| Wow, that's a good price! My stuff is in note 179, but is kind
of dated now. I might suggest also that you might want to return
your great deal for the CDB650 which will supposedly appear within
the month (not much time left) at about $375. Its a 16-bit 4x
oversampled player with remote and whiz-bang 80 disk program memory.
It also has a digital output port.
At the CES show I compared a Musical Concepts 2041 with the PS Audio
2041 and a Distech 2040. The Musical Concepts won hands down.
2nd place depended upon how long you had to listen to CDs. The
Distech was soft and veiled with constricted soundstage. The PS
was better in those respects, but harsh.
Spectral announced that they were working on a very serious studio
quality CD player. They are using the Philips professional transport
and lots of digital processing (in a Eurocard backplane). They
claim much higher resolution, better sideband attenuation, less
ringing, and better linearity. Supposedly, some of the linearity
improvement comes from fudging the DAC inputs to correspond to the
desired output (old, but expensive technique).
Anyway, in a reasonable price range, a modified CDB650 would be
worth waiting for. It will probably take less time and parts to
modify a 650 than a 2041. This is because of the lower chip count
in the 650 (single DAC package and single op amp package). The
unknown at this point is how good the Philips op-amps are. There
is room inside the chassis (same one as 2041) for an added PC board,
but it would have to layer on top of another. In July, a machine
without the FTS program memory will be available and have more room
inside to play with.
So, my suggestion is:
1. Return the 2041 and wait for the 650 or cheaper 16-bitter and
send it to Musical Concepts. I doubt PS will do as well.
or
2. Send 2041 to Musical Concepts for the $280 mod. Mention me
and he might give you a break.
or
3. Do the $40 biggest bang for the buck mods.
1. Replace the DC blocking electrolytics with 10uf metalized
polypropelenes. The next Stereophile (got it at CES) finally has
the article on this mod albeit very outdated by reffering to the
the FD1000 and FD2000. I like Musical Concept's Musicaps. They
are sweeter than Wondercaps. Havn't heard Siderial's.
I did just this mod on Druid::kardell's machine and it improved
detail and tightened up the bass.
2. Beef-up power supply capacitance to the opamps and the DACs.
Essentially replace existing ones with bigger versions (preferably
low ESR types) with small (.1uf) film bypasses. This will widen
the soundstage (maybie deepen too).
Mark
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| Yeah, I thought it a good price, too, so I jumped on it. What
I'm really waiting for is the high-end to sort itself out a
bit. I own ARC stuff, (SP-10 and D-115), along with SOTA and
Vandersteens. The SOTA sill blows away ANY CD I've heard,
but I've got to admit they're making more progress than I thought
possible.
The Maggie dealers in this area deal mostly in closeouts, so
I'm sure that's why the price was so cheap. So I'm not holding
my breath for the new Phillips players.
The 2041's most annoying faults to me are it's boomy, woolly,
loose bass, (almost to the point of boomy) and the raspy, nasal
high end. I think it is better than the D5 in the mid-range,
and on good CDs, better than the D5 in the high end. That's
why I'm interested in the $40 midnight special; my understanding
is that the bass benefits most from the mods.
Since you've now done a 2041, Mark, I'd be most appreciative
of any more explicit instructions you can give. I don't have
the schematics for the unit yet....
How do you feel about the $40 mod vs. the Musical Concepts
$280 job - where are the trade-offs? 80%? 70%? I'd really
like to cheap it out as long as possible until a real high-end
player is available - and I don't consider the PS to be high
end (yet, anyway, maybe their version of the new Phillips,
or maybe cj's version, etc). So, I'd like to stall for time.
BTW, while it may be obvious from the above, I consider the
D5 superior to the 2041 in the bass. As for imageing, the players
are different, but subtly so - I haven't decided which I like
best on this score yet.
Thanks for the pointer, any other comments out there?
Dave
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| On the cheap and dirty side, in addition to Marks suggestions I might
suggest you include a pair of 5uf polypropylenes as supply bypassing
at the DAC/opamp supply etch area (IE: within an inch of the DAC/opamp
terminals if possible). This isnt as good as a killer regulator
but the price is about 5-10 times better. This should help smooth
out the mid-hi end by improving DAC and opamp dynamic recovery.
The 5uf value isnt critical, actually the larger the better but
I found the inductive reactance of the physically large 10uf caps
reduces their effectiveness in the supply. I have not tried several
brands, but I suspect that they sound less different here than when
in the signal path.
FYI: I am recommending this based on preamp, tuner, tape deck work.
I havent been able to bring myself to dive into the CD format
yet.
Walt
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| The pp caps will just about solve the bass problem and take some
edge off too. Better power supply will probably improve the bass
a little more.
I have not had the opportunity to do step by step modifications
and comparisons on a good reference system with the 2041. What
you miss in the $40 job that the top Musical Concepts mod gives
(judging by the Distech and PS comparisons) is an open, coherrent
soundstage and sweet, relaxed high-end. The $40 job won't be
satisfying in comparison, thus making it 0% of the MC mod. By other
sonic standards, its probably 50%.
So, if you just want to tinker a little and eventually replace the
2041 with a real machine, OK. I think that the full-blown 2041
mod gets very close to an LP. A full-blown 650 will probably be
better (for CDs recorded with decent digital recorders). I don't
expect any other machine from anyone else to be much better, unless
it is a really big $$$$ machine like the Spectral.
As for Walt's suggestion, the problem is space. You might be able
to fit some very small 1uf caps underneath, but the secret is still
to use the best electrolytics (typically specified for switching
power supply use).
At one point, I made a diagram of the 2041 PC board showing the
caps to replace. I don't remember if it is here anywhere or it
is long gone. I'll type in another if I can't find it.
One change you can do almost for free is to solder the crystal
oscillator can to the ground plane. This reduces some noise, though
I haven't AB'd it on a stock machine.
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