Sony CDP-227 ESD measurements

[Herbert]

Cool review of the 227ESD (507ESD)!

It must have been the last odd machine to use Philips TDA-1541s due to the deal Sony and Philips had agreed to early on. Philips was utterly hopeless, let's face it. They couldn't build a 16bit converter for the release of CD because they'd spent too much on the 14 bit TDA-1540. They couldn't even get their players working for the agreed worldwide release of CD (October 1982- 3 months prior to Christmas to make it the absolute Christmas bonanza around the world it should have been), so they got a six month extension. Sony and the Japanese group said "screw you" we'll release in Japan- which they did. Then by the time their own 16 bit converter finally arrived, the world had moved on to 18bit, then 20bit.

I've got plenty of 1st generation CD players and the Philips machines are basically rat's nests of bodges, productions changes, handmade bits and pieces. Compared to the internals of a CDP-101, Philips players look like a primary school kid's science project built in a lunchbox.

Got a CDP-101 on the bench at the moment. It's just beautiful to look at inside. And the service manual/schematic? Wow, that's a work of art.

Even with paralleled D/A converters in this 227ESD, the TDA-1541 didn't outperform a single PCM-58.

I've got several CDP-338ESD (608ESD) players here. PCM58P(J or K IIRC).

I remember that it was very easy to mix up the internal connection cables on the Philips players because the plug connectors are identical. That was impossible with Sony. The Philips service manual was also horrendous because they printed code numbers instead of voltages. You had to look them up on a differnet page.
@restorer-john I always wanted to measure my CDP-101 together with a German member, but I don't have the time. Would you be able to do this? A
Unfortunately the following old thread has not found a solution yet.

Adding SPDIF Output to Sony CDP-101 - Jitter-Free PLL Needed

Dear friends, I already added SPDIF-outputs to secend gen. CD-Players: CX23035-SPDIF Out No I would like to add it to the CDP-101, one of the very first CD-Players. Mine is in mint condition and ran for about 200hours. I bought it first hand from a dealer in 2014 who stored 3 units for about 30...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[LTig]

What has Philips done to you to have such dark colored view?
A proud (ex) Philips employee (1983-2020)

I'm not @restorer-john, but my memory of Philips Hifi is not a good one.

At the age of 16 I spared all my money for a whole year, made deals with all people to give me money instead of presents for birthday and christmas, so I could buy a Philips N-4506 reel-2-reel tape recorder for about DM 1000 (€ 500 without inflation). That was a lot of money for me.

Unfortunately the tape deck was what we call a "plastic bomber". It spent more time in repair than at home although I never transported it for recordings. Besides this the tape heads got clogged faster than I could clean them, tapes started to make physical noise due to vibrations in the drive chain, and other stupid things. It lasted about 6 years until I could replace it by a decent Aiwa cassette deck. This r2r deck was my worst investment in hifi ever, at a time where money was scarse.

 

[restorer-john]

I always wanted to measure my CDP-101 together with a German member, but I don't have the time. Would you be able to do this?

Absolutely. As soon as I repair the little devil. It was last used about 6 months ago and has decided to cease reading the TOC.

 

[Hayabusa]

I'm not @restorer-john, but my memory of Philips Hifi is not a good one.

At the age of 16 I spared all my money for a whole year, made deals with all people to give me money instead of presents for birthday and christmas, so I could buy a Philips N-4506 reel-2-reel tape recorder for about DM 1000 (€ 500 without inflation). That was a lot of money for me.

Unfortunately the tape deck was what we call a "plastic bomber". It spent more time in repair than at home although I never transported it for recordings. Besides this the tape heads got clogged faster than I could clean them, tapes started to make physical noise due to vibrations in the drive chain, and other stupid things. It lasted about 6 years until I could replace it by a decent Aiwa cassette deck. This r2r deck was my worst investment in hifi ever, at a time where money was scarse.

I must agree that not all steps of Philips in hifi were good ones

 

[Barry_Sound]

Cool review of the 227ESD (507ESD)!

It must have been the last odd machine to use Philips TDA-1541s due to the deal Sony and Philips had agreed to early on. Philips was utterly hopeless, let's face it. They couldn't build a 16bit converter for the release of CD because they'd spent too much on the 14 bit TDA-1540.

What fascinates me about the 1540 is that it runs in mono, meaning every unit came with two chips, one per channel. The 1540 could do 14bit plus oversampling. I have seen many mods with the oversampling filter removed. Would you hear a difference between 14 and 16bit D/A conversion?

