'Good quality doesn't have to cost the earth, if you do it right......'

[Longchops]

I always liked that phrase, even if the guy that said it was a total con artist and attempted (and failed) to rip me off for about a grand on eBay many years back. It can definitely be true though. Especially with music/hifi/consumer stuff. For the best value, just buy older, more battered stuff. Its for your ears, not your eyes after all, who cares what it looks like......

(This should explain my total lack of feng shui compared to some of your beautiful systems!)


Top to bottom:


Phillips DCC-300 2nd gen Digital tape player (£150) I buy DCC cassettes not because I like the artist, but just because they are in this weird format. I listen to some unusual stuff as a result of discovering a cheap tape somewhere

Samsung DVD HD-950 (£25) Nothing special visually, but it plays SACDs. Such a great sound and this isn't even a good player. GASsing for a better one to investigate further....

Nakamichi BX-100E (£88) Cassettes are actually good if you play them through this. Seriously. Occasionally even better than CD. This is a 2 header, the 3 head ones must be absolutely incredible. 20-40 year old cassettes are a trip though. 10-15% of them are mouldy or otherwise bad

Tascam MD-CD1 (£150) Can dub minidiscs at 2x speed

Roland DSP-2000 (£100) Very early surround sound concept, basically a delay processor that delays the rear speakers. Roland's only hifi product. Never actually used it

Pioneer CLD-1450 Laser disc player (£120) but having trouble finding a disc that's not rotten. Sounds like an aircraft launching, potato-like visuals and you have to flip/swap discs 3-4 times per film at least

Kenwood GE-810 graphic EQ (£59) Good for being able to see the music but don't actually use it for processing because they filter the sound too much for me

Philips DCC-730 (£150) 3rd gen DCC. So many moving parts on these things. If you play a tape it fast forwards through the blank bit on the start, and at the end of side B fast forwards it to the end of the tape, flips it and stops. Incredible design

Technics Sl-p222a CD player (£15) from cash converters and annoyingly its probably the best sounding thing in the whole system. Made in japan 1988 and the drawer belt is now a rubber band

Sony JC-520 Minidisc player (£33) always liked minidiscs. Sounds much clearer than CD, but without the high end degradation you get from DCC or MP3

Sony DTC-690 DAT (£100) When I find a pre-recorded DAT cassette that costs less than the machine I'll be able to test this and enjoy the pure 48kHz it claims to offer

Roland DS-7 Monitor speakers (£70) Each one is bi amped, they sound amazing tbh. Nice clean un-coloured sound with flat curve and zero gain, perfect to listen to the machines/music.....


Next item will be a record player. Any suggestions? Was thinking of finding a technics 1200/1210 but they seem scary expensive now

Great to meet you guys anyway excuse my war and peace

 

[Gray]

Wow you've cornered the market in those old legacy formats!
No mention of reel to reel there?
A few people still have MD (the Sony 930 really impressed me, not least because of its fantastic editing abilities) but you're the first DCC owner I know of.

Technics TT, you're right not cheap. There was a 1200 in the HFChoice classifieds - needed attention on one channel and no lid for £150.
Their 1500C would be nice, you only need £900 for that.

 

[Al ears]

Nice buys. The Technics turntable seem to hold their prices unfortunately perhaps because of their direct drive motors however the deck as a whole wasn't brilliant, let down by its tonearm in my opinion which is why many replace them to create a deck that is extremely good assuming there is no problem with the direct drive itself.

 

[Longchops]

Wow you've cornered the market in those old legacy formats!
No mention of reel to reel there?
A few people still have MD (the Sony 930 really impressed me, not least because of its fantastic editing abilities) but you're the first DCC owner I know of.

Technics TT, you're right not cheap. There was a 1200 in the HFChoice classifieds - needed attention on one channel and no lid for £150.
Their 1500C would be nice, you only need £900 for that.

oh mate, if you like formats like me, get yourself on discogs

they have every format. like even wax cylinders! That was where I realised it was impossible to collect them all. Just the ones that I like. they do have reel to reel for sale on there though!

