, including a new clock. The Vacuum State mod is I believe what you are describing as your prefered type mod. It is a very simple, less component, solid state output section - and again with a new clock (different from the Modwright clock).

There are others who put the tube buffer in addition to the solid-state output stage just to act as a "roll-off" filter to get the warm tube sound. I don't agree with this type of implementation.

I have heard these too, and I again agree with you, not a great solution. Some others here have also tried it, and most if not all have sold or returned it.

Dan