Marantz CD63 & CD67 mods list

From experience, neither eye patterns look good.

Indeed so, something really does look amiss with those. Its as if the lower part is 'crushed' and it makes it look very non linear in the horizontal axis.

Could it be leakage in the photo diode array of the pickup I wonder?

The time period from the tip of the sine to the bottom seems longer than from the bottom to the top, very strange indeed. I can't think of anything other than an optical/photo electrical problem could do that.

Compare it to this which is from my old Sony thread.

Screenshot 2024-09-21 140618.png
 
Hi Brakspear75,
Very interesting.

What this actually means is that they didn't get the servo time constants right. The added weight is the cheapest "fix". Anyone who knows Philips will not be surprised.

Thanks Karl, Exactly.
Your eye pattern appears as it should.

Something is off downstream for sure. Check DC voltages and also for supply noise.
 
With my CD 67 OSE, all I did was sticking some non smelly, heavy self sticking damping pad on the top of the cover. Anything else is just fine as is. I had quite a collection of Maranz CD player and it was the one I like best. Why? HADAM? I don't know. Just my ears that say so. There was a Marantz DVD player that came quite close to it, which was very surprising. DVD player are supposed to sound bad. It died quite young and I don't remember the model, but from the same time like the 67 OSE.
I modified my 67 OSE and after much use the laser died. I still have the OSE and will replace the laser when one is a available.
 
Take good pictures of every step while removing the drive. Then look at eBay and the like for a matching unit. These should be easy to get. Look for CDM12.1
The rubber belt for opening and closing the bay should be replaced in any case, it get's hard and slips. The result is all kinds of drive problems.
 
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Hi,
I am new here on this forum and 1072 pages late on this mod party.
I also have the Marantz 63 mk2 Ki.
I have not so much experience in electronics, but can handle a soldering iron.
So far I have:
-Disabled the headphone circuit
-removed the mute transistors
-removed the dc blocking caps and jump wired the spaces.

I think my next step will be to upgrade the two 2114D opamps for two LME49720
or whatever you suggest me, before I will try to bypass the HDAM.

My question for now: do I order just two simple 8 pin IC sockets for the opamps.
Just solder them in and that’s it? And then put in the two new opamps?

Greeting Hans
 
Hi hatimmokum,
Congratulations. You have impaired your CD player. Removing the HDAM merely completes the destruction - but hey! Whatever you read on the internet must be true - right?

Sockets should be avoided for op amps. There are very good reasons for this. THe op amps supplied are very good, the ones you are thinking of perform so far beyond what is needed, they are merely a waste of money. At least these are good parts.

  • The headphone circuit wasn't causing you any problems
  • The mute transistors can go bad, but that causes distortion. If you're really opposed to muting transistors you should have installed a relay.
  • Removing the DC blocking capacitors made no difference in distortion or sound quality, but did remove protection from DC.

One thing people need to understand is that most of the time, manufacturers will not put parts in a circuit that aren't needed for a good reason. These circuits are commonly used by all manufacturers. Guess why?

I was trained at Marantz and did warranty from before the very first CD player. Before operating a soldering iron (this goes for everyone), you should understand what you are doing. I don't mean the procedure, I mean the actual effects for real. What are you trying to accomplish, and is what you are doing really going to accomplish your goal? In your case, the answer is a resounding NO.

The people recommending these things are not engineers, not real ones anyway. So why do you think they know more than the people who designed the product?
 
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I am new here on this forum and 1072 pages late on this mod party.
Well, then you have something to read during the Christmas holidays 🙂
I arrived rather late also in this thread (quite many years ago) but read all the posts existing at that time. Took me about 3 weeks.

Back to the topic - you can take anatech point of view and you can take alternative points of view - I would actually recommend having two players of same type, one for test and the other for reference.
If you do not want work through all the 1072 pages then some later photos of mine are on page 1070.
No, you can not just start swapping the opamps, the common precaution is 100nF capacitor between power rails (under the board is most convenient place).
Personally I have never had any practical problems with opamp sockets, these need to be good ones (gold plated and turned) and give you the chance of opamp rolling.

The modding world is wide, up to you what you want to test there...
 
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Yes, keep a reference. It would help a lot if you could actually measure performance. Audio memory isn't good, and what's in your head will greatly influence what you think you hear.

Hi madis64,
Sockets increase capacitance between leads, and reduce heat transfer to the PCB. This isn't always important in every circuit or layout, but it can cause problems. If you use inexpensive sockets ... well that is counterproductive as you pointed out.

My biggest issue with modding is I see lot's of damaged equipment. The ones not damaged typically perform worse than stock. At best, normally they just spent a lot of money with no change in performance. Can performance be improved? Sometimes yes it can, audibly so (not just measured). But when performance has been improved, it doesn't involve what you read on the net.

You know how to really improve the sound quality? Have it aligned.
 
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There is a thing about IC sockets: They don't like to be used very often. If you insert an IC's into one and then extract it, each time some material is lost. After a limited time of insertion/ extraction circles the socket looses it's clamping power and the function gets unreliable.
I used nice, turned and gold plated sockets to test a load of IC's and noticed this after a while. So for endless OP amp rolling, take this into concideration.
Just compare such a socket to a soldered IC.
 
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i have a small problem with unbalanced output on a CD-63SE
Left channel is much weaker than right one.
I poked around a bit with my scope and it seems the problem might be around the op amp.

I checked the voltages according to service manual and in the right channel the voltages around the op-amp are ok.
Left channel pin 1 has -3,4V instead 0,0 and pin 7 has +3,4V instead 0,0

Does anybody know what might be wrong here ?

br
Chris

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