Toshiba SD-3950 Revisited.....

[Jose Garcia]

Hi guys. I took this post from www.audioasylum.com. I found it very interesting and funny at the same time cause' this audio-friend took his time to play with the unit...and I said play because you need some free time to find these:


Digital Drive

Toshiba 3950 roll off paradox and cure

Posted by PeAK (A) on December 08, 2004 at 10:42:54

I've been wondering about the highly variable opinions about the sound of the 3950. Some called it rolled off/lifeless....some call it detail/fast...and some call it dynamic. I was able to get my unit to my unit to exhibit all three personalities by varying the way I cued up the track. To those who lurk in this forum, this is not the first time that this has been reported but recent changes in my system (transport, cabling) have made this very obvious compared to past experience.
Picking the right piece of music can also make it easier. Pick a simply miked piece consisting of just voice and piano or voice and guitar. Listen for the leading edge of the note, the sustain and decay and also your impression of the singer's mood (depressed, upbeat, pratty, lots of inflection and very little). As always, your mileage may vary depending on your system and its tuning.


As an example, suppose we wish to play track "4" from Rosanne Cash's 10 Song Demo called Western Wall


To get a poor/rolled off/lifeless sound:


Load CD

1st cut will play automatically on the 3950

Press "4" and then "play". On Toshiba units, the request is only honoured only after "play" is pressed.


To get a dynamic sound:


Load CD

1st cut will play automatically on the 3950

Press "PAUSE" wait 5 seconds. Press "STOP". Press "STOP" again
(this is needed on Toshiba units due to a "resume" feature from where the track was first stopped. The second STOP disables this).

Press "3" and then "play". Press PAUSE, wait 12 seconds, press SKIP forward, press PLAY again (Toshiba quirk).





To get a fast/detailed sound:

Press "4" and then "play". Let it play music for about 3 seconds. Press PAUSE, wait 20 seconds, press SKIP Backward, press PLAY again (Toshiba quirk).


SETUP

Toshiba 3950: stock but on roller balls and weighted down by a heavy text book on top

Amp: Stock SLA-1 with updated Belden power cable

Interconnects: JR 89259/89248 twisted co-axial pair

Cables: HD-14...directionality sorted


http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/dig...ges/97371.html

Happy Holidays,

Jose.

 

[Wodgy]

This isn't just your imagination.

It looks like there is a bug in the firmware of the Toshiba 3950 and 3960 which causes it to have severe high frequency rolloff in many cases. See this thread for Jefemeister's measurements:
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=92688

You may be the first person to have discovered a reliable way to work around this hardware bug.

 

[jefemeister]

U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,B,A,B,A,Sel,Start. Sorry couldn't resist

This is interesting. I'm not sure if I believe it though; those instructions seem awfully specific. I guess I don't really doubt it though, especially since I have demonstrated that at least the 3960's digital output is pretty messed up.

As a side note, I frimly do *not* believe in other more general "track cueing tweaks" I have read about (ie, most players sound better if a track is cued up during pause as opposed to from a stop) but am willing to give the Toshiba the benefit of the doubt for all it's craptastic glory.

 

[rsaavedra]

Yesterday night I did a quick attempt following those instructions, couldn't tell any difference in the sound. Didn't really try hard to check the times for the pauses though, will try again more carefully. But so far, I can't confirm those options make any difference in my Tosh 3950.

Also I agree with Jefemeister, the options seem rather too specific, and seemingly impossible to have been discovered by chance, or even trial and error. The only likely way would seem to have some insider info about the internals, firmware etc. But how likely is that?

 

[rsaavedra]

Tried again about 5 times each case, using my watch to check the seconds. These settings don't seem to check out at all in my Toshiba. In all cases it's consistently sounding equally great