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Model: | VSE Level V -- Sony DVP-S9000ES |
Category: | CD Player/Recorder |
Suggested Retail Price: | $1,000 |
Description: | Implementation by Jim Ellis / Sonic Perfectionists |
Manufacturer URL: | Vacuum State Electronics |
Model Picture: | View |
Review by Willie The Squid (A) on October 21, 2006 at 19:23:54 IP Address: 71.231.146.21 | Add Your Review for the VSE Level V -- Sony DVP-S9000ES |
In January, 2005 I wrote a review about a Sony DVP-9000ES with mods by Vacuum State Electronics (Allen Wright’s company), implemented by Warren Gregoire. The modification done at that time was called the VSE Level IV. That January 2005 review was a rave. I did not believe that further improvements were likely to be very significant. I was wrong.Approximately a year ago, I was able to land an excellent condition NAIM CDS and CDSPS (power supply). This was NAIM’s flagship CD player back in the early 90’s. I believe it cost almost $9,000 new. It was / is a killer redbook CD player. Not a few audio types are of the opinion that the original NAIM CDS is the best they ever did, from a musicality perspective. Very analog sounding, it was more fun than the CDSII. (Now, I only heard the CDSII in retail settings, and found it quite good and perhaps “more accurate” but I never got excited or wanted to take the unit home. Further up the chain, the CDS III has many detractors and many admirers. The new CDS 555 is so over the top pricewise, it’s in another universe.) My own experience has been that the original NAIM CDS is the audio equivalent of watching a Technicolor movie. It wasn’t perfectly neutral, but it was an absolute blast and always held my attention. It had great verve; and especially, had fantastic PRAT, something for which NAIM players are renown.
I found that I was rarely listening to my Sony after the NAIM CDS arrived. The VSE Level IV Sony DVP-9000ES just didn’t have equivalent life or excitement compared to the NAIM CDS – and it didn’t matter if I was listening SACD or redbook. But the Sony did have some audio characteristics that I very much favored. I was keeping my eye on the Vacuum State web site, hoping for continued improvements. Then came notice of the VSE Level V mods. The Vacuum State web site states: The new Level 5 Reference Clock Module provides a rock stable clock signal that insures the rest of the player is as jitter free as possible…with sonic improvements…beyond anything we expected.
A couple of months ago I had a Vacuum State installation expert, Jim Ellis at Sonic Perfectionists in Kirkland, Washington (http://www.sonicperfectionists.com/) implement the VSE Level V upgrades. In addition, Jim implemented several ideas of his own. He is tentatively calling these enhancements his "Breath of Life" mod, because of the manner in which they enhance the sound of the VSE Level 5 Sony units. We talked about these added mods at some length. Interestingly, due to the way that some of these improvements were implemented, it was possible for him to bypass one aspect of his "Breath of Life" mods, so that I could clearly contrast some of the improvements made by his own special mods, over and above the "stock" VSE Level V upgrades. The resulting improvements to fidelity and musicality (especially in terms of PRAT) were truly remarkable.
Jim was purposely vague in his description of the "Breath of Life" mods. Apparently they consist of some very minor alterations to VSE’s filtering circuitry, combined with a number of very specific grounding changes which are designed to maximally isolate the VSE board from common-mode noise inside of the Sony chassis. Lastly, Jim adds some additional power-supply filtering of his own.
What I do know for sure is that the unit sounds just incredible. This has been the most impressive upgrade to my DVP-9000ES yet. The unit is so markedly improved, in all important ways, that the NAIM CDS was put to the market almost immediately. (The NAIM CDS continues in high demand; I sold it for more than I paid for that unit.)
So what are the differences in the VSE Level V and “Breath of Life” mods over the earlier Level IV?
1. The most notable difference is the PRAT factor. This CD / SACD player has fantastic “toe-tapping” energy. Speed, precision, control and weight are all mightedly improved over VSE Level IV. (Jim Ellis is of the opinion that the PRAT improvement is about 80% due to the “breath of life” mods, and about 20% due to the new clock.)
2. The entire musical presentation is better balanced: front to back, side to side, & top to bottom. Moreover, the presentation is also “bigger.”
