Azazel

Me too

Thanks Hopstrecth! Damn, this calls my attention to say the least... and does too for some EMM gear I was looking for (DCC2)

"PC: Direct USB connection to Windows based computers for sample rates up to 48kHz." Not exactly impressive, this. The upsampling however looks similar to EMM's (CD x128, that is "double of SACD"...) and this is no coincidence: Andreas Koch was with Meitner into SACD development, and he was part of EMM Labs until... until now??

Good! Transformers and cats rule!

Kevin, I apreciate very much yor knowledge. Your opinion on this player pointed me in fact to try it out. However even without schematics at hand, just make a look at the analog board pics (on the document whose link is above). I had this board in my hands and one does not need to spend much time looking at the board traces to realise things are as I described. Yes the 1796 is used for HP out, off course, because it is the only DAC chip inside the machine! But its main use is for the rear stereo outs... And yes there may be some other cheap opamps in the front board were the HP circuit is, but those two JRC2114 on the analog board close to the XLR, to me, are not good news to say the least. Regards Josep

24h upgrade: the 1k CD player with some digital magic is doing well. A real smoothie, I am liking it, extended 3dimensional soundstage with precise imaging, maybe it needs a bit more of bass oomph and 'guts'. Operationally is a charm (silent, quick, smooth) but the remote needs to be pointed to the unit or it is just a remote with no control. In my unit. And after realising how to make the damn (someone said 'intelligent') HDMI connections to work for the STR5400 receiver, I see the HATS logo light up.

no legal matters, at least for me... I just took loan of both units to see, ok mostly hear, how they work. And I was mucho curious about the CD-RB capacity of the player, after this thread and some reviews around. I should add it is sounding real smooth right now, around 6 hours after (speaker rig). As for the DAC etc... well just download the paper and look at the analog board pics. You will see just one 1796 chip and some opamps, no 'magic'. A well done chasis, transport and quite good PSU. And yes, there is some 'magic' on the digital board, but that's it. Hey, after all this is a 1k CD player, and for the price it offers more than usually one founds outside China Co! And as for the paper: someone had done over-rated marketing and some guy/gal got te wrong image on it; no big deal. We saw greater offenses to the logics so much times... but yes, it is a bit shocking coming from this company.

Well, after reading the paper, I am sorry to say... I was RIGHT. And this "paper" is full of nonsense. I cannot believe what I read. Where it comes from? Sony marketing maybe? Hopstrecth I am not aying anything about you, don't get me wrong, in fact I am grateful you let us examine this. Let's see. First and foremost: this player does NOT have any multichannel analog outs. Only stereo, both on RCA and XLR. So inside there is NOT any multichannel DAC. More on this later. Now on this document. The paper explains firstly the most important thing inside is the Sony HDMI controler/transmitter chip. As I said. Because it is able to send 6 channel of DSD audio with low jitter. On page 7 you can see the diagram: there is no DAC inside the player for more than 2-channel use. Nice. Now for funny things: on page 9, you can see the pic of the DSD1796. Someone put it there wrongly. Yes. Just look for DSD1796 pdf's around and see what it is: just a stereo DAC (hi-per one btw). It is not any DSD decoder LSI (!). Then after much marketing blurb (describing play operation and the Texas Instruments-made DAC...) in page 22 we see the analog board I saw this morning. So no more need for my pic, here she is. Now the paper says " Sony has made extensive use of surface-mount parts and leadless resistors" but we all can see no less than 42 lead-resistors. Oh well. Now to page 24, same board with balanced part highligthed. Inside red marks are the two 2114 crappy opamps I described. The other three (middle) are nicer OPA2132. I am sure now this balanced outs are 'fake' if you understand me. Towards the end, on 'features', they claim surprisingly "12 Super Audio Digital-to-Analog converters". I have still to see them... are they inside the HDMI large chip, and then there is conversion to digital for HDMI transmission? Again: this is a STEREO player with multichannel capacity over an external decoder. Sorry for being rude, it is far from my style, but I have never saw so much wrong things said, and actually some LIES (let's just say "errors"), on a paper like this. Not even in audio press. Hey, the thing plays smooth music anyway as I am discovering now...

"The" custom part is a new Sony HDMI controller, on the digital board, able to do the HATS thing (6 channel of clock sync audio, if the receiver has the equivalent one and is soft activated). The one and only DAC inside this player is the BB/TI part.