I've got plenty of 1st generation CD players and the Philips machines are basically rat's nests of bodges, productions changes, handmade bits and pieces.

Have you looked into any high end tube amp recently?

One thing about early Philips CD players: the CDM-1 drive was massively over-engineered (magnetic suspension, metal tray, Rodenstock optical glass for the laser). I think it's only gotten cheaper since then.

 

[restorer-john]

Would you hear a difference between 14 and 16bit D/A conversion?

Yes. I have some other 14 bit low cost players (toshiba) and the low level detail is obscured on fade outs, echoes etc. Classical music, well recorded in the quiet parts will show you.

The TDA-1540 pairs with a 4x OS front end in the 1st gen (Philips and Japanese OEMs) players were/are excellent sounding but lost out on noise to the 16bit non OS like a CDP-101.

One thing about early Philips CD players: the CDM-1 drive was massively over-engineered (magnetic suspension, metal tray, Rodenstock optical glass for the laser). I think it's only gotten cheaper since then.

The CDM-0 (1st gen players) and the CDM-1 were amazing that they even worked at all. Moving mass was through the roof and access times were poor. By the time the CDM-1 was being manufactured in Japan for Marantz models, the reliability had increased exponentially. The swing arm, pivoted design was flawed from day one if you ask me.

Sony and the Japanese manufacturers proved that with lightweight linear motor driven mechanisms, and 'three beam' lasers- they did everything better than the Philips. The Japanese system was smarter, more effective and considerably cheaper to manufacture.

 

[DSJR]

Yes. I have some other 14 bit low cost players (toshiba) and the low level detail is obscured on fade outs, echoes etc.

The TDA-1540 pairs with a 4x OS front end in the 1st gen (Philips and Japanese OEMs) players were/are excellent sounding but lost out on noise to the 16bit non OS like a CDP-101.




The CDM-0 (1st gen players) and the CDM-1 were amazing that they even worked at all. Moving mass was through the roof and access times were poor. By the time the CDM-1 was being manufactured in Japan for Marantz models, the reliability had increased exponentially. The swing arm, pivoted design was flawed from day one if you ask me.

Sony and the Japanese manufacturers proved that with lightweight linear motor driven mechanisms, and 'three beam' lasers- they did everything better than the Philips. The Japanese system was smarter, more effective and considerably cheaper to manufacture.

Can I kind-of disagree with you again please?

In the 80's, the Philips swing-arm mechs tended to last well with minimal maintainance, at least here. My CD-M1 mech works well and track access isn't slow at all really, although the Drawer on my Micro CD-M2 flies back and forth alarmingly quickly

Maybe we only saw the cheaper linear-tracking drives mostly, but the tracks used to gum up causing the laser sleds to stick, this a killer on the lightning fast top Sony models up to the 555ES at least. They didn't track so well either I remember, sticking and all but locking up on a flawed disc, where the Philips, especially the final dinky CD-M9 types, either tracked better to start with, or jogged forwards a smidgeon to go over the bad area. Maybe the 9 mech was too good, as a spate of out-of-spec discs came along which these mechs would play (Linn put out a statement saying that all their mechs would play a proper spec red-book disc but couldn't be guaranteed to play out of spec ones). In the noughties, things seemed to settle down and Sony once again, took over low-cost CD mec duties, at least for a while. No idea what Denons and so on use now in their machines...

 

[Herbert]

I remember that CDM-1 swing arms tracked extremely well across errors on the pit surface (don’t remember the “classical” scratches.) and traverse mechs did not. I guess the reason is that coarse and fine tracking are not aligned when the servo loses the signal in traverse systems (but still work extremely) well

 

[restorer-john]

I have both the Philips 3 CD test set here and the Pierre Verany test set. Both include calibrated deliberate optical errors, data stream interruptions and burst/repetitive errors, along with CLV, pitch and track errors to really test the abilities of CD players.

See here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...duction-and-sources.32207/page-2#post-1133717

You get the odd random Philips/Marantz players that will do well on those tests, which is always a surprise, but it is the top Sonys and other Japanese high range decks that will consistently play right through (past 2.4mm) without a hiccup. They've always tracked better than anything Philips built- right from day one. The 1983 audio show demonstrations of the Sony CDP-101 involved turning the player upside down and shaking it while playing. Try that with any swing arm- it won't happen.

For those interested, this is a good description of the basics of 3 beam lasers, written by Toshiba for their then brand new portable players.

