Marantz CD63 & CD67 mods list

Many thanks for your reply Simon and Jaap. Greatly appreciated.

Do you perhaps know of any good walk-in stores in the London area for kit like Black Gate etc? I will be in the UK at the end of September and would like to get some bits when I am there. South Africa is very lean on stocking such kit so am building a list of components and shops to visit. Your input would be greatly appreciated. I would be looking to use "the Rowemeister list" as a reference and applying it with some other mods to the still stock KI63.

Kind regards,

Justin
 
Re: PRaT and Mains Power Filters

JustIN8 said:
Just noticing some posts a little while back (last week/23000 posts ago) that there was mention of how PRaT is affected by noise from the power mains. Would I be correct in my understanding that after the mains transformer and filtering, this noise still finds its way into the clock, DAC circuits etc? I saw the KE Balanced Isolator Source that Ray refered to on post 1248 and was wondering if anyone had used anything else. I was thinking of using a good quality desktop pc UPS to filter the mains and prevent other things like surges and spikes etc which could damage the input circuitry. I have not tried this option but imagine it would help the KI63 with PRaT and its general health.
I would also wonder whether one would still get the earth loop causing hum amongst two or more devices on the same circuit provider (mains earth). I see one of the latest marantz cd players does not have the earth pin in the IEC plug. Is this to remove the possible earth loop and hence impact on sound quality?

Many thanks

Justin

Using a PC UPS sounds absolutely horrible!! I was curious and treid a few differant UPS that I had at work and home and they all sounded worse than the AC wall socket. I am not sure why this is, but I would guess it has to do with converting the batteries DC back to AC, that defeats the whole purpose of using batter power. If you want to try running your cd63 off of batteries it maybe possible to use a motorcyle battery or two and build a little voltage regulator board to get the required 5, 10, 12, 18 volts you need. Then just discconet the stock supply and connect in batteries. I donno how long the player will run on a battery though?? Anyone treid anything like that??
 
Re: Re: PRaT and Mains Power Filters

imperfectcircle said:
Using a PC UPS sounds absolutely horrible!! I was curious and treid a few differant UPS that I had at work and home and they all sounded worse than the AC wall socket. I am not sure why this is, but I would guess it has to do with converting the batteries DC back to AC, that defeats the whole purpose of using batter power. If you want to try running your cd63 off of batteries it maybe possible to use a motorcyle battery or two and build a little voltage regulator board to get the required 5, 10, 12, 18 volts you need. Then just discconet the stock supply and connect in batteries. I donno how long the player will run on a battery though?? Anyone treid anything like that??

Well, I did try lead acid batteries a couple of times powering a MC head amp and biasing tube stages. Although ripple free they lacked audible benefits so I abandoned them quickly. Probably to do with internal resistance giving latency in delivering current.
Jaap
 
I have some good news and some bad news. Good news is that the guy I bought the cd67 from said he would refund my money, since the player deid after only 2 days, i think it was just coincidance thatr the player died on me, because I didnt even touch anything besides removing the output caps, and it just stoped playing in the middle of a cd. So Ill get my money back. The bad news is that my cd53 is acting up again and not recognizing disks, im starting to think i have bad luck with these players. The 53 was sounding amazing and then it died on me again:( I have been thinking of making the switch over to a PC based system for a while and I think I am finally going to do it, these Marantz players have gotten me frustrated. I was wondering one thing though, would it be possible to add a digital input to the cd53 and use it as a DAC?? All the problems ive had were servo/transport problems so the DAC section is working fine. How hard would it be to add an input?? If it to much work im going to find a nice DAC kit to build. Does anyone have any reccomendations for a nice kit thats not to expensive?? Im thinking the DDDAC with the usb input looks nice and would be easy to hook up to my computer since it has USB. Im just wondering how these Non-OS dacs are going to sound compared to the oversampling and upsampling DACs im used to? Ive heard they are lacking in detail and frequency extension??? Any opinions?
Thanks
Frank
 
JustIN8 said:
Many thanks for your reply Simon and Jaap. Greatly appreciated.

