Suggestions please: Improving motor CEC (Mabuchi)

[mstr_bojangles]

Hi Guys,

Is it possible to drop in a better motor for my CEC TL1 transport than the stock mabuchi it has? Seems like the main weak area in the transport.

Anyone (Peter Daniel?) think going direct to the rca sockets for spdif (Lampizator recommended mod) is an improvement?

Please see Lampizator website link for story and lots of pretty photos:

http://www.lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/...C%20TL-1X.html

I really love this transport. Seems to be very sensitive to what it is placed on and what feet are used.

Trounced my Esoteric p10, CDM1 clock modified CD94 Marantz, Shigaraki and DV300 Goldmund originator.

Read the interesting Lampizator thread.

Now this transport in my system sounds very beautiful. Made to an incredible standard and i get stunning low bass from it (bass from Apogee system is well below 20hz). Lampizator talks about stock unit having poor low bass but mine is stunning low bass.

Lampizator shows a cheap Mabuchi motor being used. Would have thought that replacing this with a really nice motor like Maxon or something might be way better.

Any ideas on how i can do this or any other suggestions?

Transport sounds stunning but figure if new motor is not an improvement i can just wire the old one back in.

Thanks all.

[amc184]

This is not a turntable, the speed of playback is not determined by the spindle motor.

The only thing that would make me consider altering it is back EMF from the brushed motor polluting the power supply. You could change to a brushless motor, but how much effect this will have depends on how well the supplies for the different parts of the player are isolated, and how noise sensitive they are.

The first thing I would try is soldering a ceramic cap across the terminals of the stock standard spindle motor (and probably for the sled drive motor as well). This will cut down the noise from the motors somewhat. If this makes a large difference, then you may want to look at getting brushless motors, as they will be even more effective.

As for bypassing most of the SPDIF circuitry, judging by the results Lukasz Fikus posts on his site it is very worthwhile. I'd have to assume his methodology is sound though, he doesn't specify how the SPDIF circuit is loaded during measurement. He's done some pretty good work though, so it's probably a safe assumption.

[mstr_bojangles]

Thanks Amc184.

What size ceramic capacitor would you recommend? Is there a minimum power rating recommendation (5w)?

Peter Daniel mentioned the Lampizator CEC article in the Shigaraki thread. he said the methodology was very poor due to cable not being connected.

I wander if going direct still makes an improvement.

I guess there is only one way to find out.........Will have to try it in a few days.

[amc184]

What size ceramic capacitor would you recommend?

Something around 100pF 50v, but whatever you have to hand really.

the methodology was very poor due to cable not being connected

Damn, that's what I was afraid of. Those traces shown don't really reflect the real world performance then. Still, it may be worth a try anyway.

[Peter Daniel]

Yes, the Lampizator testing setup was faulty, as he measured the output unloaded. I did this mod on my CEC TL0 and preferred the original sound. When loaded, the output is also picture perfect.

I don't see any reason to change the motor there, as we know, looks can be deceiving

Perhaps Romy the Cat best described Lampizator methology: http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/...px?postID=2134

Attached are the pics of TL0 original output, spdif direct as per Lampizator mod) and original output loaded.

[mstr_bojangles]

Thanks Peter, that certainly is illuminating.

What differences did you notice when you did the mod? You mentioned you preferred the unit in its original form.

Are they're any other mods you can think of that might be worthwhile? Changeing any diodes for a favorite perhaps some ultra fast soft recovery types might make a big change for the better?

Perhaps a smattering of oscons and Cerafines.

Other than the obvious mechanical and outboard power supply differences, do you know what differences if any there are between the tl1 and 0? Weights and construction quality seem extreme in both cases.

Thank you.

[Peter Daniel]

As posted in a previous link, the modded transport was a "bit annoying and thin sounding” and the default configuration “produced sounds that are better defined in space". With a mod, the transparency and ambience seemed to be improved, however, at the cost of other performance aspects.

I was looking inside the transport for last 3 days, even did the mod described on Russian site were laser and decoder are powered from separate supplies which supposed to improve discs reading, but it didn't produce expected results: http://translate.google.com/translat...e.google.com#9

If the tranport sounds good, and mine does, I would be very hesitant to swap any parts. IIRC, Romy was trying to replace diodes and didn't find any improvement, same for the dedicated clock.

Both TL1 and TL0 seem to have same main boards, just slightly different grade of parts. The main difference seem to be in mechanical construction.

As to my transport, in the end I only removed output RCA and connected Belkin Synapse interconnect directly to output board (bypassing the output coupling cap). This improved transparency a bit, but overall sound character remained the same.

[mstr_bojangles]

Thanks everyone.

Okay so it sounds like most people who have tried to mod these transports have not made improvements.

I haven't heard of anyone who has replaced the Mabuchi motor with something supposedly better.

Now i know it probably won't improve the sound due to some reasons given above but i'm willing to be the guinea pig anyway and throw a few dollars at a replacement and see if there is indeed any difference.

Can Peter or someone suggest a likely replacement candidate? I don't know enough about motor specs to know what to look for. If you could suggest a candidate i can buy it and let anyone interested know the outcome.

I do know the player is very sensitive to what it is sitting on and what feet are used under it.

Thanks again.

Thank you.

[kevinkr]

Given the nature of the chip set used in the CEC design a brush motor is needed - brushless motors are not going to be compatible. The motor controller uses PWM IIRC which is not pure dc, so I would be very careful about adding significant amounts of capacitance across the motor.

The Mabuchi motor was chosen to match the electronics in the machine and IMO the fellows at CEC who designed this transport knew what they were doing.
The motor itself is well decoupled from the spindle by the belt and the rotating mass of the spindle and puck assembly.

You are very unlikely to improve things audibly and it is quite possible that you will instead end up damaging the electronics.

If you aren't happy with the performance of this mechanism perhaps Peter can advise as to what things he finds might help, otherwise I would sell it to someone who might be happy with it, and find something else or maybe just set this transport aside and experiment with building a variant of the shigaclone instead.

[mstr_bojangles]

Thanks very much for your post Kevinkr. I thought it would be an easy matter to swap the motor over. From your reply, i now realise it is not.

The CEC for me is by far the best transport i've heard. I'm definitely not selling it. I was just hoping that it could be taken to an even higher plane by changing out some parts. I would have thought that a smattering of Sanyo Oscons, cerafines and low ESR Rubycons with new state of the art diodes would take it to the stratosphere.

I preferred the TL0 on the ocassions i've hard it on some things but overall prefer the beauty, air and bloom/texture of the TL1. The 0 was quicker, more incisive and slammy with greater detail but not as musical (for me). The TL1 left my hot rodded CD94 with I2s, clock etc and the Esoteric VRDS mechanism (the good one) sounding pretty average.