Old or New

[dzkfraser]

I picked up a Magavox CD2000 at GW cheap, it has the TDA1543 DAC and CDM-4/19 transport, I kind of like the sound, warm but a tad bassy, but I think it could sound better, especially the highs. Wondering if anyone had experience with this or similar player, would a re-cap help or is this nature of the beast?
Also, with Christmas just around the corner, I was thinking of putting an Onkyo C-7030 on the list, which, by all accounts, is a great CD player for the price.
Would it be better, just to re-cap the Maganavox(if it will help) and call it a day, or go for the Onkyo if not?

 

[lightcapture]

I had a Magnavox from the '80s w/ same dac and transport. Was smooth and warm, but didn't have the sparkle and detail of a modern cd player.

 

[robert_kc]

My opinion: Fairly basic new CD player?

Depending on your budget, I suggest that you consider: Oppo UDP-205, or an older model: BDP-105, or BDP-95. If your budget is more limited than any of these "audiophile-grade universal players", then I suggest that you consider a Chromecast Audio gizmo (retail $35), and subscribe to Spotify Premium, and you'll have access to almost all recorded music, and "OK" - but not great - audio quality.

 

[dzkfraser]

My opinion: Fairly basic new CD player?

Depending on your budget, I suggest that you consider: Oppo UDP-205, or an older model: BDP-105, or BDP-95. If your budget is more limited than any of these "audiophile-grade universal players", then I suggest that you consider a Chromecast Audio gizmo (retail $35), and subscribe to Spotify Premium, and you'll have access to almost all recorded music, and "OK" - but not great - audio quality.

Well, yeah, budget is a concern, I like you suggestions but the Oppos are abount 10x what I realy want to spend. Just looking for something to play my collection of CDs on, nothing else. Been cycling through players as of late and just want to settle on a good basic player. As lightcapture states above, the Magavox lacks "sparkle", was wondering if a recap would help, don't really want to get into swapping out the op-amps, just something quick and easy.

 

[northpaw]

If you are not going for audiophile grade, have you tried a DVD player? I've gone to using them, and while I use one with a stand-alone DAC on my main system, the Sonys I have sound decent enough to me on their own. You do loose some of the info on the display that a typical CD player would have, but many will show the track and time, but not the play matrix.

If you have a DVD player on your TV, you might give it a listen in your system. DVD players, esp. pre-HDMI ones, show up at thrifts and CL frequently and are very cheap. My current favorite of these is a Sony DVP-S560D, gotten at a thrift for a little over a Hamilton.

More broadly, I've made the decision that lasers and transports are a bit of a crapshoot in terms of longevity and replace-ability, making the investment in the much higher cost of a player with a great internal DAC less attractive, at least to me. With a decent external DAC that you are happy with, you can use whatever transport you have, and replace just that for little money when it no longer works.

 

[dzkfraser]

If you are not going for audiophile grade, have you tried a DVD player? I've gone to using them, and while I use one with a stand-alone DAC on my main system, the Sonys I have sound decent enough to me on their own. You do loose some of the info on the display that a typical CD player would have, but many will show the track and time, but not the play matrix.

If you have a DVD player on your TV, you might give it a listen in your system. DVD players, esp. pre-HDMI ones, show up at thrifts and CL frequently and are very cheap. My current favorite of these is a Sony DVP-S560D, gotten at a thrift for a little over a Hamilton.

More broadly, I've made the decision that lasers and transports are a bit of a crapshoot in terms of longevity and replace-ability, making the investment in the much higher cost of a player with a great internal DAC less attractive, at least to me. With a decent external DAC that you are happy with, you can use whatever transport you have, and replace just that for little money when it no longer works.

I've thought about a stand alone DAC, the Magnavox has one of the better transports but only has RCA out. I'm sure there are gazillion opinions about DACs

 

[northpaw]

Given that, there isn't a path forward for the Magnavox (also, I don't know if recapping would help). All I can suggest is if you have a half-modern DVD player in-house, try it, as is, in your system and see how it compares to the sound of the Magnavox. If you find that the DVD player pleases you more, it may make sense for you to go that route (possibly even keeping that one for the stereo and upgrading to a newer one for the TV), and then you have the option of waiting/looking for a DAC as it suits you.

According to comments over the DAC section, there are some very good modern DACs in the $100-$300 range. I have not heard any myself so I can't comment on their sound quality. I had the good fortune to find an old Adcom GDA-700 about a year and a half ago, and have been very happy with it. I've also had a Nakamichi CD player with the Philips TDA-1541A chip, and it sounded great on its own, but developed transport problems that I could not fix. That combination of events is what got me going on cheap DVD players.

