Modding a 640 won't bring you a better deck than the 740.
all you get is a 640 that has a little more leading edge bite, a less digital sound, a bit less background noise and reduced clock jitter.
The 740 like the 840 is a different design of player with a completely different fully dual differential DAC stage with the same DSP based upsampling that graces several esoteric multi thousand pound cd players from Europe.
you can slap all the regulation and boutique caps you want in a cheaper player it doesn't alter the original circuit.
if you can improve every measurement by a good 6db you might be getting somewhere.
all you get is a 640 that has a little more leading edge bite, a less digital sound, a bit less background noise and reduced clock jitter.
The 740 like the 840 is a different design of player with a completely different fully dual differential DAC stage with the same DSP based upsampling that graces several esoteric multi thousand pound cd players from Europe.
you can slap all the regulation and boutique caps you want in a cheaper player it doesn't alter the original circuit.
if you can improve every measurement by a good 6db you might be getting somewhere.
I still think its more cost effective and creative. You can taylor the sound to your taste and you get the satisfaction of having done it yourself. Besides, not all of us can splash out on high end stuff. Im sure its a fine sounding player tho...To be honest, if I had the dosh I'd be tempted by the 840.
Which adds upto a player that is on par - if not better- than most in the £500-£1000 range. After all, the improvements you mention are goals all high end manufactures are trying to achive.
Which adds upto a player that is on par - if not better- than most in the £500-£1000 range. After all, the improvements you mention are goals all high end manufactures are trying to achive.
if you have the 640 already, yes, then it does offer better value, naturally.
I can whole heartedly reccomend the 840c, though must advise that dynamatting the case work made more diference than a wholesale op-amp upgrade, new clock and regs.
The electrical stuff was cake icing, the dynamat totally and utterly refashioned the bass performance and timing.
I can whole heartedly reccomend the 840c, though must advise that dynamatting the case work made more diference than a wholesale op-amp upgrade, new clock and regs.
The electrical stuff was cake icing, the dynamat totally and utterly refashioned the bass performance and timing.
sq225917 said:
LMAO
Seriously mate, we go to hifi shows for exotic equipment and modified equipment and it's amazing how modest cd players upgraded properly perform as good as if not better than cd players costing £2K+. The 740 and 840 imho are not that great (ok better than 640) but thats it. Nothing the cheap side of £1500 sound very good, also manufactures tweak their cd players with low noise components (usually caps) when they want to build the model up.
Anyway lets not detract from what this thread is about and thats getting superb audio from the 540 & 640.
Brent
sq225917 said:
Interesting, most cd players seem to respond very well to electronic component and power supply upgrades! I've seen inside some of these Cambridge players and they look like there's a lot of room for improvement.
Having heard a £400/£500 player (Marantz CD63KI) annihilate Naim and Sony players with price tags of £1000-2000 plus several hundred pounds worth of upgrades I am a little sceptical of your viewpoint.
The biggest improvements come from reclocking, separating power rails, supplying circuits with low noise regulators and improving the output stage. Another large change I found was changing the feet and adding bitumen (probably what Dynamat is) and these affected the bass, dynamics and timing (here I agree) but the changes were less significant than some of the electrical improvements.
Simon
1./ Bitumen damping sheets
2./ Change the opamps
3./ Better decoupling caps on op amps and dacs (I like elna silmic, others like blackgate or panasonic fc) Experiment!
4./ Build your own regulators, its easy
5./ Build your own clock.
If you buy all this stuff you may as well have bought a 740.
Good luck!
Congratulations on going to the hifi equivalent of 'pimp my ride' Brent.
If you've got any technical data, measurements to show to back these up, then that's great. i'd love to see them. I somehow doubt you have any.
if you think you can improve any useful measurement on a 640c by 6db by modding it i'd be frankly amazed.
The point being you'd have to improve pretty much every spec on the player by at least that to bring it up to the level of the 740 let alone the 840.
If you've got any technical data, measurements to show to back these up, then that's great. i'd love to see them. I somehow doubt you have any.
if you think you can improve any useful measurement on a 640c by 6db by modding it i'd be frankly amazed.
The point being you'd have to improve pretty much every spec on the player by at least that to bring it up to the level of the 740 let alone the 840.
Changing all these components with quality ones will out perform a 740 no doubt. And these mods are only a tiny bit of what can be achieved.
Lets get back to what this thread is about - modding 640s please
Brent
Lets get back to what this thread is about - modding 640s please
Brent
Ill get may *** into gear and get some pics of the 540C up soon.. ill keep out of the war though 🙂
Dear sq225917 or whatever your real name is.
