[hazardous]

Please be gentle, I'm a noob with this sort of thing!
 
Anyways, I was doing some spring cleaning today and came across some old audio equipment my parents inherited from my grandfather. The stuff has been sitting in a closet for years, but he had a reputation for having expensive taste. Turns out there's an old JVC xl-m409 cd player, manufactured in Tokyo and individually serial numbered, and I was curious about the built in DAC. I'd heard stories about really superb quality DACs being used in these Japanese electronics in the mid 90's (manufacture date on this one is 1993) and I was wondering if this was worth anything or not.
 
I googled the model number and found virtually nothing, so I cracked open the case to peek inside...problem is I don't really know enough to do anything other than google the part numbers on the chips. Any help would be appreciated! If you need a closeup of a specific area or more info I can get it, but attached are a few basic pics. I certainly don't expect you to be able to read serial numbers but if somebody can circle a specific place to look for info I can get back with it.
 
BTW I spotted several of what I believe to be 4580D opamps.
 
pics are big so I just linked them
 
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/7848/1000039b.jpg
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/5907/1000040.jpg
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5269/1000041d.jpg
 
junk or newly found treasure?

 

[9pintube]

Not to be a funny man, but you could always use it in your garage system, when you get a garage!.......Welcome to Head-Fi......

 

[hazardous]

Quote:

Not to be a funny man, but you could always use it in your garage system, when you get a garage!.......Welcome to Head-Fi......

I own a house but no garage...thanks I guess! I hooked the cd player up to my audio gd fun and it sounds pretty damn good, but I dont have anything to a/b it with at the moment.

 

[Jack C]

Copper screws... you don't see that much anymore.

Jack

 

[ford2]

 
 
If the player has a good drive unit,Toshiba/Sony etc and a spdif out then the internal DAC matters not,just use it as a transport.
 

 

[hazardous]

Quote:

 
 
If the player has a good drive unit,Toshiba/Sony etc and a spdif out then the internal DAC matters not,just use it as a transport.
 

It of course has only analog out, hence my initial post. Honestly I'm not sure when spdif starting becoming common but I've never seen it on anything this old.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Keep it for back up in case your other transport (I assume it's a PC) conks out and you want to listen but don't have time to repair. Still, if it's lying unused around the house, then sell it, but try Audiogon first. At least that increases the chance that someone who likes these old CDPs.
 
On a related note, I'm still using my Marantz CDP via headphone out in the bedroom for when popping in a disc is mroe convenient than switching on a computer. And unlike my CDPs there's less chance I'll roll over this thing and break the LCD if I fall asleep.

 

[ford2]

Quote:

It of course has only analog out, hence my initial post. Honestly I'm not sure when spdif starting becoming common but I've never seen it on anything this old.

I have a Luxman DZ-121 from around 1991 and it has optical out (hence the reason I keep it).

 

[audiofil]

Your cd-player is most likely based on a Sony 1-bit DAC.
 
The famous 1990's cd-players you refer to are completely different beasts. They were based on top of the line R2R DACs (at that time - namely TDA1541 and PCM56) and top of the line laser units.