3. Downward dynamic range is improved still further. I can hear deeper into the sound recording. There is greater transparency and the unit is now dead quiet.
4. Lawyering is more discernable; no glassiness.
5. Bad recordings / masterings sound worse; one really hears the “badness.”
6. Good recordings / masterings sound better.
7. Excellent recordings / masterings sound just incredible.
8. The improvements are across the board – they are as striking with redbook CDs as they are with SACDs.
9. Overall impression is that good redbook CDs sound better / more involving with these Level V mods as SACDs sounded with the Level IV mod. Since over 90% of my digital library is RBCD, much of which will never be mastered into SACD consumer format, this is an important consideration.
Bottom line is that this is decidedly the best digital source that I have heard. Disc after disc I’m drawn into the performace. Disc after disc, I’m shaking my head in astonishment and gratitude. Now that’s great news for an old audiofool like me.
WTS says: “Over the Top! Check it Out!”
Product Weakness: | See Review |
Product Strengths: | See Review |
Associated Equipment for this Review: | |
Amplifier: | Avondale 260z |
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): | Naim 202 / Avondale APX2 |
Sources (CDP/Turntable): | Roksan Xerxes X; Rega 900; Shelter 501 MKII |
Speakers: | Tannoy System DMT15 MKII |
Cables/Interconnects: | Good |
Music Used (Genre/Selections): | All |
Room Size (LxWxH): | 18 x 15 x 10 |
Room Comments/Treatments: | Works |
Time Period/Length of Audition: | Two Months |
Other (Power Conditioner etc.): | Yes |
Type of Audition/Review: | Product Owner |
Follow Ups:
nt
PRAT is an acronym, created by English HiFi journalists, for Pace, Rythm And Timing."A Prat" is a common English term that sort of translates into "a jerk", "a dumb ass", "a klutz" - or more closely perhaps: "a pain in the ass"!
There is, of course, no connection between these two completely different concepts...
Pace, Rythm and Timing are characteristics of music performance. What it has to do with audio equipment? Timing is probably related to slew rate or rise time, but pace and rythm?
Can I assume that you've never had a vinyl setup? Try listening to the same recording (especially rock/pop) on a good vinyl setup and also on CD. Obviously, a lot depends on the pressing and the remaster but you should get the picture. CD tends to strip away that foot-tapping rythm that some music has.
will do nicely.
I have a vinyl rig, and I use it most of the time. 95% of my music is on vinyl, but very little rock,indeed. If I am getting it right, there are some aspects of rock music revealed by good equipment, and they are called PRAT? Is there PRAT in classical or jazz?
I hope so - or I'd find the performance kinda boring I expect.Muaic is music, no matter the style, and while the notes played may be exactly the same - there's a world of difference between a given classical piece's performance by a world class professional orchestra and a small town amateur one. Also a similar difference between a top jazz or blues trio, and the kids down at the local bar.
And the key differences IMO are Pace, Rythm and Timing - and the overall consistancy of these factors between all the memebers of the group.
Now how it's important in hifi terms - technically - there can be many guesses. Frequency bumps in the response is a common one - regulation (or not) of the powersupplies is another - but lack of phase shift in the bass end is to me a vital contribution to great music playback "feel".from any music.
As a viny user, maybe this will help you understand it better:
A friend has recently changed from a Gyrodeck T/T (high mass platter, low power motor) to a Voyd T/T (low mass platter - three powerful motors) and reports a HUGE inprovement in PRAT!
Why? We can only guess, surmise, speculate...but he loves it!
I have no technical knowledge in this area but I personally perceive this as the lower resolution of CD losing the trailing edges (or decay)of musical notes/sounds. In rock/pop this prevents the notes flowing into each other, hence the apparent loss of rhythm. In classical it stops the complex sounds overlapping and therefore sometimes makes classical seem more detailed, but less natural. Ever go to an orchestral concert after listening to loads of CD's and your first thought is that the orchestra sounds a bit loose and jumbled? This is purely my own perception and lots will probably disagree.And yes, Ozzie, I think it can be faked in the bass region - my Theta which was good at PRAT, was very bass-heavy in general.
