heads up: philips dvp-642 dvd player brilliant. - Page 2

it's analog outs suck if you are comparing it to $600 redbook players.
as a transport it is probably the best $50 unit currently made for cd's(stock).
once modded the transport can operate at a more consistent speed with better power. also better power suplied to a better clock will improve the spdif output and bring it up to 24/192. the spdif should be wired directly to the ic pins bypassing all the unnesscesary stuff in its path. since it has a good stable transport to begin with it is now made better. i used dynamat and vibrapods blue tacked the clock. now i am outputting no audible jitter bit perfect spdif stream(i have measured it). i doubt it will have a long life but it does sound like a $2,000 transport as long as i use a quality dac now.

stock it is still a better than the current toshiba for cd's only. the new toshiba sucks imho. the old ones were much better. the whole thing that you folks are missing is that i took an ok transport and made a lot better, i am not using it's dac. i have tapped the spdif stream at it's source. the platter is now pretty stable. if you are just going to take the unit as it comes and hook up the analog outputs then the $300 players will probably best it. stock to a dac the $300 players will not best it. modified it will best $2,000 players with a dac. modding the toshiba was very popular and rendered great results(regardless of what sovkiller says). the supply of old toshibas is over. i see this as the new base to mod. quite frankly no transport made today is as good as 15 year old ones when used strictly as transports. the old dacs obviously suck. also, forget about using this thing for video it sucks. if you want a good all around player completely stock for all formats then the pioneer is on clearance(dv-45a).

you must realise in which manner i am using this and how the mods have optimised that usage. if you take it out of the box and hook it up to the analog outputs i doubt you will be impressed unless you keep in mind that it is only $50 not $500!


music_man

there is a difference between $50 players. most of them right now suck. this is the new toshiba 3960. since the 3990 also sucks.

modded, this aproaches the krell. seriously. so did the modded toshiba 3960. that is a well known fact. is it as good as the esoteric? what the heck do you want for $50+$250 in parts . it is the same as when you put a rega arm on a technics 1200. all you are doing is swapping junk parts for good ones. which is sadly all that seperates most $50 players from $2,000 players today. designs remain similar. the front loading transports have gone way south by now. shiny 5 inch discs seem to be on their way out(thanks apple).

if someone could figure out a way to replace the ess lsic with a yamaha lsic in the same package configuration we would then also gain the video performance. i assure you most of todays transport designs suck compared to those of yore. this is because of oversmapling upsampling etc. it is much less money to implement software than hardware to corect things such as jitter. this has worked out to the modders advantage of course.

music_man

with the digital out to the same dac i cannot hear a distinct difference between the krell and the modded philips. that is because the philips now has no audible jitter. acting solely as transports, using their difital outputs there should be no difference between two players if they both can output bit perfect data streams. the philips can now do just that. again, i have measured this. that is what is pretty amazing for $50. the philips transport is not that good but with better power going to it and a better clock it can be made into a respectable transport only. transports should not have any signature to them if they are any good. dac's on the other hand...

the krells analog outs slaughter the philips analog outputs!

the krell is a well built 50 pound metal box with all three layer pcb's using strictly surface mount components(i know, i have taken it apart). the dacs in the krell are multiple and discrete(whereas the philips is the usual one chip solution joke box). what gets me about the krell is that the drawer and it's mechanism are just as cheap as any player these days.
however, what is of actual importance is the motor and bearing, which are obviously of better quality than the philips, much actually. i don't get the krell's drawer.


i was not down playing the krell. i was up-playing the modded philips.
the modded philips i am sure if people were aware that it was a similar deal as the toshiba i could sell on audiogon for maybe $600. it is better all the way around than the pioneer dv-45a which it just replaced on my nightstand because it is much smaller. of course that is for redbook performance. the pioneer just went on the bedrooms tv. i couldn't stand to watch the philips.

we can agree the philips is just an average $50 player. it can be made into a top notch redbook transport though. $250 in parts is what i used because it was what i had. honestly you could use panasonic or hitachi caps and get that down to $150. i also wasted 11 hours of labor while i was enjoying martini's. i could have done it in 3. so it is an ok deal as long as it does not poop out in a week. so far it has been going nonstop for about 90 hours. it is further burning in some new phones.

music_man

i don't know why some people are so stubborn.

with my modded unit i will challenge any sub $1,500 player.

obviously it is not as good as an esoteric or something. that isn't fair.

someone here said it was not that far behind an arcam. i am starting to give up on diminishing returns. i don't know how long it will last(has 200 hours now) but to spend over 2 grand to better my $350 (modded) investment forget it.

i do have much more expensive systems and they are better. but not by much.

if you want a whole different level of performance than this be prepared to tear your wallet in half!

i could see wanting better units if this was a $600 nad,marantz, rotel. but no, it is that level of performance for (now $39) stock.
just do it!

music_man