Hi-Rez Highway: REVIEW: Tube Research Labs Sony CE-775 SACD Player (Modded) by tcell

Model:	Sony CE-775
Category:	SACD Player (Modded)
Suggested Retail Price:	$550 for mod
Description:	modified CD/SACD player
Manufacturer URL:	Tube Research Labs
Manufacturer URL:	Tube Research Labs

Review by tcell ( A ) on December 07, 2004 at 19:01:17
IP Address: 69.137.41.242

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for the Sony CE-775

Background: I got my stock 775 for $89 as a Best Buy demo unit 1.5 yrs ago, as a way to see what all the hi-rez fuss was about. Well, it played CDs reasonably well- decent detail, not particularly fatiguing. But it was no star. I bought a few SACDs that the asylum community raved about. To be honest, I couldn't really tell that much difference between the Redbook and DSD layers. I sat around waiting to see how SACD would fare as a format. I'm still not sure about that, but I decided I wanted to have a dedicated SACD player for the short term.
I looked at sacdmods.com and TRL (tuberesearchlabs.com), both of which have been discussed on the asylum. I emailed a few inmates and decided to call Paul Weitzel of TRL himself. Paul is a gentleman, and a very interesting person. Besides his audio equipment offerings, he told me about his recordings (fidelisrecords.com), his work on digital technology for MRI machines for medical applications, and personal computer design. He wouldn't give the absolute nitty-gritty about his mod, but said that much of it involved very specific changes to the digital circuits that, because of his digital circuit expertise in many areas, he had found to work wonders with these players. I said to myself, what the heck. I shipped it out. Paul emailed me when he got the unit, and modded it and returned it within the same week (I used 2-day fed-ex). He telephoned me to make sure I got it in one piece, and he was very interested in discussing what I thought of the changes. He was always friendly and happy to allow the conversation to take its own course.
Anyway, out of the box I noted he had replaced the stock power cord with an IEC. Without my asking, Paul had sent some of his Fidelis recordings gratis, including a commercially packaged disc of Astor Piazzolla stuff, and some stuff on CD-R that is in progress. Very cool. I started her up and noticed immediately more detail than I remembered from stock. Over two weeks things "opened up" and soundstage widened and deepened. The unit is quite detailed, but not edgy or sibilant. The key is NOWI can hear the openness of SACD over Redbook. SACD has increased air around instruments, as I had been reading on the asylum for years. The Redbook fared reasonably well against my Ayre CX-7. The 775 was a little less black in background and a touch less detailed, but the musicality is there.
I decided to open up the unit to see what I could see about Paul's work. Some dampening had been added to the chassis. Many of the digital components and circuit tracings had some gooey damping compound on them, to the extent that not all of the chips could be seen anymore. I compared this to pictures I had taken of the stock unit, and saw that not much in the way of passive components had been changed.
I called Paul to discuss everything. He said that some of the reason for the goop was to prevent people from copying his circuit alterations. He mentioned changes to the circuit around the clock chip. He also volunteered the information that if I dared to entirely remove the transport, I would see additional circuit changes he makes to the transport control circuit.
My overall experience is excellent. This is a good value mod. My discussions with others who have done it, my discussions with Paul, and of course my own ears, tell me that I did a good thing. Of course, if I wanted to spend a thousand bucks more I could get black gates in the power supply, a tube output stage, etc., but I am happy with my total investment of $750 + shipping! I will now wait out the SACD situation happily with a fine SACD player.

Product Weakness: OK, I don't REALLY know what he did to the circuits, but so what
Product Strengths: Relatively inexpensive mod with dramatic changes from stock

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	Bottlehead paramours
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Bottlehead foreplay
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Ayre CX-7
Speakers:	Bottlehead Straight 8's
Cables/Interconnects:	Mapleshade, homebrew
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Rock, classical, jazz
Room Size (LxWxH):	18 x 11 x 9
Room Comments/Treatments:	bass traps
Time Period/Length of Audition:	3 weeks
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	Audioquest power cord
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

Product Weakness:	OK, I don't REALLY know what he did to the circuits, but so what
Product Strengths:	Relatively inexpensive mod with dramatic changes from stock