Its not the most elegant of layouts and the heatsinks still need securing to the board hence the flameproof rizla packet shim and the wobbly alignment.
This is the second stage mounted in the casing. The din plug sits under the now obsolete reset switch hole as I have a pawnshop price sticker for 10 UK pounds that had to be kept intact and the Playstation sits against a wall so no space is available behind it for wiring
This is the second stage mounted in the casing. The din plug sits under the now obsolete reset switch hole as I have a pawnshop price sticker for 10 UK pounds that had to be kept intact and the Playstation sits against a wall so no space is available behind it for wiring
Attachments
Its still in lethal exposed AC wiring test mode, it will all be insulated and properly terminated before it gets boxed up. I dont want to shock myself whilst stamping out the flames.
First impressions are very favourable indeed, I think the Playstation is a tremendous CD player for the money involved. A mate came over for a listen and went away to empty his cupboards as he was sure he had one somewhere. It turned out he had two, a 1002 and a 5502 so guess what we are going to be doing in the near future!
John
First impressions are very favourable indeed, I think the Playstation is a tremendous CD player for the money involved. A mate came over for a listen and went away to empty his cupboards as he was sure he had one somewhere. It turned out he had two, a 1002 and a 5502 so guess what we are going to be doing in the near future!
John
I am messing with different ideas to support the transport.
So far :-
Base of old Linn Kan stand, mass loaded with SoundBytes (a type of iron filing)
Top plate of stand bolted to base with a sheet of Deflex sandwiched between
Transport on original board blu-tak'd to it.
Whole lot sat on bathroom scales from Woolies (£2.99)
Scales show weight at about 15 pounds. Sounds good.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i239/saxonsex/TransportFrame2.jpg
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i239/saxonsex/TransportFrame1.jpg
So far :-
Base of old Linn Kan stand, mass loaded with SoundBytes (a type of iron filing)
Top plate of stand bolted to base with a sheet of Deflex sandwiched between
Transport on original board blu-tak'd to it.
Whole lot sat on bathroom scales from Woolies (£2.99)
Scales show weight at about 15 pounds. Sounds good.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i239/saxonsex/TransportFrame2.jpg
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i239/saxonsex/TransportFrame1.jpg
I have bought a second SCPH-1002 because with the first I did the Mick F. mod and wasn't content at all (perhaps because of other values of C and R). The "new" is connected just with the original Multi-A/V-cable and that is it. I have no more needs to modify anything. Perhaps I'll throw out the power supply off the box because the Playstation gets hot after some hours and than it refusese to play any CD.
KBK, despotic,
you are aware of the fact that an output transformer will, the least said, color the sound, or even worse, raise distortion or make it loose something at the top end of the audio spectrum? You'd need at least a high quality audio transformer (expensive!) to try and come close to the quality of a good implemented opamp buffer, and I very much doubt you'd ever reach the level of a good discrete buffer. But anyway, everyone is free to go the way he likes
Quick quote from an article about audio xformers:
you are aware of the fact that an output transformer will, the least said, color the sound, or even worse, raise distortion or make it loose something at the top end of the audio spectrum? You'd need at least a high quality audio transformer (expensive!) to try and come close to the quality of a good implemented opamp buffer, and I very much doubt you'd ever reach the level of a good discrete buffer. But anyway, everyone is free to go the way he likes
Quick quote from an article about audio xformers:
joydivision said:KBK, despotic,
you are aware of the fact that an output transformer will, the least said, color the sound, or even worse, raise distortion or make it loose something at the top end of the audio spectrum? You'd need at least a high quality audio transformer (expensive!) to try and come close to the quality of a good implemented opamp buffer, and I very much doubt you'd ever reach the level of a good discrete buffer. But anyway, everyone is free to go the way he likes
Quick quote from an article about audio xformers:
Mmmm, thanks for the info joydivision, has anyone drawn up a schematic for a knew opamp buffer?
As far as my distortion problem goes, I ran into my first pressed CD that distorted when played today! Sadly it was my Harry Chapin "Gold Medal Collection"
I need to get out my meter and adjust this laser...
-Justin
despotic,
if after some tries of adjusting the laser, you can't get it to work, seriously consider grabbing another PS1 from ebay or so... they're are cheap, and if you plan to invest time and money in modding your unit, it better be a good working one, or it'll be all for nothing...
As for the output buffer, several solutions exist.
Don't know if you already checked out Mick's site ( http://www.dogbreath.de/PS1/output/output.html ).
Then there is my project ( http://www.diyhifi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1356 ), actually I changed the buffer later after already having had a good sounding solution, made it even better. It's a little known special opamp topology, which brought some additional sound stage. And then, there are alternative discrete solutions (I recall there's somwhere a great design Jocko did...) or even tube buffer, like some people prefer. Plenty of choices
if after some tries of adjusting the laser, you can't get it to work, seriously consider grabbing another PS1 from ebay or so... they're are cheap, and if you plan to invest time and money in modding your unit, it better be a good working one, or it'll be all for nothing...
As for the output buffer, several solutions exist.
Don't know if you already checked out Mick's site ( http://www.dogbreath.de/PS1/output/output.html ).
Then there is my project ( http://www.diyhifi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1356 ), actually I changed the buffer later after already having had a good sounding solution, made it even better. It's a little known special opamp topology, which brought some additional sound stage. And then, there are alternative discrete solutions (I recall there's somwhere a great design Jocko did...) or even tube buffer, like some people prefer. Plenty of choices
Sure, if you can get yourself a good priced new laser unit, then that's the way to go. But first, be sure that your playstation works ok, except for the laser...
I mean, at least find some CD it doesn't distort, and let it play for some hours, to be sure sound is good, and no other malfunctions.
