Technics SL-PS770D (CD Deck) Query

[konstantinos]

Hello folks,

I've got a Technics SL-PS770D CD deck sitting idle at the parents' house.

I'll be straight, and (way too) naive: how good a source is it, according to you pros (for headphone listening)?

My NJB3 along with my PC are my only audio sources. (And I listen mostly to mainstream pop/rock music, and I think I like flat sound, if that matters.)

The thought of "deck + headphones" is pretty new to me, and I've only started processing it recently after seeing many Head-Fi'ers mentioning such combos in their signatures.

It's an issue on which I'm pretty clueless (as you have already guessed).

If someone comes and tells me that the "Technics deck + decent headphones" combo works greatly (than say, the "NJB3 + same decent headphones" equation), I think I'll grab that deck for myself.

(But please don't tell me that my Toshiba SD330E DVD-player sounds better, cause I'll probably explode when I'm gonna start thinking of the price difference..)

Additional questions may be:

1. How well does it pair with headphones such as A900, DT-440, DT-880, or similar?

2. Does it absolutely need an amp (which is not always the case with my NJB3, for instance)? Does it go on a case-by-case basis, according to the headphones (e.g. "DT-880 definitely need one"), or the the deck's output is powerful enough that it doesn't need an amp for the phones we're talking about here? (I've got a feeling that last one is just wishful thinking..)

Thanks for enligthening me on this!

 

[3lusiv3]

I think that CD player will sound better than your hard disk player. I used an old Technics CD player, until the left channel stopped working, and liked the sound. Give it a go.

I always listen to compressed music from my computer for convenience but CD players always sound better when I try them.

 

[konstantinos]

OK, thanks about that.

What about the amp part in my question?

 

[3lusiv3]

A CD player is unlikely to have a decent headphone amp section but it should be sufficient to drive the A900, DT-440.

 

[Don Quichotte]

I owned the Technics 770A player for a few years, the difference between the A and the D versions consists in supposedly some better capacitors in the later one - I don't think they sound too different. Talking about the sound, it's pretty balanced (something I care for a lot), but without the warmth of my current Cambridge player, so there's no tonal compensation for the "digital" sound, if you get my point. Anyway, a pretty safe choice, would work in a wide range of systems.