Do you perhaps know of any good walk-in stores in the London area for kit like Black Gate etc? I will be in the UK at the end of September and would like to get some bits when I am there. South Africa is very lean on stocking such kit so am building a list of components and shops to visit. Your input would be greatly appreciated. I would be looking to use "the Rowemeister list" as a reference and applying it with some other mods to the still stock KI63.

Kind regards,

Justin

You're welcome Justin.
When in London you might want to pay a visit to
Walrus . It's a high end shop doing their own repairs.
Regards, Jaap
 
JustIN8 said:
I will have to investigate other avenues such as the http://sound.westhost.com/earthing.htm methods that may help. First is to do whatever I can to improve things before opening up the CD63.

Well, I just finished the experiment grounding all enclosures as mentioned in the article:

"If your equipment has only two wire connection (ie no earth wire) you may gain an improvement in performance by connecting an earth to a chassis screw. Sometimes this adds a ‘buzz’ into the sound but if it doesn’t then you will get more ‘solid’, stable sound and better bass. Experiment!"

but instead of an 'improvement in performance' there was a slight incline in noise. It might be because I use a tube amplifier which connects the secundary of the 375-0-375 volt tranny via two 10pF caps to the case to get rid of RF noise (when the transformer is switched off at 0V passage there's an oscillation through the power supply).

Maybe others experience positive results with grounding the set?

Be aware although RF noise might be inaudible it can deteriorate high frequency reproduction of your set. Highs becoming harsh, less pleasant.

Regards, Jaap
 
Grounding a system can be quite amusing

first you have to look at the whole system that is plugged into each other.
If one component uses a 2 pin plug then it's earth is the neutral pin,
Or, it's earth is via the RCA earth to the next component that uses a 3 pin power cord.


something to think about.

allan
 
Re: Grounding a system can be quite amusing

simonty said:
Hi Jaap,

I didn't hear much difference grounding it. Maybe a tiny improvement. Certainly no loss of sound quality. And no noise problems (but I don't use horns or tube amps so maybe I shouldn't expect noise).

Regards,
Simon
Hi Simon,

You didn't experience the promised gains, did you?
Regards, Jaap

NB The horns do not expose sounds your speakers don't (I sincerely hope so :)), they're necessary because of the low output of my homebrew 'mini' amps.

awpagan said:
first you have to look at the whole system that is plugged into each other.
If one component uses a 2 pin plug then it's earth is the neutral pin,
Or, it's earth is via the RCA earth to the next component that uses a 3 pin power cord.

something to think about.

allan
Hi Allan,

The only devices in my house that use mains earth are the washing machine, the dryer, the fridge, the iron and the oven. All audio/video equipment has 2-pin, the (desktop) computer has 3-pin but is connected to 2-pin outlet. It's common practice in Europe, I guess.

So, 'earth' does not exist in my audioset. There's of cause a common low level, connected via RCA's. Maybe I'm lucky my system does not seem to miss proper grounding. :D

Regards, Jaap
 
Re: Re: Grounding a system can be quite amusing

disco said:

Hi Simon,

You didn't experience the promised gains, did you?
Regards, Jaap

NB The horns do not expose sounds your speakers don't (I sincerely hope so :)), they're necessary because of the low output of my homebrew 'mini' amps.


Nah, I expected more. I hear much bigger improvements cleaning mains plug pins etc.

I thought horns were good at exposing hum and noise because of their sensitivity.

Cheers,
Simon
 
Re: Re: Re: Grounding a system can be quite amusing

SimontY said:
Nah, I expected more. I hear much bigger improvements cleaning mains plug pins etc.
That's exactly my point! :eek:
I thought horns were good at exposing hum and noise because of their sensitivity.

