Here's part 1 of my review of the 555ES Hot Rod. I need to take a break. I'll continue in a bit and post the remainder (the actual review) in a separate post. I'll probably modify this one quite a bit, so pardon my dust, thanks.
Sony 555ES Hot Rod Review
After two weeks living with the 555ES and thoroughly breaking it in (roughly 300 hours so far), here are my final thoughts on the 555ES Hot Rod. Sorry in advance, this review gives me yet another chance to pontificate a little, which means a lot of markl blah-blah, which I concede may be annoying to you, but is fun for me!
Major sections are in bold so you can skip ahead to the good stuff.
My System
Sony 555ES Hot Rod--->Virtual Dynamics Reference ICs--->Ray Samuels Emmeline HR-2 headphone amp--->Sonic Horizons Hurricane headphone extension cable--->Sony MDR-R10 headphones.
I will shortly have a Virtual Dynamics Power 1 on my 555ES Hot Rod (now using the VD Power 2). I have the KAS Audio Primus power cord on my HR-2. All components are plugged into a Monster PB1100 power conditioner/surge suppressor. The Hot Rod is sitting on four #2 Vibrapods.
IMPORTANT
Just want to repeat that getting your player modified VOIDS YOUR WARRANTEE. That said, Matthew Anker of sacdmods.com warrants *his work* (not the whole player) for a period of one year. This is not a small consideration, and I don't want to gloss it over. Some report that mod-ed players take longer to sell on the used market, but my experience has been the opposite-- from what I've observed, they seem to retain their value much longer and get snapped up right away on places like audiogon. YMMV.
Who Should Consider the 555ES Hot Rod?
While I feel this player will compete handily with most sub-$2000 single-disc CDPs, I also think it could hold its own against "typical" $3000-$4000 players. But again, I'm speculating here, as I have limited experience with that class of players in my own system, though I've heard plenty in dealer showrooms (no, not an ideal way to audition).
OTOH, I am very familiar with players in the $1000-$1600 range, and the 555ES Hot Rod is far, far ahead of them in terms of sonic performance, and that is the basis for the above pronouncement. At $1200 total cost ($600 for the player, $600 for the mods), I feel the 555ES Hot Rod is a real bargain.
The 555ES Hot-Rod is so amazingly good on CDs, the fact that it also plays SACDs is just an incidental, but well-appreciated bonus. There are a lot of single-disc CDPs available in the $2000-$4000 range, and I have no doubt that it's possible to find a $1200 machine on the used market that could equal the 555ES Hot Rod on Redbook, but I think it would take several auditions and lots of frustration to find it.
To me, I think the best candidate for the 555ES Hot Rod is really the audiophile who needs a 5-disc changer. That said, I disagree with those who say that all 5-disc changers are automatically "poor transports" compared to single-disc machines. IMO, the only difference between single-disc and 5-disc changers is the platter mechanism, not the "transport" itself. Both 5-disc changers and single-disc units have a platter that loads the disc onto the spindle to be read by a laser. To me, it makes no difference if the platter holds 5 discs or one, it simply isn't involved in what we consider the "transport" beyond holding and loading the disc.
Still, it does seem to be "conventional wisdon" that single disc players are preferable for audiophiles, and sadly that's why there have been so few attempts at producing audiophile-grade changers.
So, in the end, if you are not one to turn up your nose at a 5-disc changer, and you are looking for a CDP in the $1200-$2000 range, this one really deserves your attention and careful consideration. The fact that the 555ES Hot Rod offers SACD playback is a nice bonus; I don't think that SACD capability should be a deciding factor in ruling this player in or out. It's just that good on your regular CDs. And who knows, after you've discovered the joy of loading up 5 discs and letting 'em rip, you may wonder how you managed all this time without a changer! Got a CD with only a few good songs on it? Listen to 'em and then painlessly skip to the next disc from the comfort of your chair! Do you like to work while you listen to your cans? You can get over 5 hours of constinuous music with a changer, plus it can be a great juke-box, randomly playing back different tracks from the 5 different CDs.
Why Modify?
Modifying audio equipment with better parts is nothing new, and has been done since the dawn of the audio hobby to all manner of equipment. There is currently a surge in the numbers of people modifying SACDPs. Why? Is this a sign that stock SACDPs have crummy sound quality and only sound good after modification?
I think the reason that SACDPs have become platforms for mod-ers is due to the fact that these players have very sophisticated DACs in them with extraordinary capabilities and specifications, plus SACD as a format has much better specs than standard Redbook, and therefore demands much more of a player. Where most of these new hi-rez machines stumble is in terms of outputting a signal that is pure and clean enough to take full advantage of all that SACD can offer. For example, SACD has a much lower noise floor than the Redbook CD, but it costs a lot of money to build a machine that can actually deliver noise figures low enough to maximize this extra bandwidth.
So, enter the modifiers, who can offer improved performance out of all this amazing technology, bringing today's SACDPs much closer to their theoretical limits.