DCC is mechanically very impressive but sonically not that great. great clarity, but they had lower compression ratio than the minidisc and imo you can really hear it on the high frequencies, I guess that's why the minidisc won out over time. They do sound very good for classical though, maybe that's why most DCC stuff is of that genre

The MD sounds incredible tbh. there are instances (example: madonna's ray of light) where I would argue that MD it makes it clearer by removing all the clashing frequencies. the tascam I have takes an ACSII keyboard too for ease of editing....

i would have bought that TT for £150 tbh. there literally cant be that much wrong with it......

 

[Longchops]

Nice buys. The Technics turntable seem to hold their prices unfortunately perhaps because of their direct drive motors however the deck as a whole wasn't brilliant, let down by its tonearm in my opinion which is why many replace them to create a deck that is extremely good assuming there is no problem with the direct drive itself.

They weren't really audiophile decks though tbh. they were bought primarily to DJ with in my generation. The reason they cost so much back then is the platter was rock solid and never missed a beat. Other direct drives of the era were an absolute joke. If you couldn't afford a technics back then you had to get a belt drive, because other direct drive sucked!

 

[Longchops]

Awww yeah!

Just upgraded my CD player. Another technics, same era, made in japan, 1988, better model and a bit fancier. £31.05 including delivery. Twice the price of my last one but it also has a remote, which I really need!

Actually the remote works with my existing cd player, and they fetch £25 by themselves...I've been looking for one for ages so very happy with this.

You might scoff at the age, OK it is 32 years old. But bear in mind back in 1988 surface mount electronics didn't exist. Every component on this would have been soldered in by hand. To get that kind of build quality these days would cost an absolute fortune.....and hand made stuff always sounds much better....

 

[Friesiansam]

You might scoff at the age, OK it is 32 years old. But bear in mind back in 1988 surface mount electronics didn't exist. Every component on this would have been soldered in by hand. To get that kind of build quality these days would cost an absolute fortune.....and hand made stuff always sounds much better....

Surface mount has been around since the 1960s and in common use since the mid 80s. Through soldered components may have been placed by hand but, would likely have been flow soldered, i.e. passed through a machine where the pcb passes over a solder bath, as Technics CD players would have been manufactured in large numbers.

 

[Longchops]

According to wikipedia (where you copied and pasted that post from) maybe. But not over here in reality.

Show me an SMD board from 1960?

Lol

 

[Gray]

Show me an SMD board from 1960?

Lol

I'd be interested to see that too 👍
Were there even any I.C.s about in 1960?
(Transistors were fairly new).

 

[Friesiansam]

There was no copy/paste in my post above. Finding more information about the history of SMD is not easy but, the following backs-up the Wikipedia information. https://smdstencils.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/general-information/ Even when I was in electronics manufacturing in the 90s, most ICs where still socket mounted and, in the very early days only simple devices e.g. capacitors, were surface mounted.

 

[Longchops]

Technics certainly were't using SMD boards in 1960. I doubt they'd even been using PCB boards for much more than 10 years in 1988. The boards on machines like this from this era are usually always hand populated. You can tell by the irregularity of the solder joints on the back of the boards.

 

[Friesiansam]

Technics certainly were't using SMD boards in 1960. I doubt they'd even been using PCB boards for much more than 10 years in 1988. The boards on machines like this from this era are usually always hand populated. You can tell by the irregularity of the solder joints on the back of the boards.

I never stated anyone was using SMD in 1960, only that SMD has been around since the 60s, without specifying the actual year or referencing Technics. I also never claimed SMD was in any way sophisticated, in it's early days. You however, stated that there was NO SMD in 1988, which is patently wrong. As for the soldering, evenness of soldering may not be a reliable indicator of method used also, small components may be flow soldered and large components, such as big capacitors, added by hand after, either because they may fall over in the machine or, not fit due to lack of headroom.

 

[Longchops]

Well the CD player is not flow soldered, it is not SMD, there are no big capacitors that may fall over, there is no lack of headroom, and there is no evidence of machine build. So your theory, while interesting; is wrong.

 

[Friesiansam]

So your theory, while interesting; is wrong.

You base your conclusion on your having looked at one device? You are also deliberately misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I said, to try and prove your own point.

