Sony CDP101 repair

[Phil Allison]

Hi,

I bought one of the above immediately they appeared on sale in Sydney - in fact I pre-ordered it. For the first week, I had no CDs to put in it !!

With a few minor repairs, it has been working perfectly for 34 years and nowadays getting only occasional use.

Yesterday, I popped a CD in the drawer and it spat it back - so I tried a couple more with the same result.

Fearing the worst, I opened the machine and found some cockroach droppings in the drawer and near the laser assembly. Not much, just a bit.

While doubting this could stop a CDP101 completely, I nevertheless decided to give it a thorough clean up. Took about 15 minutes with a damp cloth, brush & WD40 and finally a dry cloth.

Popped the same CDs back in and it plays them perfectly.

I reckon there must have been a bit of dead cocky on the lens.



..... Phil

 

Phil Allison:

What a time capsule! Enjoy and
take care of that.

 

[Phil Allison]

thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

Phil Allison:

What a time capsule!

** OK - why do you call that ?

Enjoy and take care of that.

** I have no intention of doing otherwise.

In terms of tech specs, sound quality, features and ease of use - it is still one of the best CD players ever made.

http://vintage-audio-laser.com/sony/cdp101/sony_cdp-101_5.png



..... Phil

 

Phil:

It's appearance, and being
the first cosnumer CD player.

It represents that era!

 

On Tuesday, 30 May 2017 13:14:11 UTC+1, thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

Phil:

It's appearance, and being
the first cosnumer CD player.

It represents that era!

My first cd player had the disc upright and played at 1x. I like old electronics generally but saw no merit in that one once better came along.


NT

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 30/05/2017 9:13 PM, Phil Allison wrote:

In terms of tech specs, sound quality, features and ease of use - it
is still one of the best CD players ever made.

**Sound quality? Nope. The CDP701 (released close to the same time as
the 101) was far better. I recall listening to both at a Sony demo,
through their ES series Sony electronics and those very good flat
diaphragm Sony speakers. The 701 completely outclassed the 101. One of
my clients had both machines and we listened extensively to them
(compared them with 2nd generation master tapes of Hot August Night on
his Studer) and the 701 was a far better sounding machine. Even the Sony
demo guy, who claimed that there would be no sonic difference, was
surprised. That said, a decent multibit machine (like the early Sony and
Philips machines) will sound better than those horrible single bit ones
released in the late 1980s.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

 

Trevor Wilson wrote: "On 30/05/2017 9:13 PM, Phil Allison wrote:

In terms of tech specs, sound quality, features and ease of use - it
is still one of the best CD players ever made.

**Sound quality? Nope. The CDP701 (released close to the same time as
the 101) was far better. I recall listening to both at a Sony demo,
through their ES series Sony electronics and those very good flat
diaphragm Sony speakers. The 701 completely outclassed the 101. One of
my clients had both machines and we listened extensively to them
(compared them with 2nd generation master tapes of Hot August Night on
his Studer) and the 701 was a far better sounding machine. Even the Sony
demo guy, who claimed that there would be no sonic difference, was
surprised. That said, a decent multibit machine (like the early Sony and
Philips machines) will sound better than those horrible single bit ones
released in the late 1980s.


--
Trevor Wilson "

Was the CDP101 vs 701 test
done with the same exact source
(CD) in the same listening environment,
connected to the same system?


Otherwise such tests are invalid.

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 31/05/2017 6:54 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:

On 30/05/2017 9:13 PM, Phil Allison wrote:


In terms of tech specs, sound quality, features and ease of use - it
is still one of the best CD players ever made.


**Sound quality? Nope. The CDP701 (released close to the same time as
the 101) was far better. I recall listening to both at a Sony demo,
through their ES series Sony electronics and those very good flat
diaphragm Sony speakers. The 701 completely outclassed the 101. One of
my clients had both machines and we listened extensively to them
(compared them with 2nd generation master tapes of Hot August Night on
his Studer) and the 701 was a far better sounding machine. Even the Sony
demo guy, who claimed that there would be no sonic difference, was
surprised. That said, a decent multibit machine (like the early Sony and
Philips machines) will sound better than those horrible single bit ones
released in the late 1980s.

Was the CDP101 vs 701 test
done with the same exact source
(CD) in the same listening environment,
connected to the same system?


Otherwise such tests are invalid.

