mhedges
Super Member
So I just took delivery of a Sony DAS-703ES DAC, thanks to a fellow AK'er who answered my wanted ad. This is a very rare piece. It was the first consumer DAC sold in the US. Retail was $1800 in 1986.
There isn't alot of info available on it but it seems to be well thought of. It was a no-corners-cut piece, and a lot of the stuff in it went into the DAS-R1. Some sources say that it even exceeded the DAS-R1 in terms of spare-no-expense detail.
It uses the Burr-Brown PCM53JP DAC, which doesn't quite have the cult following of the TDA 1541 S1 but is still considered one of the best early DACs.
Build quality is phenomenal. As you may know I am no stranger to Sony ES gear from its golden era and this outstrips them all. It has a rock solid feel, all exterior panels are milled aluminum, even the lid.
Inside it is the cleanest piece I have ever seen. The cover lid sealed in a near-hermetic fashion. There is no trace of dust anywhere, and the copper "lunchbox" that shields the Digital section has a beautiful luster without a hint of tarnish. It looks like it was built yesterday.
All electrolytics are Elna Cerafine, and are very high voltage for a line-level component. Main smoothing caps are 71V 2200uF (x4) and the analog board caps are 330uF 100V!
Cosmetic condition is near mint, with just a few dings on the edges. The glass window on the front looks great.
Interestingly it looks a little different inside than I expected. It only has one transformer- all the pictures I have seen have two transformers. The main coupling caps are yellow cylindrical film caps, not the rectangular caps seen in other pictures (although actually there appears to be a lot of variety to those caps, judging by the pics). The board is clearly designed for a large film cap in this spot and I'm going to have trouble resisting the temptation to replace them with Mundorf MKPs or similar.
How does it sound? No idea - haven't hooked it up yet . I probably won't untill the Christmas tree goes, as it is hard to get to the stereo with the tree where it is. It powers up and I was told it is in perfect working order.
Anyway enough BS - time for the pictures. Sorry for the quality - I'll try to take some better ones:
Analog out board -- I believe it is discrete:
Power Supply:
Copper shielding over the digital section. The lid pops right off but the board is upside down, with the components on the bottom side so there is nothing to see:
The pot for the variable out is a big black ALPS pot - I'm thinking its a RK40 "black beauty":
There isn't alot of info available on it but it seems to be well thought of. It was a no-corners-cut piece, and a lot of the stuff in it went into the DAS-R1. Some sources say that it even exceeded the DAS-R1 in terms of spare-no-expense detail.
It uses the Burr-Brown PCM53JP DAC, which doesn't quite have the cult following of the TDA 1541 S1 but is still considered one of the best early DACs.
Build quality is phenomenal. As you may know I am no stranger to Sony ES gear from its golden era and this outstrips them all. It has a rock solid feel, all exterior panels are milled aluminum, even the lid.
Inside it is the cleanest piece I have ever seen. The cover lid sealed in a near-hermetic fashion. There is no trace of dust anywhere, and the copper "lunchbox" that shields the Digital section has a beautiful luster without a hint of tarnish. It looks like it was built yesterday.
All electrolytics are Elna Cerafine, and are very high voltage for a line-level component. Main smoothing caps are 71V 2200uF (x4) and the analog board caps are 330uF 100V!
Cosmetic condition is near mint, with just a few dings on the edges. The glass window on the front looks great.
Interestingly it looks a little different inside than I expected. It only has one transformer- all the pictures I have seen have two transformers. The main coupling caps are yellow cylindrical film caps, not the rectangular caps seen in other pictures (although actually there appears to be a lot of variety to those caps, judging by the pics). The board is clearly designed for a large film cap in this spot and I'm going to have trouble resisting the temptation to replace them with Mundorf MKPs or similar.
How does it sound? No idea - haven't hooked it up yet . I probably won't untill the Christmas tree goes, as it is hard to get to the stereo with the tree where it is. It powers up and I was told it is in perfect working order.
Anyway enough BS - time for the pictures. Sorry for the quality - I'll try to take some better ones:
Analog out board -- I believe it is discrete:
Power Supply:
Copper shielding over the digital section. The lid pops right off but the board is upside down, with the components on the bottom side so there is nothing to see:
The pot for the variable out is a big black ALPS pot - I'm thinking its a RK40 "black beauty":
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