Digital Drive

Posted by Charles Hansen (M) on May 12, 2008 at 21:43:53

In Reply to: RE: Shocking revelations! posted by racerguy on May 12, 2008 at 08:01:10

The original topic of the thread was the Edge CD player. The picture posted was apparently from a Taiwanese magazine of an Edge CD player with the top cover removed. From the picture it appeared that the Edge CD player consisted of a:

a) A completely stock DVD player of unknown origin. (NB -- the thread established that the Goldumund used a Pioneer player, but it was not clear that the Edge did also.)

b) A toroidal transformer worth at most $50, of unknown function. It appeared that the DVD player's switching power supply was intact, so perhaps the transformer was being used as an isolation transformer.

c) A pair of gold-plated RCA jacks connected to the stock DVD PCB with coaxial cable.

d) A nice looking aluminum chassis.

On the surface, it looks like a customer would paying a lot of extra money for the Edge CD player with not much in return. If I were affiliated with Edge, I would be beyond embarrassed to have this photo available to the general public.

However, appearances can be deceiving. It is possible that there is more than meets the eye here. The Goldmund player (that was the main topic of the linked thread) also looked to be a similar waste of money. However, elsewhere on the thread there was a picture of the modifications performed to the transport.

In those photos it appeared that many of the main plastic mechanical parts of the transport mechanism were replaced with metal ones. In addition, the Goldmund player has a clever disc damping mechanism that utilizes a powerful magnet to set up an eddy current in the rotating disc. Apparently these modifications make a significant improvement in the sound quality, especially if we are to believe a later post in the thread where a customer actually compared the sound of the Goldmund and the stock Pioneer and found the Goldmund to be markedly superior. It is up to the customer to determine whether or not the improvements made are worth the extra money, either from a performance standpoint or a cost of materials standpoint. (I must admit that, at least on the surface, the photos don't make a strong case for the Goldmund.)

As far as your list of other players is concerned, it appears to me that it is designed more to provoke arguments than to resolve questions. In contrast, this post is instead designed to resolve questions by providing facts. I cannot provide 100% of all the facts for all of these players, as I did not design every single one of these products. However, I am in a position to know much more about these products than just about anyone out there. If I make any mistakes in this post, I strongly welcome corrections from those people who *know* the answers (eg, Steve McCormack with regards to the McCormack player). However, ad hoc attacks from end users without direct evidence will be ignored.

I will attempt to shorten this post by grouping similar products. These products will be based in ascending order of my estimation of changes from the stock DVD players they are based upon:

Edge -- this appears to have the least number of changes. Other than a power transformer and a pair of gold-plated jacks, it appears to simply be a cheap DVD player in an expensive chassis.

Lexicon -- made two models, the RT-10 and the RT-20. These were actually based on Marantz players, not Pioneer players. In the case of the RT-10, the differences between the Marantz and the corresponding Pioneer were minimal. However, in the case of the RT-20, the Marantz had a completely different analog output stage using the "HDAM" modules. But unfortunately for the unwitting consumer, the differences between the Lexicon and the Marantz were quite small -- the Lexicon had a couple of extra small PCB's that added an AES/EBU digital audio output and an RGB video output. (And of course, the thick aluminum front panel also.) But there was absolutely nothing that made any difference from a performance standpoint.

Goldmund -- the Goldmund added a power transformer that apparently was used to isolate the audio power supply from the digital power supply. In addition, the aforementioned modifications were made to the transport mechanism. However, the stock switching power supply was also retained.

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EDIT!
My description of the Esoteric DV-50 was in error, and thus the ranking of degrees of modification was also incorrect. Please refer to the post below correcting these errors.
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Esoteric -- the earlier DV-50 was essentially a stock Pioneer but with a linear power supply replacing the switching power supply. The later DV-60 and all of the more expensive models apparently used their own transports. Some of these transports are *extremely* sophisticated and redefine the state-of-the-art, while others (such as in the DV-60) appear to offer very little in the way of new technology. While the electrical design of the Esoterics were based around the MPEG decoder used in the Pioneer models, these probably qualify as true "ground-up" designs (except for the DV-50).

Muse -- most Muse DVD players actually used Panasonic units as the basis for construction. Only a few of the latest models used a Pioneer, but it was a less expensive model (eg, DV-578) compared to the more expensive Pioneer that most specialty manufacturers used (eg, DV-45). As far as I know, the Muse players used the stock video circuitry but replaced the switching power supply with a linear power supply, replaced the clock with their own clock, and replaced all of the audio circuitry after the DAC chip. I am not sure if the DAC chip was replaced or not.

Bel Canto, Sim Audio, McCormack -- all of these units were made the same sub-contractor that used to make Theta disc players. They all used the Pioneeer DV-45 as their base mechanism. They all used a separate linear power supply for the audio circuitry, but retained the stock switching power supply to power everything else. I don't know if the clock was changed or the stock one was used. I believe that some of these models may used different video circuitry. For example, this sub-contractor also made a variant that was sold under the Faroudja brand name that included a Faroudja-designed video deinterlacing board. I believe that each of these companies had their own variations on the analog audio circuitry used.

Ayre -- as Racerguy well knows (since he owned one and still does as far as I know) the Ayre uses far less of the Pioneer parts than any other high end universal player ever made. Specifically only five parts are retained -- the transport mechanism (slightly modified), the MPEG decoder PCB (slightly modified), the SACD decoder PCB (unmodified), the display tube (unmodified) and the microprocessor (slightly modified) used to drive the display tube. New parts of completely original design include not just the chassis, but also the master clock, two new linear power supplies with regulators (one for the digital section and one for the analog section), the controller PCB, the digital filter, the DAC, the analog circuitry, and the remote control.

I will gladly put our unit up against any other competing unit in this regard. While it is true that there are a handful of parts that are common to many of the above listed units, upon examination, it is obvious that the Ayre is in a completely different class than any of the other units when it comes to designing a new product versus repackaging a cheap unit in an expensive box (or anywhere in between).

(The only product I am not familiar with is the Integra. To the best of my knowledge, it does not use the Pioneer platform, but I could be wrong about this.)

Edits: 05/13/08