**Did you bother reading what I wrote? Go back and read it CAREFULLY.

In truth, the only invalid part of the MANY tests I did, comparing the
two machines, was the fact that none were done blind. An oversight I
regret.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

 

[Phil Allison]

thekma...@gmail.com wrote:

"On 30/05/2017 9:13 PM, Phil Allison wrote:


In terms of tech specs, sound quality, features and ease of use - it
is still one of the best CD players ever made.


**Sound quality? Nope. The CDP701 (released close to the same time as
the 101) was far better. I recall listening to both at a Sony demo,
through their ES series Sony electronics and those very good flat
diaphragm Sony speakers. The 701 completely outclassed the 101. One of
my clients had both machines and we listened extensively to them
(compared them with 2nd generation master tapes of Hot August Night on
his Studer) and the 701 was a far better sounding machine. Even the Sony
demo guy, who claimed that there would be no sonic difference, was
surprised. That said, a decent multibit machine (like the early Sony and
Philips machines) will sound better than those horrible single bit ones
released in the late 1980s.


Was the CDP101 vs 701 test
done with the same exact source
(CD) in the same listening environment,
connected to the same system?

Otherwise such tests are invalid.

** TWs listening tests are totally invalid - cos he used the audiophool method.

Machine A plays, stop, muck about, have a chat then machine B plays.

Absolute bollocks.

As a matter of fact, I carried out a blind testing session between my CDP101 and a borrowed CDP701 for a customer. He had a well damped room with Quad ESL63s at the time driven by an expensive Sony amp. It was all nicely set up for best imaging etc.

Both CD players were out in the hallway, so he could not see them or me. All I had to do was swap RCA leads and CDs between machines.

Try as he might, using his favourite classical tracks, he could not tell the machines apart.

Happy that there was no audible difference, he opted to buy the more expensive model.

He merely wanted to be *certain* the cheaper model was not actually better.



...... Phil

 

Phil Allison wrote: "Try as he might, using his favourite classical tracks, he could not tell the machines apart.

Happy that there was no audible difference, he opted to buy the more expensive model.

He merely wanted to be *certain* the cheaper model was not actually better.

...... Phil "

I rest my case: the SOURCE(what's on
the medium) matters most!

 

Does the 101 have the delay to match the phase of the channels ?

 

>"** TWs listening tests are totally invalid - cos he used the audiophool method.

Machine A plays, stop, muck about, have a chat then machine B plays.

Absolute bollocks. "

Actually with stamped CDs it would be valid to just use two copies of the same album. If there is ay doubt switch them but we know that sound quality had very little to do with the audio quality. It is just a matter of how many errors does it have to cover up.

They are stamped, you get two of them right next to each other from the shelf and they are likely to be the same batch and have the same errors. And the only errors that will have any real effect on sound quality will be those pertaining to the deemphasis.

Two disks and a toggle switch would do just fine. then switch the disks ad see if the more favorable rating follows it ort stays with the player.

Kida like splitting a bag of weed when your scalee is broken. "You split I'll pick" or vice versa. Whoever is splittlg is going to get them as close as humanly possible because he knows he gets the smaller one. Or whichever one is perceived as smaller by the picker.

Ever hear of scraping ? They use like a gouge to scrape metal plates to within millionths of an inch. There is no reference because these ARE the reference. they are the standard to which the ways of machines must adhere for flatness and straightness.

they use three plates, why ? Well, you blue it up and then separate the plates and observe the bluing. This really is an art. You can get two plates pretty flat, but there is ONE way they can be off and you can't tel. That is if one is slightly convex and the other concave. That is the reason for the third plate. It makes that type of error detectable because to match perfectly the third plate would have to be concave or convex and thus would math one of the two other plates but not the other.

In other words, all this fiddling switching disks every few minutes is a waste of time. Just switch them and rerun the comparison.

Actually I doubt very mny people can hear ant difference between cD players, butin the US would always prefer the one that has a slightly higher output level because it is louder.

You want an audio A/B comparison ? Golden Earring - Moontan, on vinyl. Compare the US version to the European version. BIG difference.

 

[Phil Allison]

jurb...@gmail.com wrote:

------------------------

Actually I doubt very mny people can hear ant difference between
cD players, butin the US would always prefer the one that has a
slightly higher output level because it is louder.

** CD players are built under license to a standard ( Red Book) which requires the audio output is 2.0V rms for max sine wave level.

Makes comparing them pretty easy if you use the same RCA leads and disk.


..... Phil

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 31/05/2017 6:57 PM, jurb6006@gmail.com wrote:

Does the 101 have the delay to match the phase of the channels ?

