Finally, an affordable CD Transport: the Shigaclone story

The whole batch of Delrin platforms that is shown in your attachment was screwed up and not possible to use only because the shaft holes were drilled last.

Make up your mind Peter..:confused:..in post 1675 you said it measures fine...and in post 1685 you said it sounded fine...

Here is what you said in post 1685:

"About the sound with a new clamp, well, it seems like it is an improvement.

The sound is more effortless, there is more dimentionality and separation. The resolution seems to be improved as well. The bass better defined and I'm noticing the improvement in accoustic space.

The sound may be a bit more forward, but it's not bothering.

Overall, it is probably an improvement similar to installation of a new clock, without typical drawbacks of those clocks"



Now you are not saying I was right all the time...;)
 
Puck Quest

Hello folks,
I am keen to find a good puck option too...
But with the condition that I wouldn't want to spend more on the puck than the rest of the transport! There must be a workable solution using the existing CD platter (which seems to run pretty true).

I finally got to a finished (nearly) working model, amongst other things I learnt a lot about acrylic and static electricity! (I need an extraction system for my router!).

It might look slightly familar! My apologies for poorly and shamelessly plagiarising Peter Daniels design. Learn't a lot from my mistakes with this one... hope to avoid them with the next.

The lack of a back light on the Sanyo display is a slight problem... might try an LED 'front light' instead...

Peter mentioned working a 'hand brushed' finish onto black acrylic, any ideas on a good technique for that (Peter or anyone).... I would be (will be perhaps) tempted to try brushing in one direction over 800 grit wet and dry (dry).

All the best to you all for 2011!

Bill
 

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Make up your mind Peter..:confused:..in post 1675 you said it measures fine...and in post 1685 you said it sounded fine...

Here is what you said in post 1685:

"About the sound with a new clamp, well, it seems like it is an improvement.

The sound is more effortless, there is more dimentionality and separation. The resolution seems to be improved as well. The bass better defined and I'm noticing the improvement in accoustic space.

The sound may be a bit more forward, but it's not bothering.

Overall, it is probably an improvement similar to installation of a new clock, without typical drawbacks of those clocks"



Now you are not saying I was right all the time...;)

Look at post #1673 where Peter mentions receiving one that was seriously off center, and the replacement that seemed OK at the time.

FWIW the one I received was never OK, replacement pieces were sent, and unfortunately they weren't OK either. I wrote the whole puck thing off as a well intentioned experiment that went wide of target.. The wood puck works well with the exception of the winter low humidity shrinkage problem which makes it a bit hard to tighten/loosen as needed.

My somewhat clone is otherwise working great..
 
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Hello folks,
<snip>
Peter mentioned working a 'hand brushed' finish onto black acrylic, any ideas on a good technique for that (Peter or anyone).... I would be (will be perhaps) tempted to try brushing in one direction over 800 grit wet and dry (dry).

All the best to you all for 2011!

Bill

Very nice! I think it looks great as is, but you could probably get the acrylic top bead blasted.. I'd not want to try sanding as you propose on a finished piece for fear of ending up with something ugly. Perhaps you could refine your technique on some scraps first which would also help you decide if the resulting look was to your liking..
 
Make up your mind Peter..:confused:..Now you are not saying I was right all the time...;)

Now, what exactly is your problem Erik?? I've already seen your comments on Dutch forum regarding my methods of evaluation, but please keep your grudges out of this thread.

This is what I actually say about the MECHANICAL quality of the CD table assembly:

I briefly checked new table, but it does not seem to be perfectly centered either (although it's not bad at all). I'm reluctant to test it in my current setup and need to temporarily assemble new transport first.

I'm not talking about sound quality as it is not a subject of current discussion, only mechanical aspects of fabrication. How much effort did you put to get your pucks right?
 
Peter mentioned working a 'hand brushed' finish onto black acrylic, any ideas on a good technique for that (Peter or anyone).... I would be (will be perhaps) tempted to try brushing in one direction over 800 grit wet and dry (dry).

