Hello,
Purchased a D-555 back in 1990. It was/is a great portable CD player. Soundwise, probably the best ever made. Early DSP for 5-band EQ, "Surround", Bass Boost, and Dynamic range compression. Incredibly clear, detailed sound without being harsh. Bass is not lacking. Dual Burr Brown 16-bit D/A converters. Peak hold VU meters. Remote capable. No ESP but who cares? The headphone outputs are hiss free. This player was built for sound.
Some years ago the player began to behave erratically: one channel almost out and the LED illumination was not very good. I set the D-555 aside and figured it for the scrap heap. A pretty sad day as I really liked this player.
Over those years some electronic repair skills were obtained. Two weeks ago it was decided to try and rescue this old friend.
Condition: Powered up! Could barely track a disk but it did OK. One channel was still almost out and the LED illumination was still uneven. The recharageable NiCd BP2-EX battery was dead and no good.
Diagnosis: What seemed like a lost cause all those years ago turned out to be a fairly easy fix: bad 6.3v 100uf SMD electrolytic capacitors. All three in the unit were bad. One was in the power supply, two were used for coupling the headphone to the headphone amp. One of the headphone output coupling caps measured virtually nothing and was leaking electrolyte. The other two measured high and were leaking electrolyte as well. They failed the ESR test.
Repair: The D-555 was disassembled. Lots of screws and be careful with the flexible ribbon boards but it is fairly easy to disassemble if one is organized. The area of the leakage was cleaned with a cotton swap lightly dipped in 91% isopropyl alcohol. New Nichicon high-temp, low ESR, SMD electrolytics were ordered from Mouser and installed. (Note: SMD (surface mount device) is somewhat tricky to the non-skilled but can be done with a *very* fine tipped soldering iron at low temperature). The unit was powred up. BINGO! Even LED illumination, audio in both channels. Adjusted the focus/tracking by ear (Note: listen for mechanism noise as it tracks a CD -- too little noise and the player skips easily, too much noise and the player is "working" too hard. The best spot is to have the mechanism noise just a bit above minimum). Obtained a copy of a service manual from a local source and checked/adjusted battery recharge voltages. Obtained a new BP2-EX NiCd battery from Sony (pricey, but still available).
Results: Working like new! No ESP so the player will skip if bumped hard but otherwise it loads discs fine, tracks well and has that wonderful unmatched D-555 sound. A bonus is the DM1K remote control still worked perfectly after not having been used for years.
Headphones used: Sony MDR-V6 had been used originally and work well. For the recent restoration I have been using the Radio Shack "Titanium" (Koss "Titanium" Pro) and it seems to be a good match for the player's capabilities. The highs are distortion free and the "Titanium" can handle the enormous, deep bass the D-555 player is capable of delivering.
My friend is back and has been performing flawlessly. After 13 years the Sony D-555 CD player still sets the sonic standard for portables.
Best regards,
Paul