Using them as a transport
Most use the rare as chicken teeth KSS-151A laser, so forget those.
The only ones to get are the VRDS-7 VDRS-8 or the VRDS-T1 as they have lasers you can get new and cheap.
I have the later VRDS-7 bigger than the 8 and later than the T1.
But what's good is for transport use, just two connectors completely disable the dac section (circled in red) and remove it from the powersupply, then the whole lager power supply is then just for the transport and not shared with the dac.
Cheers George
Attachments
Always an interesting read.
There seems to be a rising interest for older drives and players, so I guess these old Teac/Esoteric/Krell/Spectral/Wadia/Copland machines are still interesting.
So, I decided to mod my Copland CDA-288 Mk. II which is even an SE version with k-dacs. It's made with a CMK-4,0 drive and matching Teac servoboard, and uses then Coplands own power supply board and converter/outout board + a modded display board and operation board. All that you know well.
I wanted to use a CMK-3,2 drive from one of my VRDS-10 players, as the laser is better, it also tuns on magnetic rails instead of a normal motor, and the hall motor for the spindle platter is far better and silent, and also uses a more stable cast aliminium/zinc platter. All that you surely also know
But there's not enough room inside the Copland because of space being limited both in width and height (downwards). The display on the Copland sits above the drive which is opposite to Teac, and there's not enough room for the special plastiv sub chassis. So I cut that down, and cut off some of the upper metal chassis and used the existinf two rear stays in the Copland outer case for the cmk-3,2 drives mounting rear,a dn made up two new chassis stays for the front of the cmk-3,2 drive.
I needed to solder in a few small connectors as Copland did to their Teac cmk-4,0 servo board, so I just copied those. Voila, it plays.
I then installed a P-70 upper drive (bridge and platter) and this is much better running and stable. Apart from my early mods such as a lot of bitumen damping all over, and two Jantzen 0,47uf condensators at the output and silver wires to the rca connectors on the rear.
After the compelte drive mod, the sound have opened up completely, much more space, seriously more detailed sound and far more dynamic (something that the standard version can lack a little bit. I know as I have two of those Coplands), and a pitch black silent background.
A really great difference. So something an still be done.
Now, i am not into electronics, so it's all on a trial and error basis. Next up is mods to the power supplies and servo boards, but only little at a time.
Any other mods that may have surfaced over the years are most wellcome.
Kind regards,
SFC1000.
There seems to be a rising interest for older drives and players, so I guess these old Teac/Esoteric/Krell/Spectral/Wadia/Copland machines are still interesting.
So, I decided to mod my Copland CDA-288 Mk. II which is even an SE version with k-dacs. It's made with a CMK-4,0 drive and matching Teac servoboard, and uses then Coplands own power supply board and converter/outout board + a modded display board and operation board. All that you know well.
I wanted to use a CMK-3,2 drive from one of my VRDS-10 players, as the laser is better, it also tuns on magnetic rails instead of a normal motor, and the hall motor for the spindle platter is far better and silent, and also uses a more stable cast aliminium/zinc platter. All that you surely also know
But there's not enough room inside the Copland because of space being limited both in width and height (downwards). The display on the Copland sits above the drive which is opposite to Teac, and there's not enough room for the special plastiv sub chassis. So I cut that down, and cut off some of the upper metal chassis and used the existinf two rear stays in the Copland outer case for the cmk-3,2 drives mounting rear,a dn made up two new chassis stays for the front of the cmk-3,2 drive.
I needed to solder in a few small connectors as Copland did to their Teac cmk-4,0 servo board, so I just copied those. Voila, it plays.
I then installed a P-70 upper drive (bridge and platter) and this is much better running and stable. Apart from my early mods such as a lot of bitumen damping all over, and two Jantzen 0,47uf condensators at the output and silver wires to the rca connectors on the rear.
After the compelte drive mod, the sound have opened up completely, much more space, seriously more detailed sound and far more dynamic (something that the standard version can lack a little bit. I know as I have two of those Coplands), and a pitch black silent background.
A really great difference. So something an still be done.
Now, i am not into electronics, so it's all on a trial and error basis. Next up is mods to the power supplies and servo boards, but only little at a time.
Any other mods that may have surfaced over the years are most wellcome.
Kind regards,
SFC1000.
Okay, so here's my edited post, as it timed out:
Always an interesting read.
There seems to be a rising interest for older drives and players, so I guess these old Teac/Esoteric/Krell/Spectral/Wadia/Copland etc. machines are still interesting.
