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Hi-Rez Highway: REVIEW: Sony SCD-CE775 CD Player/Recorder by germanium20@msn.com

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REVIEW: Sony SCD-CE775 CD Player/Recorder

141.154.68.61


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Model: SCD-CE775
Category: CD Player/Recorder
Suggested Retail Price: $199.95
Description: Modified by SACDmods.com
Manufacturer URL: Sony
Manufacturer URL: Sony

Review by germanium20@msn.com ( A ) on July 24, 2003 at 07:58:52
IP Address: 141.154.68.61
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for the SCD-CE775


I bought this player when I was living in Seattle Wa. from Magnolia Hi-Fi about 1 1/2 years ago for 200 dollars. It has been a very good player but felt it was a little muffled all around initialy & break-in didn't seem to do much to help though the sound did smooth out some. On CD it was somewhat coarse sounding yet muffled at the same time. Intruments that should have a quality that pierces didn't yet other intruments like cymbles sounded coarse on CD & lacking in dimention & air & on SACD was smooth but also lacking in the quality that makes a cymble sound like a cymble (the mettalic sound was completely gone replaced by white noise which some have accused this as being the SACD sound but I for one was not convinced this was the case as DSD has vastly superior impulse response). As you will see later that this is indeed not the case when modified.

One of the reasones I bought this unit was the potential I heard in it as even stock one could hear the difference btween CD & SACD so it appeared a good candidate for modification to bring out the best at a reasonable cost.

The first thing I did was direct couple the output and made my own low capacitance interconnects. This helped temendously & I left it that way for about a year then about 1&1/2 months ago I decided to go for the gusto & extract everything that could be extracted from my recordings so I went to Burr Browns site (the maker of the DAC's now owned by Texas Instruments) & found all the information about the DAC's that I needed to know in order to make the modifications that I wanted. I would have liked to direct couple from the DAC to the buffer amp/ filter but that was out of the question as I would have had to add more circuitry to do that so I ordered a couple of 10 uf metalyzed film caps for that location(though considerable smaller in value than the electrolytic cap it replaced it was still large enough to prevent any loss of bass response given it's load).this brought up the fact that the filter configuration was not very good as the lower mids sounded slightly muffled but the upper mids on up were overly lively telling me that this was the effect of the positive feedback loop that was being used to maintain flatness in the audio band. So I removed the filter the put a 6db/oct passive filter in place of the 18db/oct active filter that was there. this made the sound very consistant throughout the audio band as well as opened up the soundstage plus now the cymbles sounded like they are supposed to on SACD (that is they had a true metalic shimmer to them that the lacked before, not the white noise the the DSD naysayers claim to be part of the DSD sound which I never believed was true as DSD has vastly superior impulse response even to 24bit/192KHz sample PCM). By the way don't be fooled by the system specs down below as this is a very revealing system & has many properties the even some very high end systems lack & believe me I heard many of them when I was living in Seattle Wa..


Product Weakness: Front panel flimsy,do not stack heavy object on player especially toward front as the drawer may not open if you do
Product Strengths: Very good DAC's considering cost & reasonable build quality again considering cost, standard (non-swithing)power supply


Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier: Amps integrated into subwoofer cabinate Modified
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): none
Sources (CDP/Turntable): CD/Sacd & computer sound card unmodified
Speakers: Modified Klipsch KSB1.1 92db@1watt plusAltec Lansing 641sub with built in amplifiers for sub & sattilites, sattilite amps have been modified 30watt/channel for sattilites, 100 watts for sub, speaker are used as nearfield monitors
Cables/Interconnects: Homemade Very low capcitance interconnects & Monster Cable Standard 16 gauge zip cord for sattelites
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Mostly Jazz,Jeff Beck-Blow By Blow'Rabecca Pigeon-The Raven, Stevie Ray Vaughan-Texas Flood, Various-Celebrating The Music Of Weather Report,Jacintha Autumn Leaves for high resolution sorces & several classical, pop & jazz CD's too many to mention
Time Period/Length of Audition: 1&1/2 years
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner




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Topic - REVIEW: Sony SCD-CE775 CD Player/Recorder - germanium20@msn.com 07:58:52 07/24/03 ( 12)