I bought a Marantz CD-63 for £35 earlier this week on eBay (well, £45 with shipping). It had one or two things wrong with it to get it for that price, like the drawer mechanism not working (though I can hear the motor going) but my question is regarding the sound and what usually goes wrong (or wears out) on these players. Don't get me wrong, this a cracking player already and I'm rather shocked by quite how good it is - I think it potentially beats most of the Naim CD players I've heard, having more get up and go and just as much resolution (or more ?) - but it seems a bit recessed in the midband (vocals) and seems to be a little less than steady. Also the top end is somewhere near the maximum I'd like, meaning it can go over the top on fierce-ish recordings like Breakfast in America (which I don't think does cymbals very well at all). I'm suspecting a power supply problem - probably reservoir caps getting old. The whole of the music seems to have an envelope around it with all of it moving in level, a bit like someone playing with levels or setting on the amp. I'm not playing it through my normal amplifier as I haven't yet built (or finished designing) its pre-amp so I needed something with a volume control and it's going through a Yamaha AV amp (which can perform surprisingly well). Even through this amp it's obvious that the CD-63 deserves better and, though it is set to NORMAL, I am wondering if some of the DSP trickery might be at least partially responsible for the phaseyness/recess in the mid and the effect of it sounding as though the whole of the music is being processed. In every other respect, though, I'm completely blown away by how good it is and how it rocks along. I don't want to modify it, though I did read @ThorstenL's lengthy piece on TNT yesterday (I actually would have paid a bit more attention to it had I known it was him writing it but I didn't find out until the end). I was kinda expecting to see a TDA1541 inside it but there doesn't appear to be one from the schematics I've had a glance at. With or without, it's still stunningly good and very obviously doesn't have OPA2604s (the world's most boring op amp) weighing it down. Any guidance on what to look for will be most gratefully received.
Remember, there are two "CD-63":
This is a later version has a Nippon Precision Semiconductor Multilevel Delta Sigma DAC with a "raw" unfiltered output, JRC NJM2114 "super 5532" Op-Amps in the analogue filter plus the "HDAM" discrete op-amp as second filter stage and output driver and is full of Elna Silmic and . It is definitely one of the better Delta Sigma players of the time on subjective sonics. Technical review here:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/marantz-cd-63-2-review-cd-player.58283/
Then there is this:
This is one the first ever seedee players, it uses the TDA1540 (dual Mono) DAC with 4 X Oversampling to get 16 Bit performance.
So which one do you have?
Thor
Hiya Thorsten, Hope you are doing well.
I've got the black one. And what a great little player it is! I thought I'd mostly done with standalone CD players as I was getting so much better from J River or, ideally, Tunebrowser (non Windows UAP version). Before that (and we're talking about 13 years ago) I was using a neat little Pioneer DVD player (the one that Max Townshend used to sell with his own power supply and I've got about half a dozen of them. They use a PCM1791 DAC, if memory serves me, which was a step down from the properly top of the range but was £4 instead of £18 (then) and gave pretty good vfm. probably about the same as the 1794 does nowadays, though I think the SNR was a bit better then. I never got round to giving any of them a decent supply, even though I'd hope to do rather better than Max did. Anyway, this player is a pretty big notch above, having much more body to almost everything and one of the nicest bass ends I've come across. It sounds to me like a Naim player that hasn't been tweaked to their tastes. Apart from the possible problems mentioned above, its one fault seems to be a lifted top that, every so often, reintroduces me to sibilance. It actually has a remarkably well-defined treble - to a degree that I don't think many people will have come across treble this good - but instead of hanging onto this precision and delicacy, it flies off the handle instead.
I'm old enough to have been around for the original 63 (though I wasn't paying that much attention to it as I'd been convinced by all my dealers (plus the hypnotic trance from Linn and Naim) that CD wasn't any good. I was a bit confused when I looked at the pictures of this player but just thought I must have mis-remembered. I think your article on TNT, and a few adjuncts to it, helped make me think I was buying the right player and it wasn't until some AI brought up a picture of the original 63 that I finally clicked. Incidentally, I was really pleased to read that you liked the LM6172. Not many people know about it - and it's a pity it's nothing like as cheap as it was. It has been my go-to op amp for absolutely ages and it didn't even get displaced by the 4562 when it came along under whatever its LME number was. The trouble is I just don't like the 5532, and especially don't like the OPA2604. I'd rather have the raggedness of a TLO72 (on something cheap) as it has still got a bit of life in it. The LF353 probably has a bit more refinement but that isn't exactly wide open to musical information and I have no idea if it's even still made. Anyway, I'm still on the lookout for a better op amp that the 6172, but I'm not doing anything with op amps at the moment, except maybe a balanced output on one of Tim de P's DACs where I'm going to use an MC33078/9 as that's what he used - and it's quite a passable op amp.
