Question about my new D-303

[j-dawg]

Hi everyone. A new PCDP sucker was born yesterday as my D-303 arrived in the mail. I noticed something funny right away and I would like to run it by you guys.

When I plug headphones into the line-out, a) it's really really loud compared to any PCDP line-out I've ever heard and b) there's a ton of crappy distortion in the higher frequencies. I realize it's not designed to drive headphones and may present some funny load problems. But I can plug phones into the line-outs of my D-5, D-11, and D-33 and they sound just fine, more or less like the headphone out with the volume on min. Phones I used by the way were: Senn PX-100 & HD-201, and various other crappy phones I had laying around. I don't have any nice phones just yet. Finally I ran the line-out into the line-in jack on my DAP and recorded a few minutes and sure enough, same very audible distortion in the highs are present in the recordings.

Lastly, the headphone-out sounds fantastic to me. I can't hear any problems at all. It's like my 303 is the opposite of the one in Duncan's review where he heard distortion in the phone-out, but raved about the line-out.

Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[zowie]

I never had any distortion running line-out into line inputs.

 

[warubozu]

Yes, you are correct in that the vintage PCDP's line out was not meant to directly drive a set of headphones. Damage to the headphone can result to due to excessive and no control of the volume thru the line out which was meant to be run thru an amp or other audio recording device with an incoming volume control. The D-303 is known to have the most powerful line out of the vintage Sony vintage PCDP line up. The D-5, D-11, and D-33 line outs aren't as powerful as the D-303 and therefore may sound just fine to you.

 

[Jahn]

distortion = headphones not happy. as said above, dont' plug cans directly into a line out, that output is for amps only.