So, I decided to mod my Copland CDA-288 Mk. II which is even an SE version with k-dacs. It's made with a CMK-4,0 drive and matching Teac servo board, and uses then Coplands own power supply board and converter/output board + a modded display board and operation board. All that you know well.
I wanted to use a CMK-3,2 drive from one of my VRDS-10 players, as the laser is better, it also tuns on magnetic rails instead of a normal motor, and the hall motor for the spindle platter is far better and silent, and also uses a more stable cast aluminium/zinc platter. All that you surely also know
But there's not enough room inside the Copland because of space being limited both in width and height (downwards). The display on the Copland sits above the drive which is opposite to Teac, and there's not enough room for the special plastic sub chassis. So I cut that down, and cut off some of the upper metal chassis and used the existing two rear stays in the Copland outer case for the cmk-3,2 drives mounting rear, and made up two new chassis stays for the front of the cmk-3,2 drive.
I needed to solder in a few small connectors as Copland did to their Teac cmk-4,0 servo board, so I just copied those. Voila, it plays.
I then installed a P-70 upper drive (bridge and platter) and this is much better running and stable. Apart from my early mods such as a lot of bitumen damping all over, A LClock XO and it's separate power supply, and two Jantzen 0,47uf condensators at the output and silver wires to the rca connectors on the rear.
After the complete drive mod, the sound have opened up completely, much more space, seriously more detailed sound and far more dynamic (something that the standard version can lack a little bit. I know as I have two of those Coplands), and a pitch black silent background.
A really great difference. So something an still be done.
Now, I am not into electronics, so it's all on a trial and error basis. Next up is mods to the power supplies and servo boards, but only little at a time.
I am now also working on mixing the best of the Teac/Esoteric drives, as I also have a Esoteric P2s drive, which has a supreme platter and bearing and shaft, compared to all other old type Teac/Esoteric drives. For example, the cmk-4,0 uses a plastic platter that may wobble and a 3mm platter axle.+ a normal old type motor. The cmk-3,2 used a hall coil motor and a 3mm axle and a cast aluminium zinc platter and two small bronze bearings for the axle shaft. The CMK-3,2-Super (as in Teac P-70 and Wadia 861SE and another Wadia model), uses a far more stable aluminium/zinc platter, but this time with less zinc, plus an inlay of bronze on the platter itself, plus a 4mm platter axle shaft and it's anodized green. But the Esoteric P2s drive uses a far more stable yet platter also in the same setup in materials, and a thicker platter in total, plus it's also green anodised, and this time it uses to much larger bronze bearings and a 6mm axle.
The axle shaft is taller on the P2s and I need to work out a solution for the top bearing which is normally lubricated with a bit of grease, and on the P-70 it's also running on to a layer of a teflon sheet. I imagine I'll copy what Teac did on the later VRDS-15, which uses a scaled down version of the upper bridge and on that, there is a bolted on square top axle shaft plate. The thick upper plate which is bolted on the the huge aluminium bridge on the p-70 drive, is made of stainless steel, so I'll copy that too.
It's worth noting, that on all the cast metal platter drives, there is the same hall motor, apart from an additional optical sensor for a servo on the P-70. But that optical sensor can be removed with no other ill effects when using in another type machine. And still same motor. No problems spinning up and down. The brakes are also the same on all cmk-models with this type of drive. The height of the bridge and platter of this Teac P-70 drive is the same as on say for example the Teac/Esoteric VRDS-10/10se/15/20/25/25x/25xs/P30/P500/P700/X-25/X-30/X-50/Wadia 860/860x/861/861SE/16/20/21/850/270/270SE/ and also while being a plastic drive, the cmk-4,0 and 4,0a as on for example Krell, Copland and Teac T-1/VRDS-7 etc. But NOT on say Teac P-10/P-1/P2/P2s/Spectral SDR-3000 etc, which also had belt drive for the tray and metal tray as well, as the cast parts of the chassis is different and protrudes up higher, therefore the upper bridge is cast lower, but still gives the same relation between platter and cd. Having had for example a Teac P-500, this one is a funny mix of the cmk-3,2 lower drive with magnetic rails and a propper kss-151a laser, and a cmk-4,0 upper bridge and platter, in the different version of sometimes black and sometimes green plastic platter and a simple square bent metal plate bridge. Teac only introduced the well made special sound and vibe dampening plastic bridge on the cmk-3,2 drive and upwards.
On some of the upper levels say for example the P-2s and the P-70, Teac also used a conical tap in metal, as opposed to plastic on most drives.
This all makes it somewhat interchangeable to a degree.
Any other mods that may have surfaced over the years are most welcome. I really want to get the most out of my Copland, but am not very knowledgable about electronics. I can solder, but not smd.
