Sony Playstation SCPH-1001 one of the best cd players around? - Page 4

The 5001, which is what I bought, uses the same dac, etc, but does not have the rca's jacks and opamp chip. I added rca's and did the mods.
A good resource-
Mick Feuerbacher Audio Projects

Believe what you want, Fumashiro, but I am really enjoying mine. I don't think it is in any sense, the worlds best cd player or anything like that, but it sounds much better then any other player I have owned. I am not a rich man, so I can't compare it to a $6000 player, but my Denon was around $600 and this playstation sounds much better.

Yay! I actually got a 1001 this afternoon, for $10! :eek

will mod the crap out of it, as usual. Probably do a 4 transformer all-linear external power bank, and tap the signals directly from the DAC to the outside via silver/teflon wire, so I can add whatever huge signal cap I want on the outside (will definitly try out the Russian FT-3 teflon's).

First time I heard anything about this...

well, by looking at your source list, you don't appear to have a standalone cd player, so you have nothing to loose by buying one and trying it out yourself!

I'm definitely getting on this over the summer.

I have an old PS1 laying around and it does sound good for being... a Playstation .

Well, as John Atkinson might say, colour me bewildered. I dug out my old PS1 last week. It's actually a 5001, a unit that shares a DAC with the 1001 but lacks the RCA outputs (although some suggest that the AV multi outs, which apparently bypass an opamp stage, are superior). I left it on overnight and listened to a few discs, including such audiophile chestnuts as Patrica Barber's Companion and a range of other music (Alison Krauss, Sabbath's Paranoid and an LSO Live recording of the New World Symphony). And the result is... soft, bland, and audibly resolution-limited, in my view. It's true that the sound is "free of digititis," but it's also strikingly free of musical interest or excitement in my system. I hear a kind of warmish wash of music, vague at the freq extremes and thick around the edge of each note. It's fine, but it isn't any better than my old Panasonic portable CDP using its lineouts.

In fact, all the recent fuss about the PS1 reminds me of that other "cheapskate" high-end CDP, the Optimus 3400, which in its day was built up (perhaps most famously by Sam Tellig in Stereophile) as a geniune giant-slayer, mostly because its sound was perfectly pleasant. But if I was after "pleasant," I'd be happy with a 50.00 Curtis boombox and I wouldn't be a member here.

I dunno. Maybe the 1001 is miles better than the 5001, and will provide all the detail, harmonic resolution, spatial and tonal accuracy, speed, PrAt and so on of my old Saturn or maybe all those "hifi" considerations go out the window with the 1001 because of its organicism or some such. But for those of you who love it, how do you explain its SQ? It isn't careful design or high-spec parts or bulletproof build quality or any of the other things we take generally to be responsible for good sound. So is it just dumb luck? Synergy? I find myself really confused by all this.

best,

o

uhhhh! I just got burnt. Bought a PSone today, thinking maybe it will be fun to mod too. It turned out the DAC is inside the big processor chip, there is a buffer amp (3527) for I/V stage :mad

Anybody knows how to improve the I/V? I really like the transport chassis of the PSone, it is very easy to convert to solid mounting on a dense wood board, then suspend the board.

somehow there are two 0.82uf film caps at the inputs of the 3527, it looks more like just an buffer to me....

Maybe all I need to do is tapping the signals directly from the CXD chip

The Playstation has a weak signal. Get a Dreamcast instead.

hi orkney
i have a 1002 and a 5502, and both (unmodded) sound totally different. the 5502 sounds much more digital, sludgy and is less involving than the 1002. modifying both units (yes i hove one of each modded too) brings them very very close, so close i dont think i can really be sure of a difference. The modded units trade the "organic" sound for more detail and more extension at both ends, at the expense of loosing a bit of "magic" (in the case of the 1002).

my answer to you is to buy a 1001/2 and see for yourself. you could always look for one on ebay by asking sellers the model number and then re-sell it as an scph1001 if you are not happy, probably for a small profit.

as for explaining the sq, i dont think that it is dumb luck, i think sony meant for the ps1 to be a decent cdp, one of the functions that it was originally designed for! the dac used just happens to be superb sounding! either way, i dont care, it sounds great to me!

One question... does it play the playstation tune when you fire it up with an audio cd in?

yes..when 1st fired up, so just leave it on and you don't have to hear the noise again.

..........unless you want to hear it again!

Thanks for the response -- very helpful. I'll keep my eyes open for a 1001/2 at a reasonable price.

best,

o