Alan, from my limited exposure to it, the Thetas were pretty good at darn near everything. The first digital playback that I ever heard that could image was a Theta DS Pre (? had a Pro version as well) on out through a fine set of Theil CS5s. The original designer, the digital wizard that he was, was pretty cool as well. Mike something or other???
Ozzie, Yes the Theta (Miles) was pretty good and I sometimes regret selling it for its musicality. But it did overplay the bass a bit as well as rolling off the top end. When I first got the VSE Sony I was stunned by how much high frequency I had been missing. Sometimes think about getting a Gen V DAC for redbook output from the Sony (but I invested my spare cash in a turntable instead - first for 15 years :)
"but I invested my spare cash in a turntable instead - first for 15 years :)"You obviously did it right in the first place. It might not have been such a bad idea if even for having a standard for qualifying changes in your very fine step up and pre amp devices. That is, if you are the same Alan Sutherland that I think you are. An A is listed by your name, not an M.
Alan, I have a Gen Va that I use as a benchmark for various mods to a SCD-1. After a clock upgrade and some other serious tweaking to the SCD-1, the Sony DAC & analog section surpasses a Gen Va in every way by a good margin, including taught, extended bass-- always a strength with Theta. However a Gen Va does beat a stock SCD-1's RBCD.
...it's good to get someone's view who's heard both. To be honest, I just don't have the rack space for more kit anyway and I'm pretty happy with the 777ES in VSE L5+ form. But the Theta remains one of my favourite upgrades.........
HowdyIt's amazing how once you hear good bass you never want to go back and similarly once you hear good highs you never want to back.
I just auditioned a Krell system: LAT-1000 speakers, Evolution One mono blocks (tho they are two blocks/channel :), SACD Standard, Cardas speaker wire. Tho the bass was fine (if not as detailed as I expected), the garbled high freqs were quite distracting. You couldn't locate the cymbals and other percussion in a single position in the sound stage at all on "Blues in Orbit" track 3 and you couldn't tell what the washboard was on The Vivino Blues Brothers "Blues Band" track 9 (in fact the salesman said "What's that distortion in the right speaker?", you should have seen his face when I said "On a system with good resolution you can clearly hear it as a washboard in it's own space.")
Hi Ted,I think Krell have a reputation from many years back which they just haven't lived up to since, and while I've heard a couple of good systems utilizing older Krell amps I've been thoroughly unimpressed with what little exposure I've had to newer designs.
My impression is that perhaps they put too much faith in measurements and not enough in listening. :0)
HowdyThe number of filter settings on the SACD player made me think they just didn't know what sounded good :)
I thought the speakers showed promise, but I'd have to hear them with a good source, etc.
Try some early 60s Miles Davis with Anthony Williams jamming on the skins.I have to wonder if some magazine writers just wanted to move some 90s CD players that they liked, but were not all that great in the mids and highs. OK, but not great. Great pace, rythm and timing... Personally, I'd rather leave it to the musicians playing.
HowdyAfter you've heard a system destroy PRAT it becomes a lot more obvious.
The first time people say "This sounds slow!" even tho we all know that the tempo of the music is correct you see the lights coming on in their heads about PRAT.
It's amazing what a change in cables can do at times in this regard, but that's even more controversial :)
it's interesting that our brains can perceive something as "fast" or "slow" even though they are both exactly the same source material played at exactly the same tempo.i suspect it has something to do with how our ears interpret transients and perhaps harmonics.
i'm currently in the middle of finalising the mixing and mastering of a massive 4-disc album project. i've found that playing around with harmonic exciters and even very slight level changes (particularly for bass and drums) can cause a subjective shift in the pacing of the music.
there's one particular song that's been very problematic, i've probably remixed it about a dozen times now, but it's interesting that very small level changes can change the "feel" of the song to change from "plodding" to "too intense" - the challenge is getting it to sound "just right".
HowdyI agree about the transients. Tho we are in general insensitive to phase, we are sensitive to phase in transients (since transients are less well defined when their phase is mucked with.) So I believe that PRAT is related to the relative phase response vs. freq in transients, tho I have no idea if late highs relative to lows is "faster" or "slower".