 

[PAGS]

I'm happy with the SMSL Sankrit DAC. Can be found new for about $100. If the Magnavox has digital out, you might want to give one of these or something like it a try.

 

[dzkfraser]

OK, thanks for suggestions, I'll look into that(DAC, DVD)

 

[dogwan]

I recently picked up a Magnavox CDB-52 with same DAC and Transport. Not the same as yours, a much simpler player. However, I threw some quick mods at it and it was a transformed player.

I can't remember everything I did, but the following is a quick list:

• Recapped power supply
  (upped capacitance by ~20%)
• Added bypass caps to main PS filter caps
• Removed headphone output completely
  (removes dirty noise from PS)
  
• Replaced output coupling caps from 22uf BP Electrolytics to 10uf Films.
  (added russian K40y PIO bypass caps too)
• Added a bunch of chassis damping
• Added some damping to CD clamp
  
  
• Next I may swap out the NE5532 op-amps in the output for something more modern.

All told I spent $20 on the deck at a thrift, and everything else came out of my spare parts bin. Now I think it pretty much gives me more sonic satisfaction than anything I could have bought for ≤$200 new.

It's not a giant killer, but I feel no need to run it through a stand alone DAC now. Using it in a bedroom system. I think those TDA1543 can sound really good. The TDA1541 gets all the glory, and I have a highly modded Philips TDA1541 based player so can vouch for the reputation. But, I think the 1543 is no slouch either and I much prefer R2R dacs to Sigma-Delta dacs in general.

Plus those Philips transports are killer. Nothing I've tried loads tracks as fast as the swing-arm mechanisms.

 

[dogwan]

PS, I think the CD2000 is identical to the CDB-490/492, and maybe the 480/482. If you want to search out threads on mods.

 

[jcg1112]

OK, thanks for suggestions, I'll look into that(DAC, DVD)

This is what I did - repurposed my Panasonic Blu-Ray player. I have it feeding into my Onkyo with a digital coax cable. The Onkyo has a 24/96 Wolfson dac which is good enough for cd’s. The Panasonic is pretty versatile with usb, sd and multiple I/O’s.

 

[BrocLuno]

Most of the older Sony ES DVD players will run circles around that old Maggie (I had a few). Lots of the Sony's have Burr/Brown DAC's internally. They sound very good, depending on the quality of the actual CD on hand. Most also have digital and/or optical out

Nothing fixes loudness wars and clipping in cheaply produced CD's ...

 

[bimasta]

I had the good fortune to find an old Adcom GDA-700 about a year and a half ago, and have been very happy with it.

Me too! Found a GDA-700 two years ago. The 700 was released at the peak of Redbook, before DACs had to handle all the new digital formats and streaming — they downplayed Redbook as obsolete. I think I reached the Redbook limit, and it's pretty damn good. I used a "high-end" Tara Labs RCA IC at first — but when I made a fully-360°-shielded 75ohm cable, it was a quantum leap.

 

[northpaw]

Well, Redbook is what I use almost exclusively; some have HCCD encoding, and those sound very good, although I don't know how much of a role that plays vs. being just a well recorded CD. I do like having multiple inputs on the Adcom, and sometimes stream to optical input from a CCA, but at standard internet radio resolution. I'm old, so I don't look to either my computer or the online media services such as Spotify or Pandora as sources of music.

On the RCA interconnect you mention (presumably for the digital input), what is a "fully-360°-shielded 75ohm cable"? I haven't heard of it, and a quick search did not turn up much. I am using a double shielded SPDIF input cable, a mass market item, a Mediabridge I think; been happy with it, but I'm always curious as to why maybe I shouldn't.

 

[bimasta]

On the RCA interconnect you mention (presumably for the digital input), what is a "fully-360°-shielded 75ohm cable"? I haven't heard of it, and a quick search did not turn up much. I am using a double shielded SPDIF input cable, a mass market item, a Mediabridge I think; been happy with it, but I'm always curious as to why maybe I shouldn't.

You won't find that term, Northpaw, because I made it up. It just means the outer shield braid is attached to the connector around its full circumference, ie 360°. With most audio cables, the outer shield is only soldered to the plug at one point. For most purposes this is fine, but I read somewhere that, for digital transfer, the braid should fully surround the connector.

So I made such a cable, to test what I read. It was a clearly audible improvement. Otherwise, nothing fancy about my DIY cable — a 75ohm cable used to connect to cable TV, single-core of standard copper, but very well shielded: foil + four layers of braid, and I dressed the braid evenly around the full circumference of the connectors, and then soldered them. So, the connectors themselves are fully shielded, not just at a single point, hence my phrase "fully-360°".

