[peakrchau]

The SD-3990 replaced some very expensive Esoteric transport/dac source in a state of the art system, recently,  with unexpected results. Here's an exceprt :

• "...This player is really good!! I know this sounds crazy but I have a friend who had a 50K digital front end that he just sold this week. I encouraged him to try the Toshiba as a fill-in. He called me yesterday beaming! He said that he liked the Toshiba just as much as his 50K front end and I had saved him 50K. He said that he doesn't miss his Esoteric P-03,D-03, G-O clock at all when listening to the Toshiba. I thought he was kidding at first but he was dead serious. He said "I have a new reference!..."
  

The over-achiever was then compare to a Remeiyo...follow the link above to see the results.

PeAK

[warnerwh]

That's interesting. It makes sense to me however. I'm still using an old Bel Canto dac because I like the way it sounds in my system and because even a dac that I may actually like better would cost more. One dac that would be worth the effort is Dusty's VDA 2 for 600 bucks new.

The differences aren't huge. The press blows way out of proportion the reality. I don't even know how many different dacs I've used, both tubed and ss. They have characteristics of their own but that doesn't mean one is worth a multiple more of the other. In that guys system I've no doubt the Toshiba works fine for him. Now he has a dac with a free built in cd player. For that price you could put a spare in the closet.

[Sonny]

Don't know much about it, but after this original post, I went looking and on Amazon, the reviews say that this player is bad, it breaks down and is not dependable.  a 2-3 stars out of 5 on amazon.

[peakrchau]

... I went looking and on Amazon, the reviews say that this player is bad, it breaks down and is not dependable....

Definitely not the last word in build quality. One good thing about these new units is that a keeping a CD in tray disables the automatic 10 minute power-down feature and allow you to screen for infant mortality. I've had no problems with all equipment screen in this fashion except the 3950 (it required a CD disc to be put on continuous replay which is very hard on the mechanical transport end of things and not something I recommend). YMMV but you can do a lot to help it 

P.S. A lot of the amazon users use it for Video display and never get pass the issue of a blank screen as the unit defaults to composite output out of the box...really.Result: Unit goes back and customer cusses back on Amazon.

[rbrb]

I don't think that there are going to be many Esoteric transport/DAC owners selling off their machines to buy the Toshiba player.   The person referred to in the original post really needs to look long and hard at the rest of his system if a Esoteric combo and a SD-3950 sound equally as good on it.  He's got a couple of bottle necks me thinks.

[peakrchau]

... The person referred to in the original post really needs to look long and hard at the rest of his system if a Esoteric combo and a SD-3950 sound equally as good on it.  He's got a couple of bottle necks me thinks.

The 3950 is a 2004 year model while the 3990 came out in 2006. During this time, significant changes occur ed: DACs altered to differential architectures and a new output section was designed so that is has no output capacitor requirement.

Think of the upgraded modified 3950 units which improved significantly by changing out the caps to better quality caps (Swenson/Vinnie mods) and imagine the added improvement if "no" cap was needed.

P.S. The poster's system is not too shabby...some might say extremely revealing...

cheers,
PeAK

[rbrb]

Ooops my bad I meant to type 3990.  Does not change the context of my post though.

[peakrchau]

Ooops my bad I meant to type 3990.  Does not change the context of my post though.

I understand your position upon a entry level Japanese DVD player but after having been around the block a few times with this hobby we call audio for over 35 years...I'm just as amazed at recommendation as you but it does sound very decent and a revealing system is a must.

PeAK

[TheChairGuy]

peakrchau,

I came to much the same conclusion recently...tho it was cloaked in a bit (admittedly) more antagonistic title of 'All CD Players Sound the Same'. 

I took a Coby DVD-707 (http://gizmos2go.com/xcart/product.php?productid=847) bought two years ago for $40.00 (don't know why it's much higher priced now ), added a Dakiom Feedback Stabilizer and ditched the outboard switched power supply for a 12v regualted linear one...and am enjoying it as much as my now sold $4500.00 uber-modded front end.

The Coby is nice as you can ditch the switched power supply and gain abit more low end heft, and becasue it has no mechanized tray, it has one less thing that can go wrong.  It also had digital outputs.....just in case you do find some external DAC that bests it substantially.

Be careful as the non-believers might crash your party (post) here.....but here is the topic in gory detail (it ran smoothly for about 9 pages than gets a bit dicey).  I again state, spend as little as possible on CD playback, the differences are too small to bother with with the new crop of players offering very good sound quality for next to nothing. The OPPO's, Toshiba SD-3990, a cheap Coby...the differences are now small to immaterial.
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=37280.0

[peakrchau]

...becasue it has no mechanized tray, it has one less thing that can go wrong.  It also had digital outputs.....just in case you do find some external DAC that bests it substantially...

...spend as little as possible on CD playback, the differences are too small to bother with with the new crop of players offering very good sound quality for next to nothing....

The OPPO's, Toshiba SD-3990, a cheap Coby...the differences are now small to immaterial

That thread was "uber" long and I just got a taste of it. Since the  Coby sounds so good to your,  might it be  using that "special" chip set developed in England with "you know who".  It was meant to target the CD playback vacuum created by  the large Japanese firms(Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo, etc) abandoning the CD only chipset market. Come to think of it, the similaraites between the Coby and the... Rega Apollo/Saturn.... (no mechanical tray, CD only, simplicity) might be more than accidental  Right!

Fundamentally, I think the tone/texture/voicing is that last frontier to be addressed in the CD source side of things.  For most intermdidate audiophiles a good external DAC will improve things but a decent (low jitter) transport is still necessary and I would still say that might limited listening sessions with one expensive transport (CEC TL-51xz) left me convinced that another level of improvement can be hand when a good DAC.