Just as attitude and body language can speak volumes without a word, we pick up on a collection of subtle cues that lend a very distinct sense of whether the music is being propelled or dragged along. In either instance the tempo is the same, and the recording will finish at the same time, but the vital life and energy is just MIA on the one. Perhaps a descriptive analogy might be the difference in actual and perceived energy between a tug and a barge. Both are traveling at the same speed, but the tug is doing so with palpable force.
.
"4. Lawyering is more discernable..."To me, more "lawyering" connotes a cold, analytical, unmusical quality that costs lots of money. A back-handed compliment in any context involving pleasure.
The improvements numbered 2, most of 3 and 4 seem to be largely from the new and improved clock and perhaps part of number 1 as well. I would attribute the darker background (part of improvement number 3)of the unit to Jim's tweaks and perhaps the part about the improved PRAT IF Jim replaced the filter supply caps with black gates (which if so could also affect the other improvement numbers). Was that the change to the filter supply, the adding of blackgates?Thus, I would think that the percentage improvement that the clock made is larger than the rest of the tweaks, and that Jim was overestimating the percentage improvements of his own tweaks a bit.
I need to get that clock into my player...
I can't agree with you more Retsel. How many people have credited Black Gate capacitors for increased sound quality when it was really the fact that during that tweak they also changed out resistors and output op amps? The only valid means of making such claims is by making one change at a time. Variables such as changing out more than one at a time does tend to skew claimed results.
First of all, I would like to thank Willy for his extremely kind words. But, I feel that it is very important for me to add a few points of clarification here to some of his comments, as Willy’s tremendous enthusiasm for my work on his player might have distorted the picture here slightly.First off; let me make it clear: The VSE Level 5 and 5+ Sony players absolutely DO NOT require my so called “breath of life” mods to sound superb! They sound truly excellent from the outset (ie in stock level 5 form)! IMHO Allen Wright is one of the most innovative, and brilliant audio designers in the world, and his superb Level 5 modules clearly demonstrate this fact. But, as is the case with virtually everything, some minor refinements on a design is still not 100% out of the realm of possibility.
My mods (tweaks really) merely consist of some very minor refinements to some implementation details involved with wiring-up Allen’s truly superb boards. In addition, I add a mains-RFI filter module into the mix. Other VSE Agents have their own recipes for their own special tweaks that they believe can benefit the sound too (copper foil wires, special capacitors, and high speed rectifiers come immediately to mind). And there is no reason to believe that my particular recipe is necessarily any better than anyone else’s. However, I will gladly share my recipe with any of my colleagues who are interested in learning the about the tricks that I have discovered. That way, if Willy’s review here should happen to generate some special interest in my mix of tweaks, then any VSE agent in the world may just as easily implement these, if a customer should be interested. But please remember, that the “stock” level 5 mods still sound absolutely superb, with or without my mix of tweaks.
So do my tweaks make a difference? I certainly think that they do. But the same can be said of many of the tweaks that are routinely performed by some of my colleagues. Do my tweaks represent a genuine improvement? Frankly, that judgment is really best left to the ears of the beholder. The difference that my tweaks make is sort of like listening to a Linn LP12 vs. a Sota TT. While I may personally prefer the somewhat “livelier” sound of Linn, a great many others will certainly side with the Sota.
Also, it should to be understood that each and every one of my VSE colleagues performs thoroughly excellent work, and receive my very highest recommendations! So regardless of which agent a customer might happen choose, the results should be equally exceptional, wherever in the world you may be located.
And it also needs to be understood that without the unbelievably high resolution VSE boards to work with, my own tweaks would be completely meaningless. In fact, it is only because of the unbelievable transparency, and incredible resolution of the sound from the VSE boards, that such very-minor tweaks would are even audible!
The bottom line is that Allen Wright is the one who genuinely deserves the accolades here for his level 5 mods here, not me. Bravo to Allen for designing such an amazing sounding set of modifications!!! I could not be more proud of having the privilege of working with sombody like you!