Your unit looks great as it is. As for brushing, I use Scotch Brite pads which work fine here. You may also use a wooden board as a guide so all the lines are perfectly straight.

I used similar technique when finishing that panel: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/soli...-mark-levinson-38-preamp-chassis-scratch.html

3M Scotch Brite Pads, 6 x 9 price comparison and reviews | Office Supplies Office | Price comparison and reviews at best-price.com
 
Now, what exactly is your problem Erik?? I've already seen your comments on Dutch forum regarding my methods of evaluation, but please keep your grudges out of this thread.

This is what I actually say about the MECHANICAL quality of the CD table assembly:



I'm not talking about sound quality as it is not a subject of current discussion, only mechanical aspects of fabrication. How much effort did you put to get your pucks right?

No grudges and beside that you have to get yourself a better translator...
I am the one who keeps an open mind even if YOU want to try to convince everybody that going any further than you did is a waste of time......the sheer arrogance..that is getting a bit to me.....:(

I will stay out of this forum so you can put your stamp on it.

It is a pity though that more enthousiastic people cannot take it any further...

Hell you even opened up a shorter version of this to guide them to your walhalla.....be my guest....
 
Erik, maybe you should use a better translator. The title of this thread clearly says:

Finally, an affordable CD Transport: the Shigaclone story


If you want to come up with your own story, you are certainly encouraged and invited and I never really questioned your choices. However, what I really don't like, is when you question mine...and that is a sheer arrogance in my book. Can you finally understand that all I wanted was to come up with an "an affordable and simple transport that can still sounds good"?

You can go as far as you want with your constructions, but please, understand, that you are still dealing with $15 mechanism and no matter what you do, some actions are actually waste of time ;)

My guide, is to help people build a reasonable quality transport, at reasonable cost and time, nothing to do with any Valhalla.

To summarize: you are coming to this thread, initially kindly asking for guidance, asking question how this and that sounds, and then you go wild and build an over engineered monster and demand me to do the same. Are you out of your mind? This is not the way I do things;)
 
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My guide, is to help people build a reasonable quality transport, at reasonable cost and time, nothing to do with any Valhalla.

This is exactly what your guide has helped me to do Peter, and I thank you for it!
Affordable is the key point for me!

I went to Valhalla a few times... apparently you can get in with a Star Alliance frequent flyer card!..., but it's over rated! They charge for drinks these days!

Love to all!
Bill
 
It is a pity though that more enthousiastic people cannot take it any further...

Well, I had another look into our discussion and it seems like it was some sort of misunderstanding, at least I hope so.

When I said:

It is an absolute requirement that CD platform is machined with platform mounted on a shaft, otherwise you will get wobbling problems. For that reason, it's advisable to machine the parts from relatively soft material, like Delrin or acrylic.

The whole batch of Delrin platforms that is shown in your attachment was screwed up and not possible to use only because the shaft holes were drilled last.

You replied:

Make up your mind Peter..:confused:..in post 1675 you said it measures fine...and in post 1685 you said it sounded fine...

Here is what you said in post 1685:

"About the sound with a new clamp, well, it seems like it is an improvement.

The sound is more effortless, there is more dimensionality and separation. The resolution seems to be improved as well. The bass better defined and I'm noticing the improvement in acoustic space.

The sound may be a bit more forward, but it's not bothering.

Overall, it is probably an improvement similar to installation of a new clock, without typical drawbacks of those clocks"

Now you are not saying I was right all the time...;)

Looking at it now, I can only assume that you understood me as saying that using those delrin clamps screwed up the sound. What I meant was not the sound, but the mechanical properties of CD table/clamp when installed on motor’s shaft; they were simply not usable and I had to replace it with another sample that the seller supplied. From what I remember none of the sample from first run were completely perfect, most likely because of fabrication error/negligence.

It is a pity though that more enthousiastic people cannot take it any further...