That being said, I think a whole layer of problem associated with the SP/DIF inteface (reflections and matching) and clock recovery can be removed if we just went with CDP's, internal DACs and a decent common (master) low jitter clock distributed to both the transport and DAC.


PeAK

[mr_bill]

...becasue it has no mechanized tray, it has one less thing that can go wrong.  It also had digital outputs.....just in case you do find some external DAC that bests it substantially...

...spend as little as possible on CD playback, the differences are too small to bother with with the new crop of players offering very good sound quality for next to nothing....

The OPPO's, Toshiba SD-3990, a cheap Coby...the differences are now small to immaterial

That thread was "uber" long and I just got a taste of it. Since the  Coby sounds so good to your,  might it be  using that "special" chip set developed in England with "you know who".  It was meant to target the CD playback vacuum created by  the large Japanese firms(Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo, etc) abandoning the CD only chipset market. Come to think of it, the similaraites between the Coby and the... Rega Apollo/Saturn.... (no mechanical tray, CD only, simplicity) might be more than accidental  Right!

Fundamentally, I think the tone/texture/voicing is that last frontier to be addressed in the CD source side of things.  For most intermdidate audiophiles a good external DAC will improve things but a decent (low jitter) transport is still necessary and I would still say that might limited listening sessions with one expensive transport (CEC TL-51xz) left me convinced that another level of improvement can be hand when a good DAC.

That being said, I think a whole layer of problem associated with the SP/DIF inteface (reflections and matching) and clock recovery can be removed if we just went with CDP's, internal DACs and a decent common (master) low jitter clock distributed to both the transport and DAC.


PeAK

Are you suggesting that those are Wolfson dacs in the Coby and how can you tell that??

[TheChairGuy]

I've not opened it to know....and it looks like a player that is pretty much a toss-away if you ever have problems with it (difficult to open - no screws noted to gain entry).

The owner's manual indicates nothing special of the sort...

D/A Converter: 96KHz/24bit
Audio S/N: 85db

Certainly nothing special here on paper...but it sounds quite decent when played (surely not as much dynamics as my old front end, but I think greater detail)

It does indicate that it has LASER-HEAD OVER-CURRENT PROTECTOR SYSTEM (not something I've at least seen before claimed on the 3-4 DVD players owned over time) which has stated purpose of:

To extend service life of the laser head, the unit includes and unique laser-head over-current protection system, ensuring a constant laser current

Could this perhaps be significant to it's good sound - regulated laser current?  If so, maybe it's not the internal DAC's that are special at all....it's the current regulation to the laser itself 

[peakrchau]

Come to think of it, the similaraites between the Coby and the... Rega Apollo/Saturn.... (no mechanical tray, CD only, simplicity) might be more than accidental...

Are you suggesting that those are Wolfson dacs in the Coby and how can you tell that??

Certainly nothing special here on paper (for the Coby)...but it sounds quite decent when played (surely not as much dynamics as my old front end, but I  think  greater detail)

No, Mr. Bill, as the Wolfson DACs are part of the lineage that was found in the previous generation planet/jupiter.

For a moment the similarities between the English company and Coby suggested a return to the  "simpler is better" or "what is old, again" treadmill. In short could it be  that the Coby innards could be same as the famed Apollo/Saturn?

• Both use a simple ball bearing chuck on both
• Both are top loaders

But the Coby also supports Video so the odds are that the chipset are different. I can see lead acid batteries being attached to the Coby a la the T-amp movement. What is more interesting is now that Saturn is such a success, what other companies will be courted by the same chip maker that Rega had an exclusive on for their CD development? Will Rega buy out the local English company that did the CD chipsets
for them? Time will tell. In a year's time we may see a Poor man's Saturn in the form of a CobyII.

PeAK

[TheChairGuy]

Yeah, I tried a SLA battery on it, too...I thought the regulated 12v AC supply sounded better.  As I found with the T amp, I think battery needs lots of additional capacitive storage to counter the loss of dynamics with battery (DC) power.

Sure, battery adds 'quietness' to the proceedings, but not without some loss of dynamics (punch).  It's also a hassle for me as I listen to music for hours a day in my home office.  But, I'd put up with the hassle if the sound quality were overall better.

That's been my experience in a few cases now, at least 

fyi - the unit itself sounds pretty good, the linear power supply replacing the switches unit removed added some low end solidity and mostly very good things overall...but that damned  Dakiom really was the most significant upgrade of all on it.

[rbrb]

Ooops my bad I meant to type 3990.  Does not change the context of my post though.

I understand your position upon a entry level Japanese DVD player but after having been around the block a few times with this hobby we call audio for over 35 years...I'm just as amazed at recommendation as you but it does sound very decent and a revealing system is a must.

PeAK

I have no doubt it sounds "decent".  I don't doubt it replaced an Esoteric combo in some guy's rig.  I don't believe that the two are sonic equals though. 

I've been around that block a few times myself.  I'm always looking for the next giant killer on the cheap.  In the end they turn out to me musically unsatisfying long term and the whole process starts all over.  I find it hard enough to like CD as a format when lots of money is thrown at it. 

[Scotty]

TheChairGuy, A friend of mine has modded larger case Coby's which do have Wolfson DACs and has had remarkable results. Wolfson DACs can also be found in
a six disc Onkyo player for $150,see link   http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/534199305
The Wolfson DAC's may be even better sounding than AKMs and there is probably a Wolfson in my future in one form or another.
Scotty