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Stereophile Magazine/ Art Dudley reviews Playstation 1 - Page 2

post #16 of 94
6/13/08 at 2:16pm
Yes, you want the 1001 or 1002 series of the PS1, after that they RCA jacks and DAC chips changed several times.
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post #17 of 94
6/13/08 at 2:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Monkey View Post
Yes, you want the 1001 or 1002 series of the PS1, after that they RCA jacks and DAC chips changed several times.
Those are earlier models and it's hard to find. I have one broken PS1 but I don't know what model it is. Hopefully it's 1001 but I doubt it.
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post #18 of 94
6/13/08 at 10:06pm
Art Dudley says at the end that he'd gladly take the PS1 over the $20K dCS system. John Atkinson, who's probably the most objectively oriented reviewer around, said the PS1 of course measured poorly, but couldn't understand how it sounded so good in the system he heard it in. I'm thinking it's one of those rare occurrences in life when everything points toward something bad... but instead ends up being inexplicably good.
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post #19 of 94
6/13/08 at 10:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by selfdivider View Post
Art Dudley says at the end that he'd gladly take the PS1 over the $20K dCS system. John Atkinson, who's probably the most objectively oriented reviewer around, said the PS1 of course measured poorly, but couldn't understand how it sounded so good in the system he heard it in. I'm thinking it's one of those rare occurrences in life when everything points toward something bad... but instead ends up being inexplicably good.
I think with that AD will be black-listed by every other CDP manufacturer out there.....

NO PS1 is not perfect....but its really good....like Linn stuff..looks really light-weight but its actually great
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post #20 of 94
6/13/08 at 10:36pm
I love AD. He talks crap about half of the other people there, makes fun of most of the manufactures monthly, and goes off on topic such as last months vibration isolation. If AD likes it, at least to me I feel he is giving his honest opinion in the review.
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post #21 of 94
6/13/08 at 11:02pm
AD is great. I love the fact that he's into DIY and tubes. I look forward to reading his column every month. A small caveat on PS1: make sure to take care to hook up a quality interconnect. Also, leave it on ALWAYS. Otherwise, it won't sound so good...
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post #22 of 94
6/13/08 at 11:25pm
Head over to Audio Asylum. Their Digital Asylum has quite a few threads discussing the PS1. If I didn't already have a nice cd player and also a PS3 in my living room, I would seriously look into this unit. Think, PS1 + Sonic T-amp plus a pair of giant killer amps = amazing sound for under $300.
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post #23 of 94
6/13/08 at 11:30pm
Try the RS Accurian with it, I am!!
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post #24 of 94
6/14/08 at 4:42am
Another example of price and performance being two different things...
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post #25 of 94
6/14/08 at 1:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jingo Lingo View Post
Another example of price and performance being two different things...
Absolutely, but these are diamonds in the rough in most cases and moreover when something like this hits...stars align, the moon does its thing all that jazz, it often means genius design and parts selection or complete luck, or MASSIVE subsidizing from the parent corps. Sony is known to overbuild their first few batches of products in a new line and then cut out the good stuff later on. I wouldn't doubt this happened with the PS1.

Still, a bargain is a bargain! PS1 plus a Modified T-amp will run someone about 250 total. Throw in some decent speakers for another 100-200 and one can have a really nice rockin' system for what many will pay for a power cord.
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post #26 of 94
6/14/08 at 4:34pm
A few points worth noting:

Back in April when John Marks mentioned the PS1, he said "For $25, it sounds wonderful." But added, "I am totally unsold on the claim of 'as good as $6000 audiophile CD players.'"

The unit used by Marks was an SCPH-1001, one of the good ones that was mentioned here. Marks did indicate though that his unit suffered from an audible disc spinning noise.

In the July issue, Atkinson measures his son's unit, a third generation SCPH-7501 and mentions that in most respects the measurements of the 7501 although it sounded good, were much worse than the 1001 Marks used and wonders, "if the 'magic' of the Playstation 1's sound lies not in it's technical excellence but in the fact that it smears over and disguises much of what is wrong with typical CD sound quality, to which it adds a touch of low-level compression from the linearity error."

The unit Art Dudley reviews is not the same one that Marks used, but it is also an SCPH-1001. He labels the PS1 as having "a very un-hi-fi sound." Dudley also says, "Partly because of my indifference to digitally mastered music, I admit to having less experience with cutting-edge CD players than do most of my colleagues." He mentions that if he had a $25k system (the Verdi La Scala transport and Delius DAC to be specific) he would happily trade it for a PS1. My impression is that to him, the PS1 has a sound that is less "digital" which is why he prefers it.
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post #27 of 94
6/14/08 at 9:04pm
Thread Starter 
Exactly. Less digital sounding. (In my book thats a good thing.)

The PS1 is probably an accident (as far as sound is concerned). But anything that makes my discs sound closer to "real life" is a step in the right direction. I am listening to Bowie's "Rebel, Rebel" right now and it sounds like Bowie singing, not like a recording of Bowie singing.
Kinda like a layer of "haze" has been removed. Less artificial.

If this is "euphonic distortion" I like it.
Time to hit replay and turn it up. Plug yer ears, I'm probably gonna start singing.............
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post #28 of 94
6/14/08 at 10:04pm
Yeah, the unit that John Marks reviewed briefly in April seems to have been a bit broken... I don't know any other PS1 users who had decent units who had that issue with tracking. The unit that Art Dudley got was on loan from John Devore, who is one of the earliest adopters of the PS1 in an audiophile system; he even featured it in a showroom at C.E.S. with his speakers. Zotjen, your impression seems right on: all the guys mentioned in the article, Michael Lavorgna, John Devore, and Art Dudley, are serious analog aficionados. It would seem likely that they'd value the non-digital aspect of the PS1 playback. I think a lot of people would criticize the PS1 because it's not a hi-rez playback machine that upsamples to the n-th degree. But that's not the point & Art Dudley's love for it makes it clear that that isn't the point, when he says he'd take the PS1 over the $25K dCS.
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post #29 of 94
6/14/08 at 11:36pm
I'm so excited to get mine. If I knew from the begining that this had an analog sound signature it wouldn't have taken me so long to adopt one. I'm considering buying a second to tweak and leave one stock. All of this and never having heard it give it my personal seal of FOTM but at the price of the unit and mods it's hard to pass up.
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post #30 of 94
6/15/08 at 3:35am
johnsonad, I've already A-B'd the stock PS1 with modded versions (per dogbreath's site). If you like the analog quality of the sound, you shouldn't mod it. You do gain some resolution, but as you could have guessed from the Stereophile review, the PS1's "magic" quality doesn't come from resolution. That musically pleasant 'bloom' goes away & the sound gets markedly less cohesive. To make sure, I tried 2 different modded PS1s, and both of them were the same. I wrote about this in previous PS1 threads... just give it good power cord & interconnects. Leave it on 24/7. Then fuhgeddaboutit!
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