Cost/Price/Availability
My stock 555ES was obtained from Sound Seller in Wisconsin:
http://www.soundseller.com/sony/scd-c555es.htm
They were easy and painless to deal with and shipped my order the same day. Apparently, they have a good source for the 555ES and this may be one of the last places you can find units new in the box. The price I was quoted and paid was $600, but YMMV. I did not even attempt to negotiate-- I simply pounced.
Typically, through e-bay and Audiogon, a used 555ES goes for around $700 and they don't stay available long.
The mods are mostly designed and built by a company called LC Audio of Denmark (
http://www.lcaudio.dk/com/index.html). They were installed by Matthew Anker of
http://www.sacdmods.com, who was a pleasure to work with in my transaction. Mods to my unit were completed very promptly (roughly 5 days), but YMMV. Matthew charged $600 for the whole package which includes several mods of his own, detailed elsewhere in this thread. Given the total cost of the parts he installs, and the work necessary to install them, his fee is very reasonable, IMO.
Build, Operation, Functionality, Ergonomics, Quirks
Like its older brother, the 333ES, the Hot Rod is simply a joy to use, and there aren't many components I can say that about, let alone one as complicated as the 555ES.
As previously noted, this sexy beast is probably the best built changer ever made. Yes, there are a million and one single-disc players that are far more impressive in build quality than the 555ES, but no changers. Enough said.
The display is bright but not overwhelming, and information is easy enough to see from across the room. The player will display the text provided on some CDs (typically from Sony Music), showing the album name and individual song names which scroll across the 555ES's screen as they begin to play. A green light comes on to alert you when a SACD is playing.
The remote is simple, fully-functional and logical. It is also built fairly heavy for your typical remote and it has a nice feel. Also, the remote seems to be very powerful, you don't even have to be pointing it in the direction of the player for it to function.
Really, the player (in a headphone system, at least) seems to have only one quirk that I've come across so far, and that is the fact that it automatically defaults to the multi-channel layer when it senses a multi-channel SACD. It is necessary to hit the "stop" button, and then hit the "multi-channel/2-channel" button on the remore to get it to switch to the two-channel SACD layer, then press "play" again. A minor inconvenience, but there seems to be no way to program the player to always default to the 2-channel hi-rez layer.
What About Up-Sampling?
Although the 555ES has 24-bit DACs inside, there is no definitive answer I have found to the question of whether or not it "upsamples" old Redbook CDs. However, if upsampling is simply re-clocking the signal at a much higher, more precise rate, then it could be argued that the LC Audio X02 Clock which is a standard part of Anker's mod, performs a somewhat similar function (although it's primary purpose is to reduce digital "jitter" and errors).
That said, the question to ask is not, IMO, "does this player have upsampling", but "how does this player actually sound on CDs"? On that score, the 555ES is hard to fault. It may not have a light that comes on to tell you it's upsampling, but who cares when Redbook CDs sound this amazing? Sure you can now even find a $400 machine that upsamples, if that's your criteria, go for it, it will support that check-box. But the ability to upsample doesn't mean much if CDs still don't reach even half their sonic potential, due to the fact that everything else in the player is sub-standard. In the end, upsamling is a nice to have item, but it's no guarantee of good sound.
Revelations
All the best audio components its been my pleasure to own have expanded my consciousness in some way with regard to sound reproduction; they do things I've never heard before or didn't even know could be done. The 555ES defintely schooled me on a number of areas, but there were a few key "ah-hah" moments for me that I'd like share:
1. The real difference between Redbook CD and SACD (*as it is presented today here in its infancy*) is actually quite subtle. My view on the real purpose and value of the new formats has been altered by my experience with the 555ES Hot Rod.
So far, besides the 555ES Hot Rod, I have sampled in depth a total of three other hi-rez machines (Denon DV-4800 DVD-A player, Kenwood Sovereign 5700 DVD-A player, and the Sony SCD-333ES SACDP modified by Modwright before and after mods), and on all those machines, the leap between CD and SACD/DVD-A was immediately obvious. I got all hot and bothered over the new formats, as they were so obviously superior to their Redbook counterparts, many old-timers here may remember my early enthusiasm (BTW: I'm still plenty keen on them). I thought at last, here were formats that brought digital up to a listenable level, a delightful level, able to involve and immerse the listener in a way that CD just could not.
Now, my feeling about the new formats, as they exist today, is that they are not *necessarily* just for audiophiles. On the contrary, I think the chief relevance of the new formats is the ability bring outstanding sound quality to the masses in low-cost machines. My revelation is that as you step up the line into the real "high-end" of CDPs (above $3K to me), you can get sound out of Redbook CDs that meets or even exceeds that given by today's $1000 hi-rez machines playing a new-format disc. I never would have thought that was possible, or at least I was very skeptical. I thought I had a pretty decent sense of what the Redbook CD could or couldn't do with my $1000-$1600 players of the past. Yes, I was certain you could get marginal gains all-around from a $4000 player, but I felt that in the end, a CD would still sound like a CD, granted a very well-played CD, but still so limited. But I was wrong. Good old 16-bit CDs have an awful lot more sound crammed onto their shiny surfaces than I would have thought.
