[Onix]

As some of you remember, I have been conducting a review of portable players for a Mexican magazine. So far, after dealing with very uncooperative people, I have been able to only check the following brands:

RCA, Aiwa, Radioshack, Majestic (a Mexican brand owned by Aiwa Mexico) and TEAC. Panasonic will be reviewed tomorrow and Phillips and Sony hopefully next Friday.

Just to make a long story short, the best player I have encountered so far is the Radioshack Cd-3904. A really nice sounding machine, with minor problems, like its looks, for example, and a antiskip that goes around 10 to 15 seconds. But for the most part, I can say with my hand on my heart that this player sounds better than my SL-SX500. It won't read CD-RW, but I can put normal CDs, CD-Rs and really scratched CD's and it will play them. Even with the antiskip off, you can shake the thing for about 5 seconds and it wont loose the track, wich is better tan my Pana, wich even a fly passing by will turn into a skipping and screaming thing, totally devoid of musicianship.

It won't be until tomorrow that I have a chance to check the new Panasonic line, but I can tell you that this player will be a hard nut to crack.

On second place, really far away, I woul place the Aiwas, althoug the RCA unit I checked, RP2300, wich has no anti'skip, did not sound half bad.

Anyway, I'll have more to post when the article is ready. Take care in the meantime.

 

[Milestones]

I'm curious - what headphone(s) were you using for your review?

I had heard really good things about the Radio Shack 3904 - so I picked one up and tried it for several weeks with my Grado SR-80s. The result is that I found the 3904 to be way too bright when coupled with the Grados. Apparently, the 3904 has a bright sound and since the Grados are also bright - the result is a treble sound which is harsh and brittle to my ears.

However, I've heard others say that with its 15 mW headphone amplifier the 3904 does an adequate job with difficult to drive headphones like the Senn. HD-600s. That would make sense, give the fact that the Senn.s have a relatively dark sound. The brightness of the 3904 would balance the dark sound of the HD-600s.

Likewise, I'm beginning to think that you need a relatively dark sounding portable cd player to make sure that the brightness of the Grados doesn't become harsh or brittle.

 

[Onix]

That's funny, because I am using the Alessandro MS-1. I guess people just have different ears.

 

[Milestones]

Yeah, when I was talking about Grados being bright - I was referring to the Prestige series Grados. I haven't had any direct experience with the Reference series Grados yet.

However, I understand that the Reference series Grados (RS-1 and RS-2) are supposed to be a bit darker and more laid back than the Prestige Series. I would assume the same would hold true for the MS-1. So the fact that the MS-1 would not sound overly bright with the Radio Shack 3904 would not necessarily mean that the Prestige Series Grados would not sound overly bright with the 3904. Based on my experience with my SR-80s and the 3904, I would say the Prestige series Graodos do tend to sound overly bright with the 3904 IMO.

 

[lini]

Hmhmhm, I'm not surprised, because when I listened to some different Grados, yesterday, I found the RS-1 much warmer (actually too warm in the bass department) than the Prestige models I tried, which were the SR225, SR80 and SR60...

Greetings from SF, again!

Manfred / lini

 

[Onix]

I agree with you both. The problem is that bassically I have to use the best headphones available to me, the most revealing and easy to use. And the MS-1, something in bettween the SR-80 and SR-125, seems to be a great all around headphone, for allmost all kinds of music. Rigth now I am listening to Charles Mingus on them and I love it. Maybe I have just grown used to the sound they get with the Pana SL-SX500.
On that note, I feel that I had a more enjoyable experience with the Radioshack thing than with my Pana or any other portable so far. And yes, they sounded really brigth, allmost too harsh with the MS-1's.
I am wondering if these observations about different players are related to the fact that all of us are different and percieve things in different ways. There's a general consesus that Panas, Ratshack and Sony are better than the other players, but perhaps someone out there will really enjoy a crappy portable and hate the best sounding model of those other 3 brands. Who knows.
Also, I have found a problem. I try to be very objective, but it's hard to be so when you are evaluating, and excuse the term, the "enjoyement" you get of music on a certain player. I think all I can do is to recomend what I believe to be the best for me to others, and hope people will like it.
Anyway, I am getting the Panasonics tomorrow, and probably wont be doing Sony or Philips anytime soon, so the review will go, by force I have to admit, away from the mainstream brands used in this country. It will be totally unintentional, but maybe it's also something good, since people will see that you have some other alternatives.
In any case, please keep posting your concerns about this endeavour. Thanks.

 

[aos]

I can swear I posted a question in this topic, here, 2 days ago. It dissapeared. Strange...

Anyway, I was meaning to ask, since you reviewed many models, do you know of any that has digital out (presumably optical)? I will need such an unit for experimentation.

 

[Redwoood]

As coolvij pointed out at HW, a relatively cheap player
with optical out is the D-ej711.
Don't know where to get it in Canada though.
(Futureshop has the 725 for 200$CAN, etronics has the
711 for 70$US )

Since you're at the west coast, you might be able to get some
'grey' Japanese imports.


Bye

Redwoood

 

[Onix]

Quote:

Originally posted by aos I can swear I posted a question in this topic, here, 2 days ago. It dissapeared. Strange... Anyway, I was meaning to ask, since you reviewed many models, do you know of any that has digital out (presumably optical)? I will need such an unit for experimentation.

You just post it on Headwize. Maybe you just got mixed up. In any case,I haven't fund a cheap player with optical out. But if I see one I'll let you know.

 

[aos]

You're right, onix! Believe me, I did search both sites, and not once, but failed to find my post. Whew, I thought I was starting to imagine things...

A couple of friends of mine are going to Seattle to some concert so I'll ask them to get D-EJ711 there.

 

[Redwoood]

aos,

why don't you just get some el-cheapo player, open in up, and
make yourself a digital out - just for the fun of it.
Additionally, you wouldn't have to care about transforming optical into electrical...

just thinking...

Bye

Redwoood

 

[aos]

Redwood,
that's not a bad idea at all. The biggest problem would be installing a connector for digital out somewhere on PCDP's body. Obviously RCA is out of question, maybe a mono headphone jack could be used.

 

[rickcr42]

opened up a sony CDP today to see if there was an area where there WOULD be a digital out if included in the japanese release,I figured it would be next to the output.No go.
So I did the next best thing and wrote down the numbers of all the chips on both sides of the board.Once I get the data sheets on these I will see if it is possible to add a digital out to this sucker by adding a small pcb with the digital buffer and spdif transformer

Rick

 

[Redwoood]

I think the optical output of Sony models is an the same side as
the headpone out but 3 inches or so to the back, closer to the
power jack (on the back side).

A 2.5mm plug might work well, but is pretty long.
I would suggest a mini-USB connector: cheap, standard, small and
the cables are built for digital transmission anyway (FWIW)

EDIT: The correct term is USB type-B, Digikey has receptacles for
2$CAN or so

Bye

Redwoood