I mean, at least find some CD it doesn't distort, and let it play for some hours, to be sure sound is good, and no other malfunctions.
Tolu, this has already been under discussion several times at this same thread here... take a look backwards...
Almost everyone came to the conclusion that it must be bogus... already the ebay sale sounds fishy, not to talk about the incredible price... somewhere was a link to a website of them aswell, with more bla-bla talk...
it seems they are trying to make you believe that they are able to elevate output of the PS1 by double, only by doing some kind of software mod to the chips in the digital domain... so that the motherboard stays physically unmodified... BUT the thing is: the AK4309 has a limited output voltage by design... read the datasheet... you can't just elevate the digital signal and hope that the output will pass it's specs... and even if it would pass, there's a reason for them limiting it: would probably have lots of distortion, or would overheat the IC or something...
Ah, and I don't want to know what happens to the sound quality if they apply gain in the digital domain... remember what happens beyond 0dBFS? yeah sure...
Almost everyone came to the conclusion that it must be bogus... already the ebay sale sounds fishy, not to talk about the incredible price... somewhere was a link to a website of them aswell, with more bla-bla talk...
it seems they are trying to make you believe that they are able to elevate output of the PS1 by double, only by doing some kind of software mod to the chips in the digital domain... so that the motherboard stays physically unmodified... BUT the thing is: the AK4309 has a limited output voltage by design... read the datasheet... you can't just elevate the digital signal and hope that the output will pass it's specs... and even if it would pass, there's a reason for them limiting it: would probably have lots of distortion, or would overheat the IC or something...
Ah, and I don't want to know what happens to the sound quality if they apply gain in the digital domain... remember what happens beyond 0dBFS? yeah sure...
The distortion sounded the same on the pressed cds as it did on the cd-rs, it sounded like a scratchy form of clipping. Not soft clipping at all, but rather like a hard square wave, very harsh. I was assuming it was a problem with the gain setting. However having moved and not taken on any projects since moving, I've kept my multi-meter is packed away in storage. I do however have another psx in my possession (a 5501, not a 5502 as previously stated). Lacking a multi-meter at the moment I was thinking I was going to have to wait till I could get to my storage to dig mine out, but instead I had an idea (I know how dangerous those can be!)...
I plugged in the 5501 and tested it out, it played my cd-rs fine, although didn't sound as warm as my 1001 in my opinion. Knowing that the 5501 worked though meant that I knew it's laser unit was functioning properly. I opened them both up and proceeded to swap the laser units. First up was the laser unit from the 5501 connected to the 1001, hmmm worked fine. Then I fired up the laser unit from the 1001 connected to the 5501, it worked but still had a minimal amount of distortion. This meant the distortion traveled with the laser unit from my 1001. So there where two options, either the 1001 laser unit was bad, or the only adjustment on the actual unit itself (the intensity) was out of wack. I decided to hope that the problem had to do with the adjustment being out of wack and plugged the 1001 laser unit back into the 1001 ps. I then decided as well that I would just tweak that adjustment a little without a meter or anything, just to see if it improved the situation (I figured it couldn't get any worse, hehe). I turned it a little clockwise, hmmm, less distortion. I turned it a little more, hmmm even less distortion! One more little turn and the distortion was completely gone! Then one more turn for good measure, this last turn was a bad idea, as the distortion came back even worse! So, back a turn and now everything is working fine! I still plan on digging my meter out and checking values, but I'm just happy to be able to report it has played everything I've put on it since this little experiment! A few more test, and me digging my equipment out of storage, and the modifying and tweaking will commence!
-Justin
I plugged in the 5501 and tested it out, it played my cd-rs fine, although didn't sound as warm as my 1001 in my opinion. Knowing that the 5501 worked though meant that I knew it's laser unit was functioning properly. I opened them both up and proceeded to swap the laser units. First up was the laser unit from the 5501 connected to the 1001, hmmm worked fine. Then I fired up the laser unit from the 1001 connected to the 5501, it worked but still had a minimal amount of distortion. This meant the distortion traveled with the laser unit from my 1001. So there where two options, either the 1001 laser unit was bad, or the only adjustment on the actual unit itself (the intensity) was out of wack. I decided to hope that the problem had to do with the adjustment being out of wack and plugged the 1001 laser unit back into the 1001 ps. I then decided as well that I would just tweak that adjustment a little without a meter or anything, just to see if it improved the situation (I figured it couldn't get any worse, hehe). I turned it a little clockwise, hmmm, less distortion. I turned it a little more, hmmm even less distortion! One more little turn and the distortion was completely gone! Then one more turn for good measure, this last turn was a bad idea, as the distortion came back even worse! So, back a turn and now everything is working fine! I still plan on digging my meter out and checking values, but I'm just happy to be able to report it has played everything I've put on it since this little experiment! A few more test, and me digging my equipment out of storage, and the modifying and tweaking will commence!
-Justin
Tolu,
your values are not very correct...
normal CD player output is around 2V RMS, that's a little less than 6Vpp.
According to datasheet,
AK4309 outputs 2,8Vpp, that's around 1V RMS only...
AK4310 outputs 3,4Vpp, that's around 1,2V RMS...
So, you need a gain stage of about 2 for the AK4309, and about 1,7 for the AK4310.
To convert that to dB, do a quick search on google for the formula, I'm too lazy to that hehe
your values are not very correct...
normal CD player output is around 2V RMS, that's a little less than 6Vpp.
According to datasheet,
AK4309 outputs 2,8Vpp, that's around 1V RMS only...
AK4310 outputs 3,4Vpp, that's around 1,2V RMS...
So, you need a gain stage of about 2 for the AK4309, and about 1,7 for the AK4310.
To convert that to dB, do a quick search on google for the formula, I'm too lazy to that hehe