After the look inside (one must remove one of the boards to see the analog out one) I closed, installed on the rack [and let burn-in to see the sound out if it. Then I realised I have not taken any pics I deserve punishment and banning, I know Btw (Hop) the one and only DAC here is this 1796 chip. It does everything (stereo). I took the 5400ES receiver too, it activates the "HATS" thing with the player (the Sony way to sync transport to minimize jitter, or so they say). Now, let's burn them a bit (with over 30 Celsius here now they WILL burn). Sorry about the pics... Josep

I took (on loan) one 5400 unit this morning. One look at the inside showed all the nice power supply arrangement, but one surprise: the DAC is just one 1796 unit (labeled DSD1796, if that matters). It is followed by two OPA2132 (dual fet-input opamps), one for channel, into a third OPA2132 for SE outs. All those had nice and close Elna caps for decoupling btw. Then the second bad surprise was to see one JRC2114 opamp close to each XLR outs. This, and the lone 1796 DAC, makes me suspect those are not 'proper' balanced outs, that is, not taken from the balanced I outs of the DAC. Just the SE outs with a balancer opamp circuit (yuk). I am wondering too were all the fuss about "a new and revolutionary DAC technology" is... ? Ok, maybe on the digital board, as this unit is supposed to upsample CD data to DSD before going into the DAC. Btw and if this matters to someone: after one hour the CD sound is not bad, quite smooth, but I am not blown away (yet?).

Audiophile and 'cryo' treated USB cable Me too. What was the jitter level (ps)? Looks very much like with USB we have got a good digital interface at last... Now I wonder how long since the first audiophile CD-transport with USB out sees the light

+1, but this happens to everybody and is the reason why 'intensive' blind testing is of no real use here. Say try ten or more times to tell apart sources to have statistical 'proof'... Different from a blind listening test as discussed here (or as I understand it).

+1 At this side of the sea we are used to play with US/Japan gear, most of them have dual/multiple primaries and we can adapt from its native voltage to ours. Besides this, there are power conditioners able to change voltages with some added benefits (a guess).

Yups you are right... possibly they are 25 or more V rated. I am sure of the 4700uF (and yes it seems huge to me too...) but I forgot the V rating They look like the usual psu caps but I am quite sure they are on the output circuit

Hi, I have one amp with those and there may be room for improvement: it uses some Elma electrolytic of 4700mF (and 16V rating if memory serves) on each channel life wire. They seem to block around 25V of DC (rough measure before the cap) so it does not seem a good idea to just bypass them (just joking ). I am looking for some advice, there is quite room for alternatives and even 'groups' of caps if someone gives me a good reason to get rid of those electrolytics... Thanks!

Make my wife happy at bed... ... because at least she has one computer light and small enough to see its mail/facebox/etc confortably. What else were you thinking

I do this with an Acer Aspire One (same Atom processor as other 'minis'). My HD is upstairs (other, old, desktop computer) and music is taken by Wifi, then to the Benchmarck DAC (usb) and so on... As video is related, the Atom and integrated video card are perfectly good for up to 720p video, more than that I am not sure (but the only video out is VGA so...). I looked inside but... no BlackGates on PSU and no Vcaps on line outs

I hate too the triflanges, never liked in my ER4Ps nor X10s or Shure. My favourite(s) by far are Comply (of the right size). I do much motorbiking and I found years ago a good source of ear protectors, and they are almost identical to Comply (very smooth). Yes they are a bit fragile, but... I do not have thoots in my ears... And yes they get dirty, but I clean them (and everything in-ear related) with a medical soap (antyseptic with clorhexidine) and, letting them dry time enough, they go again. Btw I am surprised you cannot hear any hiss/hum noises from the Moth... being all tube, must be a hell of an amp/psu: I do use my E500s to find noises in new/modded amps!

The magazine, Antonio, off course But I have already played my cards to have the player too

Someone commented on this month's HFN&RR review on this piece. Well I got mine today (what about quick postage) and there are interesting infos... The "special" HDMI interface (HATS) does something: jitter goes from +8000psec (std HDMI mode) to just 200 psec (HATS mode). Btw jitter from the analog outs (more useful for HP listening...) is just 121psec (34psec from SACD!). Distorsion measures too extremely well (low) and bla bla... Dual R core transformers, dual laser optics, more than 10kg with no lead on sight in the internal pic. Not one useful word about its performance as a stereo CD or SACD player on the three pages, however...

This is my first post here, so... HELLO! I had a CA DacMagic on loan for some weeks, one month or so ago (just released). To me it is THE choice for a under-$500 DAC, thanks to its performance and to being really balanced (it has two stereo DACs operating in differential mode, so from the XLR outs you DO get a balanced signal). It is not a "chip assembly" (spdif receptor+upsampling+dac off the shelf) but a custom made solution, with three "try yours" filters (second or third position, I cannot remember now, was a bit smoother and I felt better using it). However... if you are on the US side of the sea, price will not be so interesting and you do have many local options. For us continental europeans here, with the actual low sterling rates, it is a steal (around euro 200, was around $200 not so long ago). It must be said also that any opinions must be kept in perspective. It is a good DAC, but it is a $300-400 unit and it does not sound any better than, say, my G08 Cd player (when fed its digital signal) specially on bass/rythm concerns. But for $1k players, and specially for those looking to have balanced signals (even from USB), I find it very appealing! Regards Josep