Kind regards,
SFC1000.
Always an interesting read.
There seems to be a rising interest for older drives and players, so I guess these old Teac/Esoteric/Krell/Spectral/Wadia/Copland etc. machines are still interesting.
So, I decided to mod my Copland CDA-288 Mk. II which is even an SE version with k-dacs. It's made with a CMK-4,0 drive and matching Teac servo board, and uses then Coplands own power supply board and converter/output board + a modded display board and operation board. All that you know well.
I wanted to use a CMK-3,2 drive from one of my VRDS-10 players, as the laser is better, it also tuns on magnetic rails instead of a normal motor, and the hall motor for the spindle platter is far better and silent, and also uses a more stable cast aluminium/zinc platter. All that you surely also know
But there's not enough room inside the Copland because of space being limited both in width and height (downwards). The display on the Copland sits above the drive which is opposite to Teac, and there's not enough room for the special plastic sub chassis. So I cut that down, and cut off some of the upper metal chassis and used the existing two rear stays in the Copland outer case for the cmk-3,2 drives mounting rear, and made up two new chassis stays for the front of the cmk-3,2 drive.
I needed to solder in a few small connectors as Copland did to their Teac cmk-4,0 servo board, so I just copied those. Voila, it plays.
I then installed a P-70 upper drive (bridge and platter) and this is much better running and stable. Apart from my early mods such as a lot of bitumen damping all over, A LClock XO and it's separate power supply, and two Jantzen 0,47uf condensators at the output and silver wires to the rca connectors on the rear.
After the complete drive mod, the sound have opened up completely, much more space, seriously more detailed sound and far more dynamic (something that the standard version can lack a little bit. I know as I have two of those Coplands), and a pitch black silent background.
A really great difference. So something an still be done.
Now, I am not into electronics, so it's all on a trial and error basis. Next up is mods to the power supplies and servo boards, but only little at a time.
I am now also working on mixing the best of the Teac/Esoteric drives, as I also have a Esoteric P2s drive, which has a supreme platter and bearing and shaft, compared to all other old type Teac/Esoteric drives. For example, the cmk-4,0 uses a plastic platter that may wobble and a 3mm platter axle.+ a normal old type motor. The cmk-3,2 used a hall coil motor and a 3mm axle and a cast aluminium zinc platter and two small bronze bearings for the axle shaft. The CMK-3,2-Super (as in Teac P-70 and Wadia 861SE and another Wadia model), uses a far more stable aluminium/zinc platter, but this time with less zinc, plus an inlay of bronze on the platter itself, plus a 4mm platter axle shaft and it's anodized green. But the Esoteric P2s drive uses a far more stable yet platter also in the same setup in materials, and a thicker platter in total, plus it's also green anodised, and this time it uses to much larger bronze bearings and a 6mm axle.
The axle shaft is taller on the P2s and I need to work out a solution for the top bearing which is normally lubricated with a bit of grease, and on the P-70 it's also running on to a layer of a teflon sheet. I imagine I'll copy what Teac did on the later VRDS-15, which uses a scaled down version of the upper bridge and on that, there is a bolted on square top axle shaft plate. The thick upper plate which is bolted on the the huge aluminium bridge on the p-70 drive, is made of stainless steel, so I'll copy that too.
It's worth noting, that on all the cast metal platter drives, there is the same hall motor, apart from an additional optical sensor for a servo on the P-70. But that optical sensor can be removed with no other ill effects when using in another type machine. And still same motor. No problems spinning up and down. The brakes are also the same on all cmk-models with this type of drive. The height of the bridge and platter of this Teac P-70 drive is the same as on say for example the Teac/Esoteric VRDS-10/10se/15/20/25/25x/25xs/P30/P500/P700/X-25/X-30/X-50/Wadia 860/860x/861/861SE/16/20/21/850/270/270SE/ and also while being a plastic drive, the cmk-4,0 and 4,0a as on for example Krell, Copland and Teac T-1/VRDS-7 etc. But NOT on say Teac P-10/P-1/P2/P2s/Spectral SDR-3000 etc, which also had belt drive for the tray and metal tray as well, as the cast parts of the chassis is different and protrudes up higher, therefore the upper bridge is cast lower, but still gives the same relation between platter and cd. Having had for example a Teac P-500, this one is a funny mix of the cmk-3,2 lower drive with magnetic rails and a propper kss-151a laser, and a cmk-4,0 upper bridge and platter, in the different version of sometimes black and sometimes green plastic platter and a simple square bent metal plate bridge. Teac only introduced the well made special sound and vibe dampening plastic bridge on the cmk-3,2 drive and upwards.
