Original Owner, remote and manual included.
Paid like $500 in the late 80's for this thing.
Compression was useful when recording to tape
Sounds decent, but hard to compare to the stuff i have now $$$.
$100 shipped (lower 48)
What I found on this surfing the Web....
Top of the line DBX DX5 cd player.
This one is in perfect working condition and has very good cosmetics.
This very interesting CD player offers a way of custom-tailoring the dynamic range of any CD.
A variable compressor. The compressor can be adjusted to cut back on the loudest excursions by as much as 26 decibels (a substantial amount), while bringing up the level of the quietest sounds by 10 dB.
The DX5 has two other special circuits. One, called Digital Audio Impact Recovery, is in some ways the opposite of the compressor, since it makes sounds louder instead of quieter. But the only sounds the DAIR circuit works on are transients - ultra short sounds like drumtaps and piano string impacts - so its effect is to liven up the sound of recordings that were issued from older master tapes.
The third special circuit blends the two stereo channels in either a positive or negative fashion; in other words, it sends signals crosswise either in phase or out of phase. This makes the stereo image narrower or wider.
All three special circuits can be switched out with the touch of a button, returning the DX3 to the status of a typical CD player. When the three circuits were switched off, the DX5 operated and sounds like most high quality CD players.
he DX5 was manufactured for dbx by Nippon Gakki, the parent company of Yamaha, So the DX5 shares the outstanding immunity to shaking and jarring shown by Yamaha's players. The DX5, like Yamaha's CD-X1 and CD-X2 has an outstanding build quality.What is really cool is the special circuits in use (and the player right-side up, I might add). The results were extraordinary. This is not a corn ball special sound effect device you might find on a cheesy surround sound processor from the early 90s, Read on.
With the "dynamics" knob turned only slightly to the left, so that the compressor was just beginning to work, there was no way to tell the music was being altered except by checking a special meter on the DX3's panel. It showed as much as 15 dB total compression (counting the squeezing of both loud and soft sounds) before its action was clearly audible - a sign of very clever design.
Turning the "dynamics" knob the other way brought the DAIR circuit to life. It made many of my CDs snap into a kind of dynamic focus, especially if they had gone through a couple of copying stages in their transition from master tape to compact disc (a common occurrence, unfortunately).
An "ambience" knob controls the other circuit. Common sense says it should have made little difference, except for varying what is called the "sound stage." But in fact the circuit made a subtle improvement whenever it was turned toward the "+" setting.
The dbx's engineers suggests that the circuit creates a pleasing spaciousness in its "wide" setting by duplicating the way phono cartridges reproduce music.Even the best phono pickups mix the phase of one channel with the other, sometimes in difficult-to-measure ways. It is possible that our ears, conditioned as they are to the sound of phonograph reproduction, prefer such sound to the "straight," non-phasey sound of compact discs. The DX5 is clearly a stand-alone CD player. Even if you were not in the market for a compact disc player, you probably would be fascinated by an audition this one.
