Review of Tosh 3960 using Swenson mods

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Here is a non audiophile review of the Toshiba 3960 before and after modifications. Please note that I have never heard a mega buck CD player. Using with a Denon AVR 3300 and a pair of Jordan JX92S in BL horns. Very revealing speakers.
- Out of the box - very cheap build quality, the case is the cheapest piece of junk that I've ever seen. The sound not horrible but kind of fuzzy and lacking detail. The transport vibrates a lot. Compared to my Onkyo DX-C370 it was clearly inferior. The Onkyo has no transport vibration at all, and clearly had greater clarity, and resolution.
- After ~ 40 hrs - Sound quality improved a bit, sounds smooth, not bad for 60 bucks. Transport vibration has disappeared except when on track 1, track 1 vibration is much less than it was originally. Still lacking detail but not so fuzzy. Still inferior to DX-C370, although seems to have a lower noise floor.
- After changing to a ceramic fuse - I couldn't hear any difference.
- After dampening crystal with mortite - I couldn't hear any difference.
- After Swenson mod - Used 0.47 uF Audio Cap theta film/foil caps, and 300 pF mica. caps directly wired from board to new RCA jacks installed on back of player. Smoother with more detail immediately. After ~ 20 hrs breakin clearly better than DX-C370. The Onkyo sounds hard and kind of brittle in comparison.
- After mounting on a heavy base - Since the player case is so cheap I decised to mount it on a base made out of a 1 1/2 thick piece of heavy yellow pine that I had laying around. I put soft rubber feet on the base, and mounted the player to the base in a bed of siliconized latex caulk. I cut a hole through the base so the ventilation holes on the bottom of the case wouldn't be blocked. I tried to make sure that the entire bottom of the player was glued securely to the base. I also dampened the top by sticking two layers of self adheisive floor tile to the outside of the top. There didn't seem to be enough room to apply the tiles to the inside. The whole assembly is very heavy and solid now. I don't know if it was the extra break in time on the caps or not, but after mounting the sound was much better. Very smooth, very black background, better clarity, and detail. The base also seemed to improved a lot. Now the sound is clearly much better than the Onkyo. It's a lot of fun to listen to. Even my wife, who thought I was crazy doing these changes, could clearly hear the difference. When I switched back to the Onkyo she actually looked up from her glass of wine and asked what was wrong with the CD player.
I also picked up a Toshiba 4900 for 60 bucks, much better build quality on the case, and has a much better display. Sounds about the same as the 3960. The internal build quality is about the same.
Many thanks to John Swenson for a fun and very worthwhile project.

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Topic - Review of Tosh 3960 using Swenson mods - PJN 07:50:22 05/10/04 (4)

info on 4900 - John Swenson 20:15:05 05/10/04 (2)

Re: info on 4900 - Johnnybravo 07:03:49 05/12/04 (0)

Re: info on 4900 - PJN 05:37:41 05/11/04 (0)

Re: Review of Tosh 3960 using Swenson mods - tianguis 16:54:32 05/10/04 (0)

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