Hi all.
I started using PS1 more than 10 years ago, and even today it remains my main source.
Over all these years, I have conducted a lot of experiments, a lot... and I can probably tell you everything about how to qualitatively improve the sound of this CD player.
Although I had a long break from listening, by the will of fate I decided to return to it again.
Of course, this may not be the best investment in this CD player right now, since good equipment has become cheaper over the years, and you can already find an alternative within an adequate budget, but this CD player is still just as wonderful.
As the years go by, you can probably now find something good for around £500 or more on the aftermarket (I hope).
But 5 years ago, I was trying to find something better, and I realized that I would have to pay at least a £1K for something better than this CD player.
And of course, I’m talking now about prices on the aftermarket for vendors, the retail price of which was at least £2-3K at the time of the announcement.
So, is it worth doing now? It all depends on whether you have the desire to work with a soldering iron and enough time for this.
But still, I would not recommend you go this long way, but to use proven options. I spent at least 5 years upgrading this CD player, collecting dozens of different versions.
It’s difficult for me to judge or estimate now how much it’s worth investing in this CD player.
You can argue for a long time that a 14-bit DAC does not stand up to criticism and that it is garbage, but there is no arguing about tastes.
I don’t even know what to say, since there is not enough time to describe my long journey with this CD player. But I’ll probably still give some recommendations for those who want to try to get involved in all this.
This CD player is very simple and reliable, it is difficult to break, and even if you accidentally broke a couple of elements from the mainboard through carelessness, you will be surprised to learn that it did not affect anything.
It always amazes me that it is so poorly made that almost any improvement will have a positive effect on its sound. It seems like this is just a bottomless pit of improvements. You spend money into it, and it sounds better and better. You change the components to even more expensive ones, and it sounds better again. And it doesn't stop.
So, what about advice? Let's go from simple to complex. Overall, there's not much you can do with it, so let's stick to the basics.
The most important thing about it:
1. First mile
2. Last mile
3. Decoupling
1. Remember. The sound starts from the socket. And everything that you change and improve in terms of power supply at the input of the power supply will radically change everything. One capacitor, one centimetre of power wire can change everything (both for the worse and for the better). I'm not a fan of remote blocks. Any additional contact can kill the sound. Use the minimum reasonable power route, soldering, jumpers, remove ferrites, screens.
Do not thoughtlessly change components and wires. All this is a lottery and can either improve or worsen your build. Do not use inappropriate components unless you are confident in them.
A few examples: 3 centimetres of good power wire from the socket to the PSU board just raised the sound level to twice the cost (remember that each power wire has its own presentation). The use of very good oxygen-free copper wires for the power circuit from the power supply to the mainboard killed the sound (the wires purposed for the speakers). The use of expensive capacitors (Silmic, Cerafine) in the power filter circuit killed everything. They just didn't fit. I had to listen to more than 20 different models of capacitors to select the ones needed for the power circuit.
Bypassing the power capacitor at the power input. After the bypass, the entire player's feed began to sound like this capacitor. If you put a good film capacitor in parallel with the HW electrolytic capacitor, you will only hear it. I didn't use it because adding it radically changes the presentation, and I didn't have any good capacitor options to continue researching. I just wanted to say that this is a huge field of experimentation, and I will soon try to install good film capacitors at the input for the main power supply.
2. The last mile is the same. Don't do nonsense. Immediately make a direct output after the DAC. Capacitors, capacitors... Yes. Depend a lot on them. But that’s not about that now. And about how to install it. The fact is that you need a piece of wire from the mainboard to the capacitor, and from the capacitor to the RCA.... And no matter what capacitors you use, this piece of wire will change everything. Imagine it's just an additional interconnect cable (just a very short one). So this is what you will hear. I struggled with them for a long time and used very good pieces of their interconnect cables (sometimes more than £1.5K/m). It is a pain. Therefore, I have not found a better option to use the long leads of the capacitor directly to the DAC connectors. Yes. I managed to solder the leads of the capacitors on one side to the DAC, and the other directly to the RCA. So, I sorted it. In other cases, I would recommend using or cutting off part of the interconnect cable that you use as your main one. It all depends on whether you have such an opportunity. Very often, for example, someone buys two meters of interconnect to divide them into two by a meter. This is your chance to bite off the 5 centimetres you need from him.
Forget about stock RCA. They are soapy, dirty, and kill high freq. You will have to buy good RCA/XLR terminals (although any terminals will be better than the original ones).
3. Decoupling.... pain... Don't try! touch the original drive and somehow dampen it! Do not screw it. Anything you try to do to it will only make the situation worse. I'm seriously confident that the manufacturer has already done everything they can with this worthless drive. So your task is to decoupling the drive from the case as much as possible (or simply leave it in its place). The drive is very light, and when it rotates the disk, it has its own resonance, like as a separate system. Any change in resonance, according to my observations, worsens the sound (including clamps and weighting). Your task is not to reduce or increase its weight.
Regarding the rest of the system, everything is exactly the opposite. You need to maximize the weight of the rest of the system. I have verified that increasing the weight of the body has a very positive effect on quality. So, use only the original drive mounts. You can also buy an additional cable from the mainboard to the drive to move it outside the case. Do not change anything in the drive balance, do not fix it rigidly. This will all end badly. But try weighing down the rest of your body. By reducing resonance due to weight, you very seriously clean the tract. The CD player will play cleaner and more dynamically, micro and macro dynamics will improve. And yes. Forget about any kind of thorns. Just forget it.
I don’t even know what to add. I'll just add a few pics (I didn't make them on purpose. I just found some completed and unfinished projects from the archives).
Sincerely.