Yamaha CDX-1110 - Worth modding?

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Vintage highend player from 1988 it weighs a hefty 14kg.

It uses 2 x PCM56P-K dac chips and TAOHS-HGI / VE720301

I was just thinking new opamps and maybe a low jitter clock.

Is this even worth any effort? I mean the dac chips are old but there the ones used in the NOS MHDT havana tube dac.

Is a player this old still a capable performer? as it is or as a transport.Im picking it up this week.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Yamaha%20CDX-1110%20Front.jpg
 
It would be a fabulous transport as it is, but for having pretty much the same crappy brush motor for the platter that all the worst Yamaha's of the time used so unreliably. It is made more durable in this case by the magnetic puck, as the pressure clamping on lower models seemed to be what really caused those motors to crap out. It uses a very reliable Sharp laser on a nice custom linear motor tracking sled(ala CDP302, Denon 1520, etc.), and the right grease on the sled rails & new tray belt occassionally is usually all these need to keep running.
As for upgrading, a better clock would help for use as a transport, but the PCM56, IMO, is not very jitter sensitive, so won't do a lot for standalone player use. For a bit better sound, dac chip wise, the Analog Devices AD1860(basically half of an AD1864/65) is a plug'in replacement, as is the PCM61. The tricky part is the SIP(single inline package) output stage opamp chips. NOBODY makes great sound opamps in SIP, so my thing is to mount OPA2134UA's on SMD-SIP adapters, which is a bit of a pain, but not too bad for just a few chips. I get the adapters on ebay.
After that, it's all about making the power supplies way bigger & cleaner, adding nice film caps for HF filtering as much as possible, and deleting unnecessary dc blocking caps from the output stages.
 
yay i fixed it, kind of... I had alook at the assembely and put it back and the moto started spinning and seem to stuggle, when i took it apat i notice a bad solder joint and wiggled it, must of been that, i gave the laser a wipe and got sound!

The player is mint, looks brand new inside and out, pristine.
 
Most important thing to check is the linear motor tracking sled guide rails lubrication. With the player turned off, the laser should slide smoothly from front to back when you lift the front of the player no more than about four or five inches, and likewise the reverse. If it is reluctant or sticking, you need to lub the rail/rails(don't recall off hand whether it is one rail & a wheel, or two rails, pretty sure it's two rails), which may or may not be accessible from the top when tray is out. You may have to go from the bottom side to get to them. The lub needs to be something halfway between a grease & an oil. The most perfect stuff I have found & still use is Nye Lubricants "Rheolube", stock #KR040419, which may or may not be available to the general public(got a sample tube from the pres. of Nye, via a friend who works for Lockheed that put me in touch with him, and sample tube was so generous, it will still last me for ten more years). Very critical to use the right lub & get it well distributed along/around the rails & sleeve bearings of the sled.
One more thing- Yamaha used a silicone grease on the tray loading cam, and this had a bad tendency to creep & get onto the belt & pulley surfaces. So, be sure to give the pulleys a good degreasing if you see any oily spots on the new belt at all.
And, yes, I would check every heat generating component(regulators, servo drive chips, etc.) and every board connector for cracked solder joints on all boards.
 
chees bud i have learnt alot during this im just a right newbie really but we all got to start somewhere. seems to dislike alot of cd's esp copies it does not like 95% of them but they ae very dirty maybe i should be get some archive grade cd's. I gave the laster a wipe with alcohol wipes any more i can do?
 
Alcohol will have left a film on the lens. Best way to clean a laser lens is to fog it well with breath, then gently wipe with a rotating q-tip. If you shine a light so that you can see it bounce off the surface of the lens, the surface should look absolutely crystal clear clean. So, repeat breathing & q-tipping until you see a perfect surface. Just be very gentle so as not to do any damage to the focus/tracking coil suspension.
 
Vintage highend player from 1988 it weighs a hefty 14kg. It uses 2 x PCM56P-K dac chips and TAOHS-HGI / VE720301

The laser unit ("optical pick up") was manufactured by the brand "Olympus"
About this tread is to see a great picture of a similare type:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/33714-transport-identification-fixes.html

An early TAOHS exemplare you will find by second picture about
Š”Ž®‰ïŽÐ‰ª’JƒIƒŠƒ“ƒpƒX:Ž–‹Æ�Љî
and translate
http://translate.google.de/translat....jp/jp/introduction/&sl=ja&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
Olympus announced this TAOHS optical pick up 1980, see history
Olympus Olympus History : 1960-1989


I have heard, that this part was overtaken from Samsung or Sharp, but I don't know exactly.

A special feature of the TAOHS series was a real glass lens, no plastic lens like KSS-series from Sony. I have not found such optical pick up with faulty laser diode until this day. The ceapest cd player with such TAOHS laser unit inside was the "NAD 5320" (resp. 5325 - the remote control version)

In this case also this tread could be of interest:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...philips-cdm-x-mech-they-want-resurrect-3.html

I want to have original data sheets of all Olympus TAOHS laser units, but Olympus don't find it for me. Perhaps one of you have this one or advices, where I can ask.
 
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Aftera good grease and clean it plays cd's great now, it hates cheap cd-r and is hit and miss but im sure a good audio cd-r will be good.

But one thing i notice is that track 1 will show on the osd very low laser access but if the last track is played it goes straight to 100% or close, on track 1 it is spinning fast on the last track it spins very very slow, this is the same for every cd it loves the last track but not the first.

What does this mean?
 
First disass'y your transport mechanism and clean the chrome sliding stick mounted of the transport base (also sliding holes of optical pick up).
Then lubricate this. Use of very small amount of oil !!
Check also the inner switch for laser unit and the easy movement of the laser head without the snail connection to the tracking brush motor.
Is the describted effect same es befor, observe the RF level and compare it to that value of the last track. Are there difference, turntable (pulley of disc motor), base plate (base unit) and/or disc motor itself are spoilt and must be replace
I hope, you can understand my not good english.
 
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Hi there,
I have a HAVANA DAC using duo BB PCM56P. The yelow brothers installed there the lowest quality DAC.s - L grade Corea mfg. Now I consider a purchase of an Yamaha 1110 and take out the good Japanese PCM K grade and than use the remainings of the player as a transport. I am encouraged by your opinion of the pickup but still I'd like to here your opinion and eventual advise /I,m a novice - just listener but eager to try/. Otherwise the signal continue from the DAC to a LINN LK 1 preamp and to a couple of LINN LK 100 amps - separate bass/mid-tre. Next step will bi to go activ by a crossover.
Thanks in advance for your attention
 
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