Marantz CD63 & CD67 mods list

Ray,

You used to have a link on your parts and schematic page
that listed a converter board for the voltage regulators.

Do you still have them?
Can you take a pic or two of them?
I think the guy who made them went away
and no one has them any longer.

I would be interested in them and perhaps
making a run of the boards or two if there
is any interested.

It would be definitely beneficial to anyone
changing from one Voltage Reg type to another one.

Cheers,

Sync



To get things back on topic again... :D

Here's my new DOS!
 
Wow, this topic is enormous...
I had just resurrected a cd67se from the past, changing the laser mechanism. I was wondering if I could get this player to sound a bit better easily and relatively without cost.

1. Use a cheap but warm sounding dac with optical in, forget the mods (category 100-200$) maybe a Chinese one, of course will be used for other digital data also. It is planned.

2. Use the simplest mod, just for the new sound character as an option, independently of the dac.
2a. change the onboard op-amps with a direct replacement alternative through dip-8 socket) I could do this.
2b. Optional, a better clock oscillator to improve jitter -> details (a better but a cheap one), I am not sure if I can do this.

For my current setup, I can observe a boomy bass character in low frequencies and some loss of detail in the mid/hi bands. I do not like the sound it, it is a bit annoying without altering tones in the amp.

I am not familiar with electronics, only the very basics ... but I can use a solder gun...

Do you think by only changing op-amps, there could be a chance of getting rid of the extra overwhelming bass or maybe revive some lost details?
There are many suggestions here (confused!), but is there a good direct replacement without bias/oscillation extra mods, and without any other mod?

or just invest in the dac and forget the mess...

thanks
 
Hi Pentajazz,

It's very easy and cheap to get a better sound out of your resurrected CD67 - the boomy bass and lack of midrange detail are both symptoms of the poor standard opamps and the HDAM circuits. If you replace the opamps with LM4562's (in the DIP 8 package they are a direct replacement) you can then bypass the HDAM components and take a wire from the opamp side of links U216/U217 (remove the links) more or less straight to the RCA's - leave one of the 100 ohm resistors in series and the 100K resistor to ground but everything else can be removed. This will give you much better detail and no boom to the bass. All of the schematics can be found on Ray's audio site:
Ray's Audio Page
You will also need to remove the resistors R651-654 which provide power to the HDAM circuits. If the capacitors C655-658 are larger in value than C611-614 (I think they'll be 220uF rather than 100uF) then putting the larger caps on the opamp supplies will help the dynamics a bit.
It will look a lot clearer once you are looking at the circuit diagram, honest! but if you need more detail on component numbers etc. then just ask:)

The next stage would be the low jitter clock - a cheap and very effective one is the Flea clock, available on the site above and very easy to fit (I have no commercial links to that site, just a happy customer and flea clock owner!) Doing this would give large improvements to clarity and detail.

After this you may find you're addicted to the sound and want to continue - it'll be way ahead of a cheap Chinese DAC.
 
Hi, could anyone help me trouble shoot my CD63? I am getting error 2 and 10 and no light is visible from the laser. I replaced the laser and that didn't help, and the voltage on r136 is 5v either side (one of Ray's previous posts). Could anyone talk me through the power supply to the laser? I cannot figure it out from the schematics. Henry
 
Hi, could anyone help me trouble shoot my CD63? part II

Back again:
- I checked the regs at r122 and 123 for servo and they are 5v.
- the "laser drive on" output (pin 2 of servo) transiently goes to 5v when I push play.
- r127 and r128 are +20v and -20v
- I finished modding over 9 months so this error is out of the blue. The only thing that happened is my girlfriend put a dvd in cdp immediately before it stopped.
- in service mode P0:rev makes sled go out (no focus or spin); P1: slow focusing (no sled or spin); P02: fast focusing (no sled or spin); P03:sled and focus on (no spin). Shouldn't it spin in P02 and P03?

Help!
 
Have a close look at the spindle motor. I have had a similar experience with a new laser as recently as a few weeks ago. Sometimes, the disc on which the cd rests gets compressed against the motor body, and the friction prevents the motor from spinning the disc.

Using a small flat screwdriver, gently prying the disc upwards, should lift the plastic away from the motor body.
Failing that, you could have a dud laser.
 
Hi, could anyone help me trouble shoot my CD63? part IV

Hi,

After checking a lot of pins, I have this to report: there is a problem at the servo opamp (Q105) pin that drives the laser. Pins 7 and 8 are at 0V instead of 2.5. Brakspear75 had the same issue (see#21041) and replaced Q105 so I'm thinking I'll do that. Could it be the servo that is blown (Q104)?

The voltage rail to the servo chips is running at 36V. I know the opamp chips can handle 40v, but do you think that could be a problem? Is there an easy way to get it down to ~24V short of putting in regs for each opamp?

Thanks!

Henry