Regards,
Jim Ellis (Vacuum State Agent)
Sonic Perfectionists
Dear Jim,thank you for your efforts in developing the already very good sounding VSE upgrades even further. In my opinion that is the best way for all of us the Upgraders and the Users ... and most of us are happy to pay for getting these machines even closer to the music - if they start to breathe - even better.
Are your additional tweaks only applicable and specific for the VSE Sony DVP-S9000ES or would they also help other VSE players like the VSE SCD-1 or the Sony JLTI (by the way an impressive little toy)?
I have tried my special tweaks on three different models so far:
DVP-s9000ES, SCD-C333ES, and the SCD-1. So far, to my ears (and to those of my customers), each and every VSE Level 5, and Level 5+ unit that has undergone my special filter and grounding tweaks has sounded noticeably "livelier".Unfortunately, I cannot presently think of any way that these particular tweaks could also be applied to the JLTi units. But there is a chance that at some point in time I might also think of some sort of additional enhancements for those models too. We shall see...
Detailed instructions have now been forwarded to Allen Wright, and I anticipate that he will probably by trying-out my tweaks over the next few days or so. Frankly, I will feel much more comfortable sharing the details after I have received Allen's blessing to do so. Until then, I think that it would probably be wise for me not to publicly say anything else about this matter.
Regards,
Thanx for your comments.
Defender, ar the machines "breathing" or are they simply getting out of the way and allowing the music to breathe?
mmh, I should not try to make a joke if it is not my native language
Hi Defender. No joke was intended. What I meant was that it is very possible that the un modded machine may have been preventing the music from "breathing" in the first place. The mods may be simply getting the electronics out of the way of the sound to show what really was there all along. This is how I hear it on my VSE 5+ upgrade anyhow.
Willie - I'd tend to agree that the PRAT improvements are probably largely related to Jim's mods. In my opinion, PRAT is not one of the strong points of VSE's otherwise excellent mods. I've had both the 9000ES(L5) and 777ES(L5+) and loved both but neither comes close to my old Theta Miles in PRAT terms. I seem to remember someone else on this forum suggesting that the ModWright mods were better than VSE in this respect, whereas VSE was the king of detail resolution. If Jim has achieved the level of improvement you describe then you must have one fantastic machine there. I'd be interested in Allen's views on this.
My North west US agent Jim may well have come up with something really useful, and he is sending me full details so I can check it out myself. No-one can invent everything and I am fully open to all ideas of possible improvements to Vacuum State products - and indeed insist our agents ahre their ideas and thoughts with us. But they need to be verified by myself in our own reference system before they are officially approved.The claimed sonic gains seem to be related to internal grounding and noise issues, and as there are differences in US and European grounding practices, what Jim has discovered may well be appliciable only to US machines - and if so would have escaped our notice over here.
But if it brings consistant benefits then you can be certain we will incoporate it in all future Upgrades - and also make it available as a retrofit mod to all previous Upgrades.
...please do not think that 'detail resolution' is a criticism. Without it's superb resolution of detail your L5+ mod would be diminished in my mind. Neither do I believe that the detail resolution is at the expense of anything else (I was attempting to recall what someone else had said). But I do not think, and I'm sure you don't either, that it's perfect and it looks as though someone else just might have found another improvement to make. It would appear that some of your legion of followers think your kit is above criticism, which is unhealthy in my view. With that attitude, we'd never have had L4, L5, L5+......
Well, I cannot say that I can agree with this conclusion, "King of detail resolution" I hope not! Cos the "kings of detail resolution" are painful to listen to on less than stellar recordings and after almost a year of owning a VSE L5 machine, I cannot accuse it of any such sin. The most enduring quality about the VSE is the neutrality and sure-footed balance, i love its transparency but after months of listening, I have come to appreciate its neutrality and faithfulness to the recording over and above it transparency, I certainly do not want any frequency bumps (ala numerous Naims) for PRAT simulation, my motto.. player please give what is on the recording minus grain and grit, when the music calls for excitement, please give me excitement but please no artificial tricks and on that score the machines deliver in bucket loads!
Music making the painting, recording it the photograph
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