Cheers,
Simon
This is a wide spread misunderstanding. Good S/N ratio and absence of hummm are to be obtained, even in DIY audio building ;)

It's true however that 50mV hum at the output is a concern on sensitive speakers and not on insensitive speakers.
Jaap
 
Re: Re: Re: Grounding a system can be quite amusing

SimontY said:


Nah, I expected more. I hear much bigger improvements cleaning mains plug pins etc.

Cheers,
Simon

Have you measured the quality of your earth? I have a dedicated earth to my audio (2m iron rod driven into the - ehh - the earth!).

I have a mains conditioner on my 63, http://www.blpcomp.com/products/viewprod.php?id=45 in the medical edition, it's in the PDF (the one without the "polluting" Y-caps) http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSearch/partDetail.jsp?SKU=9427147&N=401. It's is sounding a lot better with this filter, rather than my common mode choke previous mounted.

My pre is earthed but my poweramp is floating.

I surely can hear better stability, more solid bass, better image when the gear is earthed.
 
Greg3333 said:



I guess it looks like I need a new laser then. Grandata.co.uk are doing the CDM12.1 for just under £20 delivered so I'll probably order one from them and keep my fingers crossed that it fixes the problem.

As a follow up to this, I ordered a CDM12.1 from Grandata and it was delivered today. I just fitted it and the player seems fine now. Only time will tell if it starts to skip again but I played through a few tracks with no problem. Before the new laser it was skipping on average once every 30 seconds.

Next on the list is to replace the opamps and diodes. Might make a few more changes while I've got the board out but I don't want to do too much at once.

Greg
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Grounding a system can be quite amusing

avr300 said:
Have you measured the quality of your earth? I have a dedicated earth to my audio (2m iron rod driven into the - ehh - the earth!).
Ah!, you've got a dedicated earth for your audioset. That's something else as the shared 'RF annena' with too high impedance.

I have a mains conditioner on my 63, http://www.blpcomp.com/products/viewprod.php?id=45 in the medical edition, it's in the PDF (the one without the "polluting" Y-caps) http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSearch/partDetail.jsp?SKU=9427147&N=401. It is sounding a lot better with this filter, rather than my common mode choke previous mounted.
Why? Has it different impedance?
I guess you have that real earth connected to your CDP. Did you try inserting a (1mH <1 ohm) choke at the end (near the CDP and amp)?
My pre is earthed but my poweramp is floating.
What's the Vdc between the CDP and amp when you disconnect the RCAs? Is inserting a wire between cases beneficial?
I surely can hear better stability, more solid bass, better image when the gear is earthed.
Might be because you have a real earth connection. Did you wire it with 3mm VDE wire?
Regards, Jaap
 
Greg3333 said:
As a follow up to this, I ordered a CDM12.1 from Grandata and it was delivered today. I just fitted it and the player seems fine now. Only time will tell if it starts to skip again but I played through a few tracks with no problem. Before the new laser it was skipping on average once every 30 seconds.

Next on the list is to replace the opamps and diodes. Might make a few more changes while I've got the board out but I don't want to do too much at once.

Greg

Good to hear Greg, a new laser gives you good milage for the future. Wise to take small steps at a time.

The PSU has a large influence on reproduction quality, all prosperes from upgrading. But new opamps without a decent PSU does not bring it all out, I'm afraight. Look for a 15V-0-15V (500mA) to put besides the original tranny.

Handle the ribbon cables with care as they wear out after many removals.
Regards, Jaap
 
Greg3333 said:
Disco, thanks for the advice.

Rapid Online have some great deals on transformers right now. How do these look?

Greg

Hi Greg,

I'd opt for these choices:

1x NON ROHS 0-15 0-15V 18VA L/P ENCAP TRAN 77-0376 1.00
2x 0.4A RN112 SUPPRESSION CHOKE 26-4770 £1.50
8x 470UF 35V LOW IMPEDANCE ELECTROLY CAP RC 11-2927 £0.24
8x SB330 SCHOTKY BARRIER DIODE (RC) 47-2538 £0.17

The caps are brandless, maybe you'll replace them once with the expensive stuff.

Regards, Jaap