Incidentally, what do you think the HDAM is doing? Initially I imagined it was going to be on the DAC outputs and that they'd wanted a FET LTP but without the noise penalty of the FET op amps, but that's not where it is. Did they feel they needed another crack at the CMR? Even if they did, it's a pretty complicated way of going about it. You're a fan of Fet input CFP's, aren't you? I'm wondering why they didn't just do that? Still, whatever it is doing, it's doing it pretty well and those 2SK170s probably cover the price I paid for the whole player! 😊 (I have other less valuable things I can tear apart if I ever need some 2SK170s, so no one need worry that I'm going to scrap the player.)
This is getting a bit long so I'll leave it there, but great to hear from you, Thorsten!
Christian
I've got the black one. And what a great little player it is! I thought I'd mostly done with standalone CD players as I was getting so much better from J River or, ideally, Tunebrowser (non Windows UAP version). Before that (and we're talking about 13 years ago) I was using a neat little Pioneer DVD player (the one that Max Townshend used to sell with his own power supply and I've got about half a dozen of them. They use a PCM1791 DAC, if memory serves me, which was a step down from the properly top of the range but was £4 instead of £18 (then) and gave pretty good vfm. probably about the same as the 1794 does nowadays, though I think the SNR was a bit better then. I never got round to giving any of them a decent supply, even though I'd hope to do rather better than Max did. Anyway, this player is a pretty big notch above, having much more body to almost everything and one of the nicest bass ends I've come across. It sounds to me like a Naim player that hasn't been tweaked to their tastes. Apart from the possible problems mentioned above, its one fault seems to be a lifted top that, every so often, reintroduces me to sibilance. It actually has a remarkably well-defined treble - to a degree that I don't think many people will have come across treble this good - but instead of hanging onto this precision and delicacy, it flies off the handle instead.
I'm old enough to have been around for the original 63 (though I wasn't paying that much attention to it as I'd been convinced by all my dealers (plus the hypnotic trance from Linn and Naim) that CD wasn't any good. I was a bit confused when I looked at the pictures of this player but just thought I must have mis-remembered. I think your article on TNT, and a few adjuncts to it, helped make me think I was buying the right player and it wasn't until some AI brought up a picture of the original 63 that I finally clicked. Incidentally, I was really pleased to read that you liked the LM6172. Not many people know about it - and it's a pity it's nothing like as cheap as it was. It has been my go-to op amp for absolutely ages and it didn't even get displaced by the 4562 when it came along under whatever its LME number was. The trouble is I just don't like the 5532, and especially don't like the OPA2604. I'd rather have the raggedness of a TLO72 (on something cheap) as it has still got a bit of life in it. The LF353 probably has a bit more refinement but that isn't exactly wide open to musical information and I have no idea if it's even still made. Anyway, I'm still on the lookout for a better op amp that the 6172, but I'm not doing anything with op amps at the moment, except maybe a balanced output on one of Tim de P's DACs where I'm going to use an MC33078/9 as that's what he used - and it's quite a passable op amp.
Incidentally, what do you think the HDAM is doing? Initially I imagined it was going to be on the DAC outputs and that they'd wanted a FET LTP but without the noise penalty of the FET op amps, but that's not where it is. Did they feel they needed another crack at the CMR? Even if they did, it's a pretty complicated way of going about it. You're a fan of Fet input CFP's, aren't you? I'm wondering why they didn't just do that? Still, whatever it is doing, it's doing it pretty well and those 2SK170s probably cover the price I paid for the whole player! 😊 (I have other less valuable things I can tear apart if I ever need some 2SK170s, so no one need worry that I'm going to scrap the player.)
This is getting a bit long so I'll leave it there, but great to hear from you, Thorsten!
Christian
Not sure. I really liked the very early Pioneer DVD Players. The ones without separate laser for CD (and so unable to play most CD-R) that used a memory buffer and re-read on error with CD (they played CD's fine that EAC in paranoid mode to rip with those legendary NEC Drives people used to rip).
It also has the Pioneer OEM Label "Legato Link" DAC.
It's a bit outdated. These days I'd suggest any one of the OPA165X series (including the "derated" OPA1678).
Class A output buffer, with LM6172 fitted I felt it sounded worse with the HDAM in circuit.
Yes, in low/no nfb circuits. The HDAM is a folded cascode with low Open Loop gain.
The 2SK170/2SJ74 in the buffer are probably worth even more.
I might be tempted to replace the original Op-Amp filter with RCLC passives and modify the HDAM as Mixer Amp. Not that hard.
LCRC correctly terminated before the HDAM and LC as buildout. Replace Muting transistors with a relay.
Alternative just drop a nice fastish Dual OPA into this. I think OPA2156 (the slew rate enhanced version of the OPA1656) would be the best one. Remove HDAM and fit the bypass resistor.
Thor