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I have been experimenting with my stock (March 2004) 3960 as a transport for dubbing CD's to my Tascam CDR-750 using a direct coax digital connection. (My SACD-1000 does not support digital out for 2-channel audio - unfortunately)You might be surprised at one of my discoveries.
First, I copied to a Sony CDR. Second, to a Mitsui Silver. Third, again to a Mitsui Silver but with one minor difference.
Following the advice of Pierre Sprey (Mapleshade) I placed some hardwood "buttons" under the Toshiba. The only weight on top is my little Beethoven Bust. (I had tried some Herbie's Feet but the 3960 got the "shakes")
First, the Mitsui is dramatically superior to the Sony. BUT - the real surprise was the very substantial improvement wrought by the "buttons". The result was very close to the original.
Also - listening to the Tosh for straight playback with the Tascam as a DAC, (with the buttons in place) the sound was very, very close to my Philips SACD-1000 (Yeah, I know - but this one had the chips replaced by Alex).
Thought you might find this extremely cheap tweak of some interest.
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
Follow Ups:
why don't you do digitally accurate copies on a computer? EAC is free, CD-R drives are about $30 max. Just a thought - dubbing CDs from transport to whatever device makes little sense these days.
a CDRW on my Computer and have often used it for this - perhaps that's still the best answer (?)
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
it's definitely better than anything going through an SPDIF interface. You're just recording all the jitter on the other side, especially if it hasn't been optimized (BNC connectors, long high grade 75 ohm cable, possibly output transformer on the source side, etc).Computers don't deal with the content in real-time so they are not really likely to pick up any jitter in the copy process. Actually, copies done right may sound better than the original, given those are stamped in molds that eventually will get grimy and produce inferior copies, just like vinyl used to get worse and worse with the number of copies made from a master.
Peter
According to the folks at Benchmark. Or at least not the sample 3960 they tested on their scope. They were using a cheap Panasonic at the Show.
- This signature is two channel only -
Did Benchmark test any other units similarly? Did they publish their findings somewhere? Couldn't find anything about bit-perfect transports on their site.
There was a thread at head-fi where someone recorded the output of the Toshiba and found the same thing - not bit-perfect. This one *seemed* to be applying the de-emphasis curve (or maybe the emphasis curve - I'm not sure which way it goes). Since you should never apply the curve at the transport, this is odd to say the least (to say nothing of the fact that the CD didn't use emphasis).
Once again, this was a single-sample test, so who knows how widespread it is. I have one upstairs but it's for dvd only, and I haven't been motivated enough to check.
Not entirely sure what that means but - I am using it for simple copies of CD's which are not super critical. My primary interest is in copying vinyl to the Tascam - a whole "'nuther" issue.The Toshiba does, tho, sound better than taking an analog signal from my SACD-1000 and recording that. Way better, in fact. And the "buttons" make a very substantial contribution.
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
Hooked to one of the Panasonic Digital Receivers.
My oldest son has a 3960 connected to a Panny
Digital Reciever feeding a set of vintage
EV Interface 1s. For a ~$200 system(receiver and
DVD) it kicks serious BUTT. Now if I can convince
him to let me TWEAK it a little......
Hi, forgive the ignorance but are you talking about round hardwood buttons like from a wood shop. Nothing speacial? Cheers.
they look like little mushrooms.
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
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