Incase you havent noticed the name of this forum is 'diyAudio'. Not, oh im bored I think I'll go to the nearest hi-fi store and let myself get blagged into buying this new cd player. Or, I read a review in a hi-fi mag so i'll go and buy that new-fangled cdp .com
This is a place for people who are interested in modding hifi and building kit from scratch, hence the 'diy' part of the name. You appear to be interested in negative remarks that attempt to invalidate the knowledge, experience, and effort put in by the talented members here. Regardless of the argument you have, the people here are interested in modding this player, period. Not all of us fall for marketing bulls*** and magazine hype.
I get it that you like the 740, thats fine. No-one here is interested in that to be honest. The thread is called 'Cambridge audio 640 mods' not '640 is crap, get a 740 instead'.
I ask you this: Have you had experience in modding Hi-Fi? If so how was it? Did it sound better? Do you really know a 740 is better than a modded 640? have you even heard one? When was the last time your ears were cleaned? 😀
Incase you havent noticed the name of this forum is 'diyAudio'. Not, oh im bored I think I'll go to the nearest hi-fi store and let myself get blagged into buying this new cd player. Or, I read a review in a hi-fi mag so i'll go and buy that new-fangled cdp .com
This is a place for people who are interested in modding hifi and building kit from scratch, hence the 'diy' part of the name. You appear to be interested in negative remarks that attempt to invalidate the knowledge, experience, and effort put in by the talented members here. Regardless of the argument you have, the people here are interested in modding this player, period. Not all of us fall for marketing bulls*** and magazine hype.
I get it that you like the 740, thats fine. No-one here is interested in that to be honest. The thread is called 'Cambridge audio 640 mods' not '640 is crap, get a 740 instead'.
I ask you this: Have you had experience in modding Hi-Fi? If so how was it? Did it sound better? Do you really know a 740 is better than a modded 640? have you even heard one? When was the last time your ears were cleaned? 😀
Mike,
I think sq225917 was just trying to help. The thing about this modding is bang for buck. You can do good things with upgrades, but if you do it with commercial products it may not be worth the investment. I have modded 3 players now and a friend bought his opus dac along and which cost him around the same as my upgrades, and it sounded better than my modded players.
Its all very subjective and I guess you should rely on your own experiences. Good luck, and post back your results.
I think sq225917 was just trying to help. The thing about this modding is bang for buck. You can do good things with upgrades, but if you do it with commercial products it may not be worth the investment. I have modded 3 players now and a friend bought his opus dac along and which cost him around the same as my upgrades, and it sounded better than my modded players.
Its all very subjective and I guess you should rely on your own experiences. Good luck, and post back your results.
Mike, my real name is simon, not that it matters.
I am indeed just trying to lend a hand, but you seem so bought into the little south yorkshire back slapping posse that you are indeed missing the point.
I have the 840, i've modded the **** out of it, and it sounds very little different to what it sounded like to start with, and it's had £300+ thrown inside it.
But then i have no vested interest in selling what went inside my player, so i don't need to tell you it was a great success and the only way forward. In my case with the 840c its so well specced and designed that it leaves vey little room for genuine improvement
I'm just trying to save you some money, it is after all a DIY forum, not a shop window for a the diy/sercal modding by numbers posse.
I bought the 840c, because it was the player that performed best in a very large bakeoff that i attended against some decent 2k+ products including some very heavily modded players from respected modders.
I haven't read a hifi magazine in years, so wouldn't know what any reviewer thinks about it and certainly couldn't care less. After all it doesn't take a genius to smell marketing ******** does it.
I ain't selling you ****, think about it.
I am indeed just trying to lend a hand, but you seem so bought into the little south yorkshire back slapping posse that you are indeed missing the point.
I have the 840, i've modded the **** out of it, and it sounds very little different to what it sounded like to start with, and it's had £300+ thrown inside it.
But then i have no vested interest in selling what went inside my player, so i don't need to tell you it was a great success and the only way forward. In my case with the 840c its so well specced and designed that it leaves vey little room for genuine improvement
I'm just trying to save you some money, it is after all a DIY forum, not a shop window for a the diy/sercal modding by numbers posse.
I bought the 840c, because it was the player that performed best in a very large bakeoff that i attended against some decent 2k+ products including some very heavily modded players from respected modders.
I haven't read a hifi magazine in years, so wouldn't know what any reviewer thinks about it and certainly couldn't care less. After all it doesn't take a genius to smell marketing ******** does it.
I ain't selling you ****, think about it.
I have modded a 640 V2 recently and ok I did a quite a few things to it but compared to the un moddified Naim CD5i we had here it blew it away. Better dynamics , miles more stereo seperation , much less 'in your face' and more importantly much more musical.
When I upgraded the Naim CD5i with an extensive upgrade the Naim was of course better than the 640.
640 V2 = £250 Naim CD5i = £850
Mods on 640 = £397 (inc labour to customer)
£397 + £250 = £647
Thats £200 less than the Naim and it performed to a much higher standard.