On some of the upper levels say for example the P-2s and the P-70, Teac also used a conical tap in metal, as opposed to plastic on most drives.
This all makes it somewhat interchangeable to a degree.
Any other mods that may have surfaced over the years are most welcome. I really want to get the most out of my Copland, but am not very knowledgable about electronics. I can solder, but not smd.
Kind regards,
SFC1000.
Last edited:
Okay, so I worked more on my heavily modded Copland cd player, and took a closer look at the thin metal sheet bent but not welded in corners, cable bridge that also serves as a stiffening connection between the drive and the double top plate chassis on the VRDS-10. As I mentioned, it's not welded in it's corners, so it's inherently flexy and wobbly.
This can be easily made better by welding it carefully around the open bent corners. Also, do a second screw each side to supplement the stability of footprint.
I chose a further step, by designing an as large and massive aluminium bridge, bolted to the upper chassis plate of the CMK-3,2-Super drive. This gave a very distinctive improvement in "deadness" of the whole drive and transmission of vibrations are heavily dampened. I spoke to a couple of friends who design these sort of things and this design works well. A small improvement in stability in sound and a darker background - more details. A little bit firmer sound. I'll say a little tightening up things, such as a firmer string on a guitar or a little bit firmer drumskin.
So, next step is to mimik the design of the Super drive CMK-3,2-S on say P-70, with it's teflon sheet and a 6mm stainless plate on top for further deadening any ringing etc. More on that and other mods later.
Cheers.
SFC1000
This can be easily made better by welding it carefully around the open bent corners. Also, do a second screw each side to supplement the stability of footprint.
I chose a further step, by designing an as large and massive aluminium bridge, bolted to the upper chassis plate of the CMK-3,2-Super drive. This gave a very distinctive improvement in "deadness" of the whole drive and transmission of vibrations are heavily dampened. I spoke to a couple of friends who design these sort of things and this design works well. A small improvement in stability in sound and a darker background - more details. A little bit firmer sound. I'll say a little tightening up things, such as a firmer string on a guitar or a little bit firmer drumskin.
So, next step is to mimik the design of the Super drive CMK-3,2-S on say P-70, with it's teflon sheet and a 6mm stainless plate on top for further deadening any ringing etc. More on that and other mods later.
Cheers.
SFC1000
Right, so it's been a while. I have now modified the extra heavy aluminium bridge that I made earlier on, to entail the same dampening as the P70/Wadia 861SE drive, so that there is in effect a very efficient dampening sandwich consisting of the heavy aluminium bridge below, then a 1,5mm teflon sheet cut so size in the middle, and on top a 6mm piece of machined hardened stainless steel. Bolted together exactly as Teac did it on their drive.
Sound has become another level, and bass is very very deep and more precise. Treble is full of details and not at all tiring. Voices are just mesmerizing. Overall soundstage has become a little big bigger and more black in background. But the most present feature in sound on the change to the drive, is the attack, transients. They are really seriously fast. A kick on a drum or a fast guitar rif, is so super fast. A very very good machine now.
I can highly recommend all these rebuilding things if you can access a P70/Wadia 861SE drive or just the upper part of it, and of course the rest of the CMK 3,2 drive and then the accompanying servo board from Teac. Remember to make it play, you have to solder in 3 little legs to circumfer the filter at the connection of the Teac servo board. If in doubt, just PM me, and I will help.
Very highly recommended.
I will now concentrate for a while on making some shielding for the transformers on the left side of the Copland CDA-288, and then some grounding mods.
I will report back once it's done and I've listened a great deal to it.
Kind regards,
Redfox.
Sound has become another level, and bass is very very deep and more precise. Treble is full of details and not at all tiring. Voices are just mesmerizing. Overall soundstage has become a little big bigger and more black in background. But the most present feature in sound on the change to the drive, is the attack, transients. They are really seriously fast. A kick on a drum or a fast guitar rif, is so super fast. A very very good machine now.
I can highly recommend all these rebuilding things if you can access a P70/Wadia 861SE drive or just the upper part of it, and of course the rest of the CMK 3,2 drive and then the accompanying servo board from Teac. Remember to make it play, you have to solder in 3 little legs to circumfer the filter at the connection of the Teac servo board. If in doubt, just PM me, and I will help.
Very highly recommended.
I will now concentrate for a while on making some shielding for the transformers on the left side of the Copland CDA-288, and then some grounding mods.
I will report back once it's done and I've listened a great deal to it.
Kind regards,
Redfox.