When I worked in electronics in the 90s, some things were entirely assembled by hand, some had no SMD components and, many had no very large components that would prevent flow soldering. On the other hand some had all those things. More here about PCBs, scroll down to the part about SMD: https://www.pcbway.com/blog/Engineering_Technical/Printed_Circuit_Boards_PCBs.html

 

[Longchops]

No I base my conclusion on having looked at hundreds if not thousands of Japanese electronics from the mid 1970s to the present day, where as you are disputing the build quality on my CD player based on your experience of having a job when you were 16 making toasters in Norwich or something else completely irrelevant which has nothing to do with anything

I've now read that same that cut and pasted opening statement 4 times now about SMD electronics emerging in the 1960s and gaining momentum in the 1980s but am still waiting for you to provide an example of anything from that era that actually features one because I don't think they were anywhere near as common as you are implying

 

[Friesiansam]

I provided additional links to back up what I said, you've resorted to personal abuse.

Discussion over and, you are number one on my ignore list.

 

[Al ears]

I provided additional links to back up what I said, you've resorted to personal abuse.

Discussion over and, you are number one on my ignore list.

I can see no evidence of personal abuse here otherwise someone would have been warned.
It does indeed mention '60s in your article but this presents no evidence as to where and, as you are aware, you shouldn't necessarily believe everything you read on the internet.
To my knowledge they were indeed utilised in some hifi equipment from the early to mid eighties so yes, they were in use before '88.
Can you both endeavour to keep things civil.

 

[Longchops]

I provided additional links to back up what I said, you've resorted to personal abuse.

Discussion over and, you are number one on my ignore list.

Gentle reminder that this is my 'show us your system' page lol. This is not really the place to turn up and start an argument, but I'd like to think I did my best to try and accommodate you regardless. To run away, play the victim and accuse me of personal abuse (?) after I gave you the very thing you wanted is a tad unfair really.

I'll talk about Japanese manufacturing all day long, with anybody, even you; but I need the discussion to be rooted in facts, not speculation and guesswork. You'll have to find someone else to play with if that's all you've got, sorry. I've listened to everything you have to say and with the greatest respect I think its fair to say this is not your area of expertise, so thank you for your input and good day.

 

[Symples]

Way back, I had my DCC before I bought my minidisc.
It was a Marantz DD82 and I loved it.
A solid quality machine. £200 from Richersounds brand new. Down from £800 I think.
It came with a pre-recorded DCC which showed the titles of each track. It was a pity as you could not do the same with user recordings.
The sound quality was very good. Though you could hear the difference in an A-B comparison with a CD playing at the same time.
I loved it (I've always had a thing for cassette decks)
It went faulty after a few years and I gave it away.

I did have a Sony minidisc recorder (sold many years ago) but I preferred my DCC.

and now I think about it. I had an Aiwa minidisc portable. Great fun

My latest purchase a Sony DTC 60ES DAT recorder (£147 - 10/6/22)
Nice, but not as much fun as a cassette recorder (The high end ones are very expensive)

Mike..

P.S. How about we play nice and stop the arguing

 

[Al ears]

Way back, I had my DCC before I bought my minidisc.
It was a Marantz DD82 and I loved it.
A solid quality machine. £200 from Richersounds brand new. Down from £800 I think.
It came with a pre-recorded DCC which showed the titles of each track. It was a pity as you could not do the same with user recordings.
The sound quality was very good. Though you could hear the difference in an A-B comparison with a CD playing at the same time.
I loved it (I've always had a thing for cassette decks)
It went faulty after a few years and I gave it away.

I did have a Sony minidisc recorder (sold many years ago) but I preferred my DCC.

and now I think about it. I had an Aiwa minidisc portable. Great fun

My latest purchase a Sony DTC 60ES DAT recorder (£147 - 10/6/22)
Nice, but not as much fun as a cassette recorder (The high end ones are very expensive)

Mike..

P.S. How about we play nice and stop the arguing

this post is nearly 2 years old and one forum member is no longer with us so your last sentence is pointless.

 

[Symples]

Thanks for that.
Though you could have phrased that better 😉