Don't get me wrong in thinking i'm all for this player I'm not. I personally prefer upgrading Marantz equipment. I also enjoy upgrading Naim cd players mainly due to the build quality.
Brent
When I upgraded the Naim CD5i with an extensive upgrade the Naim was of course better than the 640.
640 V2 = £250 Naim CD5i = £850
Mods on 640 = £397 (inc labour to customer)
£397 + £250 = £647
Thats £200 less than the Naim and it performed to a much higher standard.
Don't get me wrong in thinking i'm all for this player I'm not. I personally prefer upgrading Marantz equipment. I also enjoy upgrading Naim cd players mainly due to the build quality.
Brent
Hi Simon.
Point taken. I apologise for my message above but what you said about buying the 740 instead of modding my 640 struck a chord whith me. I respect your opinion but this is a diy forum. The people here are interested in modding the 640 so you comment was like an invalidation.
Im aware that some here are owners of diy websites, didnt know theyre from yorkshire though! Beggars cant be choosers! (my best mates a Bradford lad)
I have found them helpfull and they are the fist people I found who could shed some light on the matter. I believe they know what theyre talking about. However Im not about to jump in and buy all their products. I have seen some alternatives (clock, regs) elsewhere which are totally free as designs. You just need the components and a soldering iron.
These guys have given me sufficiant 'enlightenment' so that I now have a good idea of what im after. As a mark of respect I will use some of their products. (they also appear to be very easy to install)
Im sure that I will have abetter sounding CDP eventually. Im wise and I will do all the research I can before attempting any mods. I love my CA and Im not going do dive in whith the soldering iron untill im sure what Im doing will improve it.
Sincerely,
Mike
Looks like someone has killed this thread.
I started off on the cd63 thread and realised the only way to get good audio was to use quality parts from people like Audiocom as building the usual home made regs were not good enough.This was starting to cost alot of money so I decided to develop my own products for personal cd improvement and to help the guys out on the cd63 thread at great expense. Things have snowballed a little since then. Simon and Lee are two of many guys who bought my products to try in their own cd players and pre amps, they prefered them to Audiocom products which for me was what I had aimed for. So now when ever they advise people on upgrades they naturally point them in my direction.
Lee likes my products so much he wants to stock them along with his capacitors etc as he too want to build a business up aimed at the diy market. We are passionate about audio and this is why we are doing it. Go over to the cd63 thread and see how much we help people and how from humble beginings products have been developed to help those marantz users.
PS
It is also underhand to go back and edit your posts & Grimsby is in Lincolnshire not Yorkshire.
Brent
I started off on the cd63 thread and realised the only way to get good audio was to use quality parts from people like Audiocom as building the usual home made regs were not good enough.This was starting to cost alot of money so I decided to develop my own products for personal cd improvement and to help the guys out on the cd63 thread at great expense. Things have snowballed a little since then. Simon and Lee are two of many guys who bought my products to try in their own cd players and pre amps, they prefered them to Audiocom products which for me was what I had aimed for. So now when ever they advise people on upgrades they naturally point them in my direction.
Lee likes my products so much he wants to stock them along with his capacitors etc as he too want to build a business up aimed at the diy market. We are passionate about audio and this is why we are doing it. Go over to the cd63 thread and see how much we help people and how from humble beginings products have been developed to help those marantz users.
PS
It is also underhand to go back and edit your posts & Grimsby is in Lincolnshire not Yorkshire.
Brent
Back slaps all round my fellow Yorkshiremen! 
And so poor DIY Audio loses another thread to the objectivism vs subjectivism pit. So many threads end this way, it's very sad.
On the one hand you have your "the specs are worse/I can't see it on my scope or distortion analyser therefore it doesn't exist" crew, and on the other those who love music and DIY and spend countless hours chucking in expensive parts and elaborate power supplies etc.
Why the two sides can't live in harmony I don't know. And it always gets worse when somebody's selling something...
I now wish I'd never posted, even though I just wanted to help. And I'm not selling anything.
Simon
And so poor DIY Audio loses another thread to the objectivism vs subjectivism pit. So many threads end this way, it's very sad.
On the one hand you have your "the specs are worse/I can't see it on my scope or distortion analyser therefore it doesn't exist" crew, and on the other those who love music and DIY and spend countless hours chucking in expensive parts and elaborate power supplies etc.
Why the two sides can't live in harmony I don't know. And it always gets worse when somebody's selling something...
I now wish I'd never posted, even though I just wanted to help. And I'm not selling anything.
Simon
sq225917 said:
I find your tone offensive and condescending. My goal here is to help and have some fun, and you've managed to reduce both of those.
Simon
Please let's get back on-topic.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JNdseNOkE
Or at least have a laugh 😎
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=K4JNdseNOkE
Or at least have a laugh 😎
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