Hi folks,
i have acquired an XA50ES cd-player and compared it with my old, heavily modified pioneer pd-8700. my first impression is, that the overall quality improvement is (in opposite to my external parasound d/ac-1600 dac) only small with some drawbacks also. i'm sure that there is some tuning potential ;-) but i doubt that this sony series are so good for tuning cause they have 2 signal processing related clocks, which have to be synchronized. should i possible looking for another player ??
has somebody the schematics for this player please ? i could buy the schematics for a CDP- XA 5 ES on ebay but is this product similar ??
greetings
i have acquired an XA50ES cd-player and compared it with my old, heavily modified pioneer pd-8700. my first impression is, that the overall quality improvement is (in opposite to my external parasound d/ac-1600 dac) only small with some drawbacks also. i'm sure that there is some tuning potential ;-) but i doubt that this sony series are so good for tuning cause they have 2 signal processing related clocks, which have to be synchronized. should i possible looking for another player ??
has somebody the schematics for this player please ? i could buy the schematics for a CDP- XA 5 ES on ebay but is this product similar ??
greetings
dear Reina,
congratulations you have bought a great tuneable player.
You will have a lot of space to try several things
The standard version is alright but not great.
I did some tuning and I'm very happy with it.
It took me about 3 years of tuning succeses and disasters.
Start with the powersupply, change all the diode for shottky's types and decouple the "big" capacitors with 100 nF.
Try to decouple the powerlines with small ferites placed on the audioboard and digital board side. Remove the headphone connection/cable. Change several caps with Blackgate's FK and Nx.
I started with replacing the opamps, 8 pieces, of the audioboard but was not satisfied. I changed the audio board for the Zapfilter from LCaudio. This was a great improvement. There is a complete rebuild on the LCaudio site, a must read.
You speak about the 2 clocks which have to be synchronised, I tried to replace the 45 MHz clock, LCaudio XO2, and noted some improvement but not enough. Whether it has to do with the synchronisation I don't know. I left the old clocks. digital parts and dac in and did build a completed new dac, based on the pcm1704. On this dac I now use this XO clock. The digital section of the player needs both old clocks to operate, don't ask me why but without it would not fire up.
The last tuning was passive i/v conversion with a stepup trafo from Sowther instead of the Zapfilter.
I now have several option to listen to.
Standard sony digital 16 bit with sony analog out, grainy sharp flat sound
Standard sony digital 16 bit with ZAP or sowther, nice but still a bit grainy and sharp, hardly an difference between Sowther and ZAP
Standard Sony pre digital, PCM 1704 with ZAP, great sound, firm bass smooth and wide stereo image.
Standard Sony pre digital, PCM 1704 with Sowther, the best sound for me, less firm bass and a slight rolloff on the high but o so smooth especially with female voice, it's a treat.
I hope I gave you some idea's what you can do.
And yes I have the servicemanual If you want I can scan it and mail it to you or I make some copy's and send it by snail-mail.
ps the XA-5 is different from the XA50.
Rob
congratulations you have bought a great tuneable player.
You will have a lot of space to try several things
The standard version is alright but not great.
I did some tuning and I'm very happy with it.
It took me about 3 years of tuning succeses and disasters.
Start with the powersupply, change all the diode for shottky's types and decouple the "big" capacitors with 100 nF.
Try to decouple the powerlines with small ferites placed on the audioboard and digital board side. Remove the headphone connection/cable. Change several caps with Blackgate's FK and Nx.
I started with replacing the opamps, 8 pieces, of the audioboard but was not satisfied. I changed the audio board for the Zapfilter from LCaudio. This was a great improvement. There is a complete rebuild on the LCaudio site, a must read.
You speak about the 2 clocks which have to be synchronised, I tried to replace the 45 MHz clock, LCaudio XO2, and noted some improvement but not enough. Whether it has to do with the synchronisation I don't know. I left the old clocks. digital parts and dac in and did build a completed new dac, based on the pcm1704. On this dac I now use this XO clock. The digital section of the player needs both old clocks to operate, don't ask me why but without it would not fire up.
The last tuning was passive i/v conversion with a stepup trafo from Sowther instead of the Zapfilter.
I now have several option to listen to.
Standard sony digital 16 bit with sony analog out, grainy sharp flat sound
Standard sony digital 16 bit with ZAP or sowther, nice but still a bit grainy and sharp, hardly an difference between Sowther and ZAP
Standard Sony pre digital, PCM 1704 with ZAP, great sound, firm bass smooth and wide stereo image.
Standard Sony pre digital, PCM 1704 with Sowther, the best sound for me, less firm bass and a slight rolloff on the high but o so smooth especially with female voice, it's a treat.
I hope I gave you some idea's what you can do.
And yes I have the servicemanual If you want I can scan it and mail it to you or I make some copy's and send it by snail-mail.
ps the XA-5 is different from the XA50.
Rob
are these initially in sync ?
So far i can see - a 45 Mhz clock is connected to the DAC, two output signals from the DAC: 512FS and 128FS (i guess these signals are generated internally from the master clock 45Mhz) are used for the digital filter and the servo controller. The 128FS is controlling a additional 16MHz clock for the servo.
I do not know if "sync" is the right word, but i guess this is what happens.
So far i can see - a 45 Mhz clock is connected to the DAC, two output signals from the DAC: 512FS and 128FS (i guess these signals are generated internally from the master clock 45Mhz) are used for the digital filter and the servo controller. The 128FS is controlling a additional 16MHz clock for the servo.
I do not know if "sync" is the right word, but i guess this is what happens.
Hi,
i found a service manual on ebay finally. anyway, thanks for your supporting!
btw: i connected the original sony via digital cinch out instead of optical before with my parasound d/ac and listened with stax system w. quite funny... i wanted to test the qualitity critically, but after few minutes i had forgotten my intention and listened the complete cd-album... ;-)
greetings and sry for my bad english...
i found a service manual on ebay finally. anyway, thanks for your supporting!
btw: i connected the original sony via digital cinch out instead of optical before with my parasound d/ac and listened with stax system w. quite funny... i wanted to test the qualitity critically, but after few minutes i had forgotten my intention and listened the complete cd-album... ;-)
greetings and sry for my bad english...
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