A long term contributor to DIY Audio, 'Salas', listed his own personal cd transport as being this Kiss DVD player. As a person whose knowledge I respect I had to try it out.
MY CD Transport experiences are as follows audio note transport 2, pioneer stable platters, cec tl2, dacmagic, various phillips CDM1 transports in its various models, sony 777 etc etc.
Now my audio memory cannot be accurate as these various transports came and went as I felt I had fallen upon a better machine. They were all owned by me for a period of time. So nervously i put forward this finding from Salas which in stock form has a liveliness and presence yet without a washing out of the tonal colours as is often the case. Change of dacs showed them to all sound very distinct indeed through the kiss displaying the remarkable neutrality and transparency of this unit. Looks and feels cheap, power supply is switch mode,but only cost me £20 on ebay!!!
In order to get those sonic nasties out of it (especially due to the power supply being switch mode in my opinion)I did the following tweaks as quoted from the description on another forum.
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Yes you are right (Salas) changing the input caps and rectifiers made minimal difference.Adding a bybee thingeymajig near the input power supply plug but not onto the power supply board itself did significantly smooth out the top end and refine the sound.However encasing the power supply with copper or nickle plates significantly removed hash and treble distortion while at the same time improving clarity and tonal colours. I was unable to return to the set up with no cover to the power supply as it sounded relatively harsh and tonally washed out.
I see on ebay the higher models 450 500 etc are selling for very little money, the kiss is now IMHO probably one of the biggest bargains ever but it does need to be tamed and refined before it really starts to become a superstar. The clock would be the next place to go to and from my experience simply improving its on board power supply with improved and larger reservoir caps tends to equal what all the other numerous separately sold clock boards do alone. Ultimately if i can get the spdif signal off the IC i can directly connect it to the phono output plug using just a few high quality caps, or a valve output as per Lampizator.... cannot see any inductors in its path though. Lampizators method of using valves to get the digital signal ready for coaxial output does work and the sound produced is akin to having a power amplifier which is otl as opposed to one with an output transformer.
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Has anyone else tried these as transports?? Are they potential giant killers? Is my sonic memory fading and am i just seeing mismatching issues when i keep moving onto the next transport that i believe is better. Is the Kiss in fact utter rubbish?? Salas I believe uses his Kiss with the Benchmark DAC that retails at over a £1000 today.
MY CD Transport experiences are as follows audio note transport 2, pioneer stable platters, cec tl2, dacmagic, various phillips CDM1 transports in its various models, sony 777 etc etc.
Now my audio memory cannot be accurate as these various transports came and went as I felt I had fallen upon a better machine. They were all owned by me for a period of time. So nervously i put forward this finding from Salas which in stock form has a liveliness and presence yet without a washing out of the tonal colours as is often the case. Change of dacs showed them to all sound very distinct indeed through the kiss displaying the remarkable neutrality and transparency of this unit. Looks and feels cheap, power supply is switch mode,but only cost me £20 on ebay!!!
In order to get those sonic nasties out of it (especially due to the power supply being switch mode in my opinion)I did the following tweaks as quoted from the description on another forum.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yes you are right (Salas) changing the input caps and rectifiers made minimal difference.Adding a bybee thingeymajig near the input power supply plug but not onto the power supply board itself did significantly smooth out the top end and refine the sound.However encasing the power supply with copper or nickle plates significantly removed hash and treble distortion while at the same time improving clarity and tonal colours. I was unable to return to the set up with no cover to the power supply as it sounded relatively harsh and tonally washed out.
I see on ebay the higher models 450 500 etc are selling for very little money, the kiss is now IMHO probably one of the biggest bargains ever but it does need to be tamed and refined before it really starts to become a superstar. The clock would be the next place to go to and from my experience simply improving its on board power supply with improved and larger reservoir caps tends to equal what all the other numerous separately sold clock boards do alone. Ultimately if i can get the spdif signal off the IC i can directly connect it to the phono output plug using just a few high quality caps, or a valve output as per Lampizator.... cannot see any inductors in its path though. Lampizators method of using valves to get the digital signal ready for coaxial output does work and the sound produced is akin to having a power amplifier which is otl as opposed to one with an output transformer.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Has anyone else tried these as transports?? Are they potential giant killers? Is my sonic memory fading and am i just seeing mismatching issues when i keep moving onto the next transport that i believe is better. Is the Kiss in fact utter rubbish?? Salas I believe uses his Kiss with the Benchmark DAC that retails at over a £1000 today.
I have just ordered two jvc's for the shigaclone diy unit. It will be a very interesting shoot out. Hope to have this shoot out by next weekend will report back then.
In the meantime the so called top of the range Kiss dp450 has arrived. £25 but better built internally output board and transport appear similar (cannot get the last screw off so only got a peak from the side) but power supply appears more sophisticated. Will report back on its sound soon too.
In the meantime the so called top of the range Kiss dp450 has arrived. £25 but better built internally output board and transport appear similar (cannot get the last screw off so only got a peak from the side) but power supply appears more sophisticated. Will report back on its sound soon too.
These are all UK versions sold on ebay.
I have now had a chance to compare the 450 with the modified 1000 and there is absolutely no comparison. The 450 is a whole league better than the dp1000. More solid images, more refined with no treble distortion whatsoever, voices have more body and definition etc.
I have now had a chance to compare the 450 with the modified 1000 and there is absolutely no comparison. The 450 is a whole league better than the dp1000. More solid images, more refined with no treble distortion whatsoever, voices have more body and definition etc.
I have had a chance now to do direct head to head comparisons with a pioneer pds904 (one of the better stable platter mechs),Dacmagic transport as well as micromega duo. sony es555. The Kiss transports were still clearly better in most areas and by some margin in some areas.
I am awaiting for the jvc boom boxes to do a comparison, as this units transport has been getting such a rave review on diy audio as a premiere giant killer itself. They should arrive on Monday. This will be one hell of a giant killer shoot out!!
I am awaiting for the jvc boom boxes to do a comparison, as this units transport has been getting such a rave review on diy audio as a premiere giant killer itself. They should arrive on Monday. This will be one hell of a giant killer shoot out!!
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