Thread: Vacuum State Electronics

Posts: 60
Page: prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 next

Post by sordidman January 13, 2012 (21 of 60)
hiredfox said:

Horses for courses as they say. Of course RB is an after-thought


The VSE modified Sony CDP 555ES is in my view is very close to being the equal of those older machines both having spent time in my system before the light shone down.

1. Yeah, and it's the other way around for the SOTA manufacturers as they do not suffer compared to the Sony when playing SACDs, - but NEED to have better redbook, as comparatively, - there are very few SACDs.


2. Yeah... I wouldn't disagree with your experience at all. However, - one still has the Sony crap transport to contend with. And as you get up to those top tier players, they make a point of getting a good, (and in the case of Esoteric: the very best transport), - that they can. That SOTA Esoteric transport, VRDS-NEO is A-Mazing.
AND..... I disagree as to "as good as the format would allow" as we've seen with the Esoteric transport, - it takes both SACD and redbook up to whole other level. If you've heard an Universal player with and without the VRDS-NEO, - it would be clear that both redbook and SACD playback can be improved.

Post by sordidman January 13, 2012 (22 of 60)
Uh... no....

Sony had to build and design a player that does both formats to show off how much better SACD is than redbook so that they could "up-sell" and over-exaggerate. Their "straw-man" was seen as a true straw man once the SOTA manufacturers and modders brought the Sony players into a real world context, by building players that had "better" redbook sections that made redbook discs on their players sound much better than on the Sony players.

The other manufacturers who were making great universal players, couldn't and can't afford to build players that are so exclusive, that only a small minority of audiophiles, (classical music listeners), would buy them.

Further evidence and corroboration of these facts are clear with the low-end and mid-end Denon, Pioneer, Yamaha, Xindak (sub-$1000 Sony), etc. universal players that were/are total junk. With these low-end players, the SACD sections sound little better than one's average lower tier, ($1500-$2000), high end redbook only players, - like the Jolida, Audio Aero, Arcam, etc....

Even Marantz,- which is/was a Sony puppy dog, had to break down and improve their redbook section on their SA series. As we've seen, the differences between the Marantz SA11 and the SA11(b) or mark two, - is dramatic for redbook playback.

An SACD only player, - has no market.

Post by sordidman January 13, 2012 (23 of 60)
hiredfox said:

The answer to that Paul is until the quality of downloads matches what you get off disc but don't hold your breath.

and quantity....

Right now at least, - there aren't very many....

Post by Paul January 13, 2012 (24 of 60)
Hm. I rather like the top-loading Sony but looking around for spare sled motors and lasers, in case mine die, I've not been able to find them at all. A little wary of putting coin into my player when I cannot find basic repair parts like that. May just run it into the ground and look around for a replacement if/when that happens.

Post by DSD January 14, 2012 (25 of 60)
Arnaldo I agree the Terra Firma Lite clock mod offers the biggest improvements with SACDs and DVD-Audios. Improvements with CDs were much smaller, they were a little easier to listen to with only the most strident ones being unbearable. If one doesn't like CD this mod won't likely change their mind.

Of course everything I have ever tried improved high resolution MORE than it did low resolution, tubes, surface treatments, green pens, mats, etc.

I will say before 24/96 DVDs came out in 1995, HDCDs from Reference Recordings, Linn and FIM offered at the time acceptable sound when correctly decoded, however many HDCDs didn't sound any better than CDs as they didn't use the full HDCD process. Encoded correctly HDCD effectively gave one real 20 bit resolution in a 16 bit format by perceptual coding in the LSB. However HDCD correctly decoded is no longer good enough for me for listening to music, and CD was never an option and I have heard audiophile CDs on expensive players such as Ayre, Cary Audio and others. DSD and high quality analog recorded SACDs on high-end, mid-fi and even many low-end players sounds considerably better!

Post by rammiepie January 14, 2012 (26 of 60)
Les McCann and Eddie Harris recorded a classic jazz dittie entitled "Compared To What" and my question is once one obtains the full VSE bells and whistles upgrades (is it really $4800????) what level of upgrade are we talking about.