So I'm not opposing any advancement in further development of that project and I certainly enjoyed all the pictures you posted here. I also admire your effort and determination, and myself, I wouldn't be able to find enough inspiration to "go (baldly) where no man has gone before" ;)

One of the reasons is possibly the fact that I already owned, and still own, CEC TL0, which is more or less mechanically perfect and I wouldn't be able to improve on it with anything I could possibly do to Shigaclone. That's why I was never interested in modding Sanyo transport beyond basic structural integrity which I achieved with simple copper base and wooden frame.

As to electrical aspect of the modification, I really like simplicity. The only thing I didn't do yet is the discreet power regulator and based on my current experiments with DAC I'm convinced that they would improved performance here, but again, would it be so much of a gain? I don't lose sleep over it, as long as I'm still enjoying the little transport.

And this is key aspect: As long I enjoy something, I’m not really tempted to do any changes.

In a meantime I did little discovery with regards to the mods I posted earlier, specifically the output reclocking circuit. While initially I quite liked it in my system, later I had a chance listening to it in much better tweaked system than mine and final conclusions of 3 participants in a listening panel was in agreement that the transport sounds better without reclocker; more natural, purer and more immediate, while with reclocker there were obvious traces of digitizing of the sound. Subsequently, I also moded my CEC TL0 and removed the reclocker, did the similar mod on friend’s TL1.

Now, some of you are certainly curious how Shigaclone compares to TL0? Well, TL0 is definitely better. When listening in a highly tweaked system, TL0 has an authority and sound purity that can be easily comparable to good vinyl rig (that also depends what DAC is being used), and Shigaclone, while technically very correct, still shows some deficiencies associated with lesser digital front ends. By that I don’t really mean tonality, soundstage or some other typical audiophile aspects, but more of a purity of a tone itself and the way how sounds are projected in a listening space, it’s just not as refined as TL0.

OTOH, TL0 has problems with playing CD-Rs and even some regular CDs (especially second layer on hybrid SACD), in such cases I use Shigaclone and I don’t really think I lose that much, at least in my system ;)
 
Capacitor recommendations

Black Gate capacitors seem to be getting as rare as a very rare thingy these days so I am hoping for some informed suggestions for substitute capacitors in the PS and the 47uF cap marked as E5 on Okapi's pdf guide.

I have used Nichicon ZL in the power supply and Nichicon fine gold 47uF cap for E5.
Sounds nice enough to me but I am keen to experiment!

A good deal of the advice on this thread pre-dates the extinction of the black gate capacitors.

Hope this isn't off subject....

Thanks for the scotch brite tip for achieving a brushed finish on acrylic... worked well.
I also did a quick hit with polymer wax and have a very serviceable finish on the black acrylic! Doesn't show finger marks too much. Still a static disaster zone though!

The flash is a bit cruel in this picture....

Bill
 

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Few months ago I finally decided to "upgrade" caps in my CEC TL0 transport. Based on experience I gathered with Shigaclone I used BG FK2200/35 before and BG STD 1000/25 after regulators.

I left it like that for couple weeks, but in the end couldn't get used to the sound; for some reason the original caps in TL0 sounded much more natural and overall better, so I went to reinstall them back again and I'm completely happy with the sound ;) . Those are the green Nichicon MUSE.
 

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<snip>
I also did a quick hit with polymer wax and have a very serviceable finish on the black acrylic! Doesn't show finger marks too much. Still a static disaster zone though!

The flash is a bit cruel in this picture....

Bill

You might want to try one of those anti-static sprays used to treat office environments. Just protect the mechanism from over spray. Worth a shot I guess, not sure how well it will work on acrylic.
 
Hi Peter

Out of interest, did you ever try the Nichicon MUSE with the Shigaclone?

Tim

ps Got the DAC and LM4780 kits today, thank-you.


Few months ago I finally decided to "upgrade" caps in my CEC TL0 transport. Based on experience I gathered with Shigaclone I used BG FK2200/35 before and BG STD 1000/25 after regulators.

I left it like that for couple weeks, but in the end couldn't get used to the sound; for some reason the original caps in TL0 sounded much more natural and overall better, so I went to reinstall them back again and I'm completely happy with the sound ;) . Those are the green Nichicon MUSE.