**Yes. In the feedback of the OP amp after the buffer stage, one OP amp
has a 15k resistor in parallel with a 75pF, whilst the other channel has
16k in parallel with a 75pF cap. A bit of a kludge. As I recall, the
CDP701 employed two, separate DACs. I could be wrong, so I'll see if I
can locate the manual tomorrow.

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

 

Interesting anecdote: I had an Aiwa bookshelf
system set up in the store and playing a Stevie
Wonder CD. A guy came over and started playing
with it, listening to different tracks etc. He said it
sounded great, and he bought it.


Next day, he came in, saying he had the "same
disc" at home, but that the system did not sound
nearly as good as when he played with it in the
store. Since he said he had the disc, I asked him
to bring his in next time he visited.


The next week he came in with the CD, and I
compared it to the copy in my inventory: His was
a REMASTER....

 

Trevor, jurb: R.E. "phase of the channels"


Is there something I don't know
about CD players, or how they
function? Does the audio arrive
out of phase/polarity at some
point in the chain inside the
player?

 

[None]

<t hekma @gmail.com> wrote in message
news:a4021516-0195-49a3-8685-b446a78020ab@googlegroups.com...

Is there something I don't know about CD players, or how they
function?

Yes. Pretty much everything about audio is something you don't know.
KHF,

 

[Dave Platt]

In article <a4021516-0195-49a3-8685-b446a78020ab@googlegroups.com>,
<thekmanrocks@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there something I don't know
about CD players, or how they
function? Does the audio arrive
out of phase/polarity at some
point in the chain inside the
player?

As I recall: in some CD players (mostly very old ones?), there's only
a single DAC, which is shared between the two channels. The "left"
and "right" samples are converted back to analog at slightly different
times, in alternating sequence. The analog voltage coming out from
the DAC is then fed to a pair of sample-and-hold circuits, one per
channel, and these then feed the (low-pass) analog reconstruction filters.

As a result of this, there's a slight phase delay (equal to the actual
DAC conversion time, or half of the nominal sample rate for the stereo
signal) introduced between the two channels. This would tend to
"pull" the perceived stereo image slightly to one side, since our
ear/brain systems are sensitive to a signal's inter-aural arrival
times as well as to inter-aural amplitude differences.

[I used this trick years ago as a way of enabling a videogame system
to convert a monaural sound sample to one which appeared to move left
and right, quite smoothly - a simple DSP algorithm did both sample
interpolation and filtering, to create timing and amplitude and
frequency-response differences between two copies of the sampled
sound. It could even introduce the equivalent of Doppler shift, to
mimic a sound source moving towards or away from the listener. My
first patent ever!]

It sounds as of the CDP101 used a "tweaked" reconstruction filter, to
introduce a bit of phase difference between the analog signals that
would partially cancel out the phase difference introduced by the use
of the single DAC.

I don't think I've seen the "one DAC, two sample-and-hold" technique
used in a CD or similar media player in a lot of years. Stereo (or
even 5-channel) DACs are jellybean parts these days.

 

[Dave Platt]

In article <67e9586e-848b-4a98-8095-cae6430fec09@googlegroups.com>,
<thekmanrocks@gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting anecdote: I had an Aiwa bookshelf
system set up in the store and playing a Stevie
Wonder CD. A guy came over and started playing
with it, listening to different tracks etc. He said it
sounded great, and he bought it.


Next day, he came in, saying he had the "same
disc" at home, but that the system did not sound
nearly as good as when he played with it in the
store. Since he said he had the disc, I asked him
to bring his in next time he visited.


The next week he came in with the CD, and I
compared it to the copy in my inventory: His was
a REMASTER....

And, some remasters are dreadful. Not infrequently the remastering
engineer has been of the "louder is better" school, and the remastered
disc suffers from serious signal compression and (more than
occasionally) actual clipping. The dynamic range of the remaster is
often poorer than that of the original CD.

The spectral balance will also often be "played with".

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 31/05/2017 9:12 PM, thekmanrocks@gmail.com wrote:

Trevor, jurb: R.E. "phase of the channels"


Is there something I don't know
about CD players, or how they
function? Does the audio arrive
out of phase/polarity at some
point in the chain inside the
player?

**It did with the CDP-101, because only one DAC was used and shared
between left and right channels. All (?) other players used two DACs
(one for each channel) and the delay was not required. For the record, I
just checked the schematic of the 701. The 701 used two DACs. One for
each channel. It does not use a delay on one OP amp. Both OP amp
feedback resistors are 15k, paralleled by a 75pF cap. This likely
contributes to the difference in sound quality noted by many listeners
(including me).

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au