I went to the Mediabridge site but couldn't find your cable. If it's a dedicated digital-transfer cable, it's probably shielded as I describe, and most likely better than the one I made.

But the one I made was much better than the high-end Tara Labs standard interconnect, with fancy 99.999999999999------% purity copper and the word "Digital" on the insulation — but with the shield soldered at only one point.

 

[northpaw]

Thanks for the info. I know that for the higher freq of video signals, effective shielding can be a tougher issue, which is why going with a cable designed for video will usually be more than good enough for audio (I have this on my brain because of discussion in another thread). But you have a point about the issue at the join at the termination, depending on the gap in shielding there.

I have two SPDIF cables coming into the back of the GDA-700, one a Hosa (Hosa DRA-501) and one the Mediabridge (CJ04-6BR-G2). Neither are expensive cables. The terminations on the Hosa are metal, and unscrew to reveal how it is done. Inside, there is a sizable gap exposing the center conductor, and the shield is soldered to a prong that is part of the outer part of the RCA plug. So as you indicated, essentially it is only connected at one point and about a cm of the center conductor is exposed; but then, in use, this area is fully covered and overlapped by the metal screw-in barrel/strain relief, which, because it connects to the outer part of the RCA plug by metal threads, should provide effective shielding to that area.

The Mediabridge uses an integral molded connector, so no getting inside that one to see. I'll just have to hope for the best, but like the Hosa, it was designed for digital signals, including video signals, and to strongly reject RF and EM interference.

 

[bimasta]

I have two SPDIF cables coming into the back of the GDA-700, one a Hosa (Hosa DRA-501) and one the Mediabridge (CJ04-6BR-G2). Neither are expensive cables. The terminations on the Hosa are metal, and unscrew to reveal how it is done. Inside, there is a sizable gap exposing the center conductor, and the shield is soldered to a prong that is part of the outer part of the RCA plug. So as you indicated, essentially it is only connected at one point and about a cm of the center conductor is exposed; but then, in use, this area is fully covered and overlapped by the metal screw-in barrel/strain relief, which, because it connects to the outer part of the RCA plug by metal threads, should provide effective shielding to that area.

The Mediabridge uses an integral molded connector, so no getting inside that one to see. I'll just have to hope for the best, but like the Hosa, it was designed for digital signals, including video signals, and to strongly reject RF and EM interference.

I take all your points, and don't think the "sizable gap exposing the center conductor" is an issue because, as you point out elsewhere, it is surrounded by the outer metal parts of the plug, which are shielded. I think we're in agreement all the way.

An unrelated thought: When I was making my digital cable using standard wire from the cable company, I was struck by the quality of its construction. Shielding with both foil and FOUR layers of braid is overkill. But it makes sense — every time some goes wrong with your cable TV, the provider has to send a service tech to your location. That service is free to the customer (though I hear some cable companies now charge for it) but is very costly to the provider. Saving a few pennies on cables makes no sense compared to the cost of sending a Tech and a truck, and sometimes an assistant or trainee, every time something goes wrong. That's also why they use those incredibly irksome screw-on connectors instead of the much easier and equally good push-ons — to prevent accidental disconnection by electronically-uneducated users that necessitate the considerable cost of sending a tech, just to plug it back in.

 

[northpaw]

We're very much in agreement. As to the foil and braid and the quality of the cable, there are some experts around that I am sure know all the reasons; what little I know (or think I recall reading) is that for the very high freq signals that these cables carry for the cable company (video and internet), the tiny spaces between the strands of a braid are large enough to compromise its shielding effectiveness a bit; combining with a foil wrap helps, as would overlapping braids, I guess. I believe the same concept is behind the threaded connections on coax, and even they need to be tightened or they can leak noise through the threading (again, at video and internet freq, not so much at audio freq). I can only guess that the braiding is still needed on the cable for its greater thickness (more effective for shielding?) and strength while also still being suitably flexible.

Apologies to the OP for all the OT chat.

 

[bimasta]

Apologies to the OP for all the OT chat.

Ooops, I didn't even notice we hijacked his thread. Where are my manners? I hope he got sufficient feedback before we interfered. And he did ask about using an external DAC, so maybe our digressions were of some use. But one last misdemeanor — the foil is under the braid, and should protect against "leaks" between the gaps. And thanks for the info on the screw-on connectors, never occurred to me. I always replace them with push-ons, and never had a problem. But if I do, now I'll know what to do. Just screw it.