[jlo mein]

so today i went out and finally purchased my sony de-ej1000. Side note: saphiremodena, i went to get the 69 cent loonies but they were sold out. It starts at 9am, i got there at 8:50am, they were sold out at 9:05am. Apparently ppl lined up at 7am to get them.

Anyway so i paid full price. Here are some pics, sorry for the image quality, i have a bad digital camera, and i dont know how to work photoshop so i auto leveled them, but that seemed to make it worse.

sony d-ej1000

btw: i noticed with all the headphones that i use, when i use the phones out, and turn the volume down to zero, it emits a repeating thumping sound, like a helicopter sound. This is just in the left driver. Is this supposed to happen? It annoys me because it happens in the quiet part of recordings too.

 

[disturbed]

What a beauty. Take good care of it and after the warranty dies and some years go by. Mod this little devil.

 

[sapphiremodena]

Oh cool, you got it! Too bad about the loonies...wow sold out in 5 minutes, that's ridiculous...

So.....it looks pretty damn good....how does it sound from the line out?

 

[jlo mein]

dont have my amp yet so i dunt kno.

Im starting to get pissed off about the sound coming from the left driver when theres no volume....does anyone else experience this? I might have to exchange this thing...argh i hate exchanging...

 

[Duncan]

nope... pure silence on 0, and 1 here jlo

 

[jlo mein]

can eagle driver chime in too about the helicopter like noise in the left driver when volume is at zero? I'm concerned because duncan you live in the uk, while a member named James PM'ed me saying that his sony 1000 does the same thing in the left driver. Whatever it is, its probably internal amp related, as the line out does not experience this.

I hate to take this back to the store, as im afraid this was the last one. If it is, its going to take a while to get a replacement.

 

[Duncan]

jlo... until eagle replies, if it helps to know (and maybe you could reply also) - my serial number on my EJ1000 is 5052673 (on the underside of the lid)... maybe sample variation?!?

 

[Eagle_Driver]

jlo mein, you may have gotten a defective unit. Mine (serial number 5108972) is quiet at zero volume, as well.

And I think I know why mine clips above 18/30 with 16-ohm earbuds but doesn't clip with 120-ohm Sennheiser 590's: Blame the EJ1000's internal DC power supply for not having enough current capacity. That's what happens if a PCDP manufacturer tries to stretch the rated battery life to over 40 hours on just the two 1350mAH NH-14WM NiMH rechargeable batteries - too much of the PSU's capacity goes to the PCDP's spindle motor, and not enough for the internal headphone op-amp. Thus you get clipping distortion that diminishes as the headphone impedance gets higher - and low-impedance headphones force that tiny PSU to try to deliver more current for any given headphone output voltage. Don't confuse this clipping distortion with the clipping distortion that you get if the headphone amp runs out of output voltage capacity; the latter will produce the same clipping distortion at a given volume-control setting no matter how low or how high the headphone impedance is.

Just my $0.02.

 

[thomas]

Jlo, there is always a small amount of high-frequency noise on my Sony D-ej01 when used with low-impedance headphones. I'm surprised they still haven't fixed the problem, i guess either no one cares or its really something that can't be fixed... All the G-protection cd players have terrible headphone amps, yet excellent line outs...


eagle driver- you're probably correct about current, though it is almost certainly a problem with the headphone amplifier rather than the power supply. The toshiba TA2120 is an anemic chip, with only 5-8mW@10% distortion, and the way sony configured it is far from ideal, sacrificing sound quality every time for battery life.

 

[jlo mein]

omg....sorry guys....i feel so stupid right now...

I think before i posted about hearing this noise in the left driver, i should have tried using DIFFERENT CD's...lol. Turns out this sound only occurs when i use my "John Coltrane - A Love Supreme" CD. Every other CD i have tried does NOT make this sound. Sorry...

I think its because on that Coltrane CD, there is slight bubbling on the paint on the top label, near the center of the CD. When i rub my finger over it, i can feel it. I think this is rubbing against the small circle shape that protrudes from the bottom of the magnesium lid. Somehow, the headphone amp must be picking this up.

Now i am MUCH happier about owning my d-ej1000. I do notice the distortion that eagle driver talks about, although i dont have to go to 18 volume to notice it. With my grado 60's and using "Miles Davis - Kind of Blue" i can notice a little crackling when all the trumpets play loud at once.

Overall, great CD player so far for me.

I would like to thank eagle and duncan who were most prominent on providing me with information on it when i was searching for a new pcdp.

 

[Duncan]

jlo...

Just before you put this mystery to bed... you said that the thumping was when the volume was on ZERO... when mine is on zero, and even 1 out of 30, there is no noise whatsoever... so, i'm not really sure how you're getting noise, even from a 'faulty' CD, not unless it IS scraping against the grooves on the lid of the player, and microphincally, the vibrations are going into the earbud???

and... what about James, who reported the same phenomena

thanks for the compliment btw... much appreciated

 

[jlo mein]

well actually i didnt explain it well. The sound came at volume of 0, and at louder volumes, which i noticed later. its just that it was easiest to pick up at 0 volume since there was no music. Also, i think i stated that it DID NOT go to the line out. I think it probably does, except that the music was too loud for me to hear it. I think it is from scrapping the lid, as no other cd does this, and this is the only cd i have that has bubbling on the top. sorry for the confusion

.

i will post james' exact PM to me. I hope he doesnt mind

.

James PM:
Quote:

I just got a new dej1000 too! I don't have it with me right now, but I also experience the noise you describe in your post. I've found this player is a bit noisier overall in terms of SNR and motor noise than my older Panasonic SL-CT570. Good thing it sounds so good from the line-out .

 

[James]

Well, well, it appears both jlo mein and I were taken in by a new machine's new noises. My own "trouble" CD was an unbalanced BMG disc that had an unsightly glob of paint spilled/pressed onto the data side. I tried plugging in my most sensitive phones (Koss The Plug) today and cannot get any alien noises to occur on two dozen of my other discs. And as jlo mentioned, the line-out is bulletproof.

Pretty wierd coincidence, must say. I virtually never use the headphone jack, but that one time I was without headphone amp, I was playing that BMG disc (why do I still have it around? It's a Bill Evans disc, that's why). For the noise and other sonic deficiencies, I will never again use the headphone amp of the DE-J1000. It's truly awful.

I should say that I've never had any problem with the BMG disc in my older Panasonic PCDP's. Maybe the Pannies' rotors are more robust, who knows. In the past, however, a few of my home CDP's have passed along some of their rhythmic rotor noises, even out of their RCA jacks, so I'm counting these aberrations as par-for-course.

A final observation: as I wrote jlo in the same PM, the spindle of my DE-J1000 doesn't sit quite straight, and so one side of the CD is ever so slightly higher than the other. I cannot determine whether any of the lid's tiny felt pads contact the disc, but I can't hear any rubbing noises (with ear against player) with lid up or down. Anyway, I mention this since it may have some bearing on the noise. OTOH, jlo's spindle is quite perpendicular to the rest of the player. YMMV.

 

[jlo mein]

the lid of your d-ej1000 has felt pads?

 

[James]

Quote:

the lid of your d-ej1000 has felt pads?

Tiny black slivers of felt, about 1-2mm in width and 1cm in length, four of them arranged at regular intervals on the edge of the lid.