So all this time, my enemy was not the CD so much, but my CDP! When played back properly, a CD really does have the ability to AWE I had only gotten from SACDs/DVD-As before. However, it is sadly necessary to spend thousands on a source to get a player at this level, a piece that will all but erase the line between CD and the hi-rez formats. Right now, going to SACD and DVD-A is not necessarily a boon to the well-heeled audiophile, it actually means that lower-priced machines, with shabbier build quality can offer truly excellent sound in hi-rez. In the end, I think the new formats benefit the music-lover on a budget even more than the obsessed audiophile. Who'd a thunk?
However, given how badly early CDs and early CDPs sounded, it may be many years before we have hi-rez players that can fully extract all there is to be had out of the new formats at real world prices. I suspect that in 7-10 years time with advancements in recording, DACs and mastering equipment, we'll have SACDs/DVD-As that again sound light years better than the best 16-bit CDs ever could.
Anyway, so that was revelation #1!
2. The real cause of treble "fatigue". The real trouble with some components is not "too much" treble, but rather "not enough". When there is a ceiling on what the component can put out cleanly, and it's being fed a signal that extends beyond its abilities, you get distortion. It's this sonic break-up, this inability to replicate the incoming signal that causes some components to come across as "bright" and "fatiguing". It's also the inability to make subtle distinctions between instruments, notes, sounds, and music that occur in the treble area, that results in a sonic cramming together of all treble info into a narrow band, causing a component to appear "bright" when in fact all you are responding to is the player's limited treble abilities. Instead of "one-note bass" you get a sort of "one note treble" that tends to distort because it's just not up to the task of reproducing it all accurately, it just doesn't have that kind of control. This situation creates fatigue, as the treble keeps calling attention to itself, and when you look, it's not pretty, it sounds shrill or harsh--ouch! So, my revelation is that it's lack of true treble extension and articulation that results in what we may sometimes mistake for "brightness".
Anyway, the 555ES left me with a paradox-- how could it be so dynamic, so fast, so clear, forward and open yet be so utterly non-fatiguing? I kept wondering if the player was somehow "dark" or had a rolled-off top end, but it just didn't sound that way to me. On the contrary, the treble seems to extend forever effortlessly; it's immacculately clean, and totally open sounding and not at all "closed in".
Yet, it was only during certain passages in certain songs with certain sounds playing that the 555ES's ability to portray truly high-frequency info came to the fore, proving that the player could easily reach those heights when it needed to. But you know what, those were only the occasions when that kind of treble extension was specifically called for by the music, and was necessary for accurate reproduction. So over time, you come to see there is simply no ceiling on the Hot Rod's treble, yet at the same time, it's much more "articulate" treble than I've ever heard before. It only goes as high as the music demands, and doesn't cram all that treble info into a one-note band. The 555ES Hot Rod has re-defined "good treble response" for me. It never strains or distorts at any frequency no matter how brutally high-pitched it may be, AND it's able to draw incredible distinctions between sounds in the highest frequencies. You get it all, and it's completely clean.
3. Dynamics, bass slam, bass depth, impact and "punch", are not things created by your headphone amplifier. Those basic pieces of information truly originate at the source. The whole source ball-game is not necessarily just a matter of finding the cleanest, most pure sound for hand-off to the amp. It should not be left to the amplifier to "create" the dynamics. A source is capable of outputting an entirely different kind of information than just frequency, tone and timbre. It also gives the amp a stream of information about dynamics, heft, slam, energy release, power, force, attack, call it what you want. That signal does not "stop cold" at the amplifier for "processing" and outputting, it just passes through unimpeded. Lack of dynamics in a *headphone system* may have as much to do with the source as it does with the amp.
No other CDP I've ever heard is as purely powerful, dynamic, and punchy as the 555ES Hot Rod. Yes, I had experienced differences in the ability of my previous CDPs to portray these things, but they all still fell within a similar range, where the 555Es is just off the charts by comparison. I knew a source could influence how dynamics are portrayed, but I never knew that it could be this much. Probably old news to you, but an interesting realization for me.
One-Word Review Game
If I had to choose one word to describe the Hot Rod, even before "dynamic", that word would be "PURE". I could have gone for the word "clean" or "immaculate", but that creates a false sense that the Hot Rod's presentation is somehow soft, dry, or lifeless. Nothing could be further from the truth! This thing crackles and pulses and vibrates with life. Yet it is as distortion-free as any CDP I've ever heard. It has total effortless control over everything, you really get the sense that it is operating well within its capabilities. Is there any grit, hash, or distortion left in the signal? Almost definitely. But you can't know what you don't know. How much would one have to pay to get an even "purer" sound? Well, if you've read this far, I think you can guess my estimate.
I also chose "pure" because the 555ES Hot Rod is the least "digital" sounding piece of digital gear I've owned by a fair margin. It's not that the digital signature is completely eliminated, but the sound is remarkably natural and free of digititis. CDs just don't sound so much like CDs, they sound like *music*.
OK, taking a break. Not sure if I'll continue today or tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Mark