For instance, is the 5400ES upgrade equivalent to, let's say a Marantz SA112s which one can buy new for under $3000 (and lets not forget that in SACD playback the Sa112s IS equivalent to the SA7........

Since these upgrades do little for RBCD playback and for those who prize multichannel, the HDMI output, it seems to ONLY significantly benefit stereo playback.

On their website, VSE has stated that it has had great success in upgrading the OPPO BDP~83 and 83 SE.......But I wonder if these upgrades would compare with let's say the newer "stock" OPPO BDP~95 ($999 US).

Since I have never dealt with a VSE upgrade, I do plead ignorance, but of the many posters on this website has anyone ever compared any of the above stock units to a fully~loaded VSE mod?

And really 'n truly........if one is interested in state of the art redbook CD playback......I would seriously consider the bare basic Meridian SooLoos which is pretty amazing and IS capable of receiving 96/24 stereo downloads from an IMAC Pro or equivalent computer.....and is remote controllable from an Ipad (either 1 or 2)

Post by Paul January 14, 2012 (27 of 60)
That's my main concern--I've not had a chance to listen, back to back, a stock and VSE modded deck. It could well be that I'd be blown away and would immediately order the upgrades or it could be that I'd hear next to no difference, or that I would hear some difference but not twice what I paid for the deck in the first place, nor what might be had from a newer deck, even a cheaper one like an Oppo.

Post by stvnharr January 15, 2012 (28 of 60)
This thread is kind of going nowhere now as few are familiar with the VSE modifications package.
The VSE modification package is essentially the installation of a completely new analog output stage with some parts modifications to the analog psu. The packages for the early Sony players were tailored for the VC24 chip that Sony used in the SCD-1, SCD777ES, and SCD555ES (Euro). Allen and Joe spent a lot of time designing this output stage. By all indications from satisfied customers it is a good package.
All music played thru the player benefits from this as is applies to all music. RBCD is not "helped" more than sacd, though some might think the improvement in rbcd performance is more than with sacd, but that may depend on what the listener listens to.

As to the clock part of the package, the TF clock again is applied to everything that is read by the laser. The TF lite clock differs from other aftermarket clocks in that there is a lot of power supply filtering in the design, which gives a slight performance improvement over other aftermarket clocks. I've used clocks from Audiocom, Tent, and the VSE TF lite. The VSE clock is just a wee bit of an improvement over the others. This has been my experience.

However, as far as performance improvements in players go, the installation of a completely new analog output stage into these mass market players gives by far the biggest improvement of anything. A clock, and the VSE clock, just adds a wee bit to get the last bit of improvement. A clock is really just the last piece of the puzzle.

I have Marantz players, 3 of them all SA-8260's. They all have the same new output stage that is a composite design from several designers and my own implementation. The players all differ in the clocks in them, one has VSE, one has Audiocom, and one has the stock clock. The difference between the players is slight. I have done enough A/B comparisons to know.

When I bought the first 8260, many years ago now, it was a real mixed bag compared to my BAT VK-D5SE 24 player. Sacd performance was pretty close with the BAT. Rbcd with the Marantz was just typical of a low cost cd player, in other words, dreadful. I long ago sold the BAT player. I think it would be interesting to do the same comparison now. The rbcd performance in my 8260's is very very close to the sacd performance.

Modifications are not for everyone as if you cannot do things yourself, as I can, it gets quite expensive real quickly, and one can approach the cost of a more properly designed player. And the modification packages are pretty much just for 2 channel players, now that all mch players are using HDMI.

But if you luck into something as HF has recently done, it just makes sense to add the last piece of the package.

Post by rammiepie January 15, 2012 (29 of 60)
Stvnharr, VERY sound advice.

Post by stvnharr January 15, 2012 (30 of 60)
rammiepie said:

Stvnharr, VERY sound advice.

Well, only the last sentence had any advice in it.

I think it could be said that the days of modifying players has kind of passed on by. In the past 5 years there just haven't been many low cost stereo players that could benefit from this other than the now discontinued Sony 5400 and the Oppo 83, both of which also have HDMI for mch. The expensive stereo sacd players are all pretty well designed from the get go.

Page: prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 next

Closed