Hello Everyone,
I'm a proud new owner of a fully decked-out Modwright 999ES
. It's still in the very early stages of burn-in just now, so it's still sounding a little raw. To keep me occupied, I was reading Robert Levi's article, particularly the part about tweaking the setup.
To quote Mr. Levi:
There are some worthwhile tweaks. DO NOT play this unit without first using a video monitor to get the best playback options. Turn off everything inside the unit, including the display. A self-hotrodding feature that cuts down on unneeded circuits is a specific selection in the menu. Turn off the video after setup, and the digital out, too. All will make a difference in dynamics and purity.My problems is that my setup is purely 2-channel and my hi-fi is nowhere near the only television in the house. I've either got to completely disassemble my system and transport it piece-by-piece to the other side of the building, or lug a very heavy TV up a flight of stairs.
"So where's the problem?" I can hear you ask "just pick the damned thing up and be done with it!" The problem is that I'm unsure of a particular setting to choose; one that can only be accessed via a TV monitor. Mr Levi says
"turn off everything inside the unit". He also makes mention of the
"self-hotrodding feature that cuts down on unneeded circuits". My confusion starts here. Robert Levi seems to be referring to what the manual calls "CD Direct". I'm making the basic assumption that a "self-hotrodding" feature is a good thing. But to eliminate unwanted circuits, CD Direct has to be
ON, not OFF (and Robert Levi insists that we should "turn off everything inside the unit"). I'm not being churlish or pedantic here; I'm just not sure what to do. To further cloud the waters, the Sony manual is seemingly contradictory when talking about about CD Direct:
OFF: Select this when playing CD disks, including CDs with DTS tracks.
ON: Eliminates the use of unnecessary circuits when playing CDs.
NOTE: If you select "ON" when playing CDs with DTS tracks, the sound will become noisy.Again, I'm assuming that using less active circuits is best, but according to the manual CD Direct should simultaneaously be OFF when playing CDs... but ON to eliminate unnecessary circuitry when playing CDs?! If that's the case, what is CD Direct for? Is it an option just to make the player sound
worse?I'm obviously missing something; please help. Do I switch the "self-hotrodding feature" ON to eliminate circuits as (I think) Mr. Levi recommends? Or do I switch it OFF as the manual suggests, and avoid messy sound on some disks? Also, can anyone tell me what DTS is, and whether is it something I should worry about?
I'd be grateful for any help you could offer.
