New! Complete CD-PRO2M Kit!

Marbles · « **Reply #40 on:** 14 Dec 2004, 07:02 pm »

See:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=14941

JoshK · « **Reply #41 on:** 14 Dec 2004, 07:02 pm »

Ken check out the sub forum here entitled NY Audio Rave...its the 'club' that I am referring to with a bunch of us AC'ers who live in NYC. We are having a holiday meeting this Saturday and going to be demoing a bit of gear so I thought I'd bring the transport as the host has a killer system and $8k dodson dac.

JoshK · « **Reply #42 on:** 15 Dec 2004, 02:06 am »

Hi Ken,

I hooked up the transport to my system with my lowly MSB Link I and am quite amazed at the sound (vs. my Sony XA777ES). Even with a relatively lowly DAC the sound is very precisely defined, dynamics are great, leading edge is spot on. I have been just messing around listening.

I, however, have a few questions so that I can answer for folks at our gathering. Does the kit come with remote? I didn't notice any, nor an IR receiver on the faceplate with the packaging. The LED is set back from the pane about 2", is this normal or did it shift with transport (no pun intended)? I did notice that three of the four transport screws were 'floating' while one was 'fixed' and I loosened the one so that all were floating, is this what is meant?

Shahid, thanks for the Jesse Cooke Loaner, this is my test disk right now. Great stuff!! My wife loves it too.

audioslave · « **Reply #43 on:** 15 Dec 2004, 04:04 am »

Shahid, thanks for the Jesse Cooke Loaner, this is my test disk right now. Great stuff!! My wife loves it too.

No problem, Josh. I look forward to checking out this transport on saturday!

ken_diyzone.net · « **Reply #44 on:** 15 Dec 2004, 12:17 pm »

Joshk,

Joshk: I, however, have a few questions so that I can answer for folks at our gathering. Does the kit come with remote? I didn't notice any, nor an IR receiver on the faceplate with the packaging.

Ken: Yes, there is a remote. I’ll send it to you today. The IR receiver is on the display panel.

Joshk: The LED is set back from the pane about 2", is this normal or did it shift with transport (no pun intended)?

Ken: LED 2” back from the pane, this is the way the kit was designed. There have been few builders modified the display PCB to fit between the front two chassis support columns: one reason is to move the display panel forward, and another reason is to move the display PCB under the forward chassis cover, some say that look cleaner.

Joshk: I did notice that three of the four transport screws were 'floating' while one was 'fixed' and I loosened the one so that all were floating, is this what is meant?

Ken: Yes, it also means that I didn’t do a good job securing the drive when I packed. The idea was to lock down the transport during shipping, and then loosen the screws so that the transport is “floating” while in operation.

Regards,
Ken

JoshK · « **Reply #45 on:** 15 Dec 2004, 02:34 pm »

Ken, thanks for the info. I actually don't need the remote, was just wondering if the kit included one or not. That is nice to have, for me the mute function is quite useful from the seated position when the wife is yelling at me.

I have gotten quite a number of private messages asking about the transport so I will do my best to provide useful description and feedback here. The kit is a formidable brick poohouse. Reminds me of the Pass Aleph styling with 1/4" thick (guessing) brushed black anondized aluminum. With the exception of the gold allen nuts it could pass as a Pass aleph component.

The control buttons on the front of the faceplate are really solid aluminum rods it seems extending into the front of the chassis to drive the controls on the front PCB. There is a switch on the right that toggles to turn the transport on and off. The back has some really swanky rca & xlr plugs both for the digital and the analog, the later of which will exist only if you decide to build it. To clarify, there is a coax output an optical, an AES and then a pair of RCA analog outs and XLR analog outs that are merely provinsioned but not active.

I peaked through the opening of the tray and notice two quite large (for a player) transformers and some nicely done PCBs. I can't say much more about the insides as I didn't take it apart. The CDPro mechanism though is quite a sight, certainly not your mamma's plastic transport. I mentioned before that there are columns that the transport legs sit on that have a bolt through them and upon loosening the legs of the transport float inside the columns and are held up by spiraled springs. So the transport mechanism can either float or be fixed. This leaves a lot of room for tweakers to have fun I am sure. I can already envision someone filling the columns with oil so the legs ride like a Teres TT bearing.

There is a smoke red plastic shield covering the front control PCB upon sliding open the tray. Some may not like the fact that it is just resting there and not affixed to anything but I am sure that it could be affixed relatively easily. The transport sits right behind this. The drawer is also aluminum and slides through slits on either side of the aluminum beside it. There isn't bearings or anything fancing that it is riding on just a piece of aluminum set into grooves. I imagine someone else will have a go at adding some rails with bearing for those who really prefer the rolling feel.

Someone mentioned before that you could see inside the transport with the drawer open and that is the case here. Ken mentioned that there will be something to cover the opening with the drawer open with the kit but it could easily be done by the builder as well. The transport sits on three brass cones affixed to the bottom. Oh and lastly the four buttons on the front of the panel were not labeled, so it that is an issue for you I would inquire whether the kit will be silk screened or whether it is left to the builder. Personally I feel that four buttons isn't hard to memorize the functions of.

I am personally very impressed with this kit. It is obvious that the providers have thought long and hard about what the builders would want in a transport and offered some really high end features and styling at a very mid-fi price. Very cool in my book! The kit has been designed with all the necessities (and a few extras) without a lot of ancillaries but plenty of room and ergonomics for the builder to add their own touches if they choose. Personally I like the utilitarian look and feel and would leave it like it is.

I am anxious to stack it up against some other hi-end transport heavy weights. I think it should fair well. Thanks Ken for the loaner!

Josh

P.S. I met Ken last night, he is a really nice guy who you can tell is happy to be helping to bring this to our community on the side of having a normal career.

JoshK · « **Reply #46 on:** 15 Dec 2004, 02:39 pm »

Oh let me just remind people that pictures are

here

ken_diyzone.net · « **Reply #47 on:** 15 Dec 2004, 03:45 pm »

Josh,

Thank you for the kind words.

One small correction on your posting:

"there is a coax output an optical, an AES and then a pair of RCA analog outs and XLR analog outs that are merely provinsioned but not active." -- The RCA analog is active, the XLR is not. CD-PRO2M has an internal DAC, pretty good one too, so one does not need to have an external DAC to use this kit as a player.

Regards,
Ken

goskers · « **Reply #48 on:** 18 Dec 2004, 02:06 pm »

Make sure and post everyone's thought following the NY gathering this weekend!!

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #49 on:** 20 Dec 2004, 06:50 am »

Quote from: goskers

Make sure and post everyone's thought following the NY gathering this weekend!!

Here's a link for the CD Pro at the NY Audio Rave meeting at Phil's..... http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=15366

ken_diyzone.net · « **Reply #50 on:** 31 Dec 2004, 06:50 pm »

The shipment finally arrived in NY and they are ready for delivery.

I have the kits in three colors, Black, Silver and Champagne.

The wonderful DIY world, also available are some of the different components that can be changed to match your own system and tasted, like the PE-65612 transformers, and Nicholson caps that some builder have swap from the power supply.

I don’t know how many of you have sign up with Josh, but I would like to contribute to his effort, if you let Josh build a machine for you, I’ll sell a pair of transformers at half the price, $20 instead of $40.

Please note I have a limited amount of these kits available at the $699US price. Because of the poor exchange rate situation, I will need to increase the price to $799US for my next shipment of the CD-PRO2 kits. Also, the purchaser of the CD-PRO2 kit, will be first in line for the new De-Jitter and DAC kit.

Regards,
Ken

The wiring diagram:
http://www.myclie.info/images/0920CASE-1.pdf

The installation manual
http://www.myclie.info/images/CDPROMAN.pdf

CD-PRO2M Schematic
http://www.myclie.info/images/CD0908SCH.pdf

CD-PRO2M pictures
http://www.audio-wiki.com/gallery/

Here is a tread about the kit

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=12953
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=15366

Red Dragon Audio · « **Reply #51 on:** 31 Dec 2004, 07:55 pm »

any pictures of the champagne chassis? should be downright sexy...

Levi · « **Reply #52 on:** 31 Dec 2004, 10:43 pm »

My understanding with Steve is that the PCBs are already assembled. Looking at the excellent and nicely detailed instructions manual, each board needs to be assembled and soldered. There are plenty of room for error if you do not know what you are doing. Definitely not for the novice DIYer.

Black Gate caps and an upsampler board or maybe an LCAudio clock upgrade

.

Simply endless tweaking here.

SteveSun · « **Reply #53 on:** 1 Jan 2005, 06:14 pm »

Hi Levi: if we buy in large quantity, Limin in Taiwan will find people to stuff the boards for us. But, now, you can count on Josh or me...

ken_diyzone.net · « **Reply #54 on:** 2 Jan 2005, 08:31 pm »

Ryan,

There are three pictures of champange color chassis:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=15419&start=60

I am told it is the same clor as the Sony Gold chassis.

Thanks
Ken

Red Dragon Audio · « **Reply #55 on:** 6 Jan 2005, 02:57 am »

very nice!

JoshK · « **Reply #56 on:** 7 Jan 2005, 09:58 pm »

OK, I'm back from Vaca and I am thinking about the best way to do this that will make those who want me to build them one, happy with the plan. I am doing this for the love of it and only in my spare time, so keep that in mind, as until I start building them I won't know a good approximation for how long it will take me in my spare time to complete them.

JoshK · « **Reply #57 on:** 12 Jan 2005, 03:03 pm »

OK,

Here's the deal. I am moments away from receiving my first kit to build for the frist member to seal a deal with me. I plan to take my time with this first kit so that I can make all the notes necessary to make it easier to reproduce again and again.

Once I complete the first kit I will take orders to build these CDM kits on commission. I haven't set a totally firm price yet but it looks like $100 is target. This will include any options you want to have installed at the time of the order (pulse trans, caps, ??). Ken told me he has kits on hand.

Here is what you'll need to do...

1) contact me to see if and when I can start on your kit.
2) contact Ken and order the kit from him, pay him, and tell him that you intend for me to build you the kit. Ken will arrange with me to deliver the kit to me.
3) I will then build the kit. Upon completion of the kit you can send me $ for the fee and shipping. *I don't want money in advance, just upon completion*

Besides the one kit that I am building now, about 4-5 members have contacted me with serious interest in having me build them one. I only intend to build around 10 before taking a break to work on other projects, but may return again later on. So in short, you may want to contact me to reserve a spot if you plan to have me build you the kit.

Cheers,

rhmmmm · « **Reply #58 on:** 31 Jan 2005, 01:20 am »

Are the CD-Pro2M kits still available? I've emailed [email protected] a few times with no replies.

JoshK · « **Reply #59 on:** 31 Jan 2005, 01:39 am »

Yes they are still available AFAIK, maybe he is just busy with family. Let me know if he still hasn't replied by tomorrow evening and I will try to get in touch with him for you.