Sony drawing of the laser 3 beam pickup basics:

 

[MoreWatts]

Here's some pics:

 

[horias2000]

The CDP-X777esd was Sony at it's absolute peak. They had improved the X77esd which was in reality not a real step up from the X7esd. The XA series that came after has not aged well.

Those 7 series classic machines are getting phenomenally valuable as time goes on.

I'm looking at buying a good CD player for my personal use and I was wondering what make/model would you recommend. You clearly know the models a lot better than I do and you've been working/fixing them so you've seen a lot more than I did. I was looking at the Sony X77esd but other suggestions are welcomed.
Thanks!

 

[restorer-john]

I'm looking at buying a good CD player for my personal use and I was wondering what make/model would you recommend. You clearly know the models a lot better than I do and you've been working/fixing them so you've seen a lot more than I did. I was looking at the Sony X77esd but other suggestions are welcomed.
Thanks!

The X7 and X77 are basically the same machine with the X77 getting Sony's first high end implementation of their HDLC as opposed to the PCM-58P(S) 18 bit. I prefer the X7esd, but the 77 at the right price I would not walk past. They are only 1 year apart. You need to ensure the VFDs are bright as they are all starting to fade now at 35 years old.
The X777esd is the one to get if you can. They really pushed the boat out with that model, improving just about everything. It's also I think a very nice looking machine.

 

[horias2000]

The X7 and X77 are basically the same machine with the X77 getting Sony's first high end implementation of their HDLC as opposed to the PCM-58P(S) 18 bit. I prefer the X7esd, but the 77 at the right price I would not walk past. They are only 1 year apart. You need to ensure the VFDs are bright as they are all starting to fade now at 35 years old.
The X777esd is the one to get if you can. They really pushed the boat out with that model, improving just about everything. It's also I think a very nice looking machine.

Ok, I'll have a look at these machines. The budget is 6-700EUR but if I find something really good, I can go as high as 1000. I'll have a look online to see what I can find. The VFD is the main display of the player? If yes, then I don't mind it being a bit faded

 

[restorer-john]

The VFD is the main display of the player? If yes, then I don't mind it being a bit faded

Yes. They all have a display "off" button, but in my experience, it makes no difference to the life of the display. A brand new (NOS) X7esd I unpacked a few years ago (I bought it new in 1990 and stored it) had diminished brightness as compared to how it was and a few others of the same age. The heaters in the VFDs are running the whole time, and I'm not an expert, but I believe it's a barium/strontium oxide? on the heater wires which degrades over the years. I've never had a Sony VFD with complete loss of seal/vacuum, but some show mottling of the characters. Basically a triode with phosphors I guess.

A long time ago, I tried to 'repair' some Pioneer fluoro-scan VFDs (Futaba) and had mild success with driving the heaters carefully, but ramp up hard, ramp down for a period, but the improvement only lasted 6-12 months and they became dim again. Not worth the nail biting.

 

[audio_tony]

@restorer-john I've not had much luck restoring VFDs either. Some years back I had a Kenwood CD player with a very dull display.

I boosted the heater voltage which helped for a while, but as per your own observations, it's shortlived.

My CDP227 has an amazingly bright display still.

 

[pogo]

My CDP227 has an amazingly bright display still.

Confirmed

 

[Herbert]

I have both the Philips 3 CD test set here and the Pierre Verany test set. Both include calibrated deliberate optical errors, data stream interruptions and burst/repetitive errors, along with CLV, pitch and track errors to really test the abilities of CD players.

See here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...duction-and-sources.32207/page-2#post-1133717

You get the odd random Philips/Marantz players that will do well on those tests, which is always a surprise, but it is the top Sonys and other Japanese high range decks that will consistently play right through (past 2.4mm) without a hiccup. They've always tracked better than anything Philips built- right from day one. The 1983 audio show demonstrations of the Sony CDP-101 involved turning the player upside down and shaking it while playing. Try that with any swing arm- it won't happen.

For those interested, this is a good description of the basics of 3 beam lasers, written by Toshiba for their then brand new portable players.

View attachment 407532
View attachment 407533

Sony drawing of the laser 3 beam pickup basics:


View attachment 407535

It is also understandable that Philips drives - I assume the first generations - were not able to consistently scan scratches without errors, because the lens/arm assembly of the first swing arm drives had to / could be adjusted vertically to the surface of the CD. I remember that this adjustment was PITA and very time-consuming, as the lens simultaneously describes an arc and had to have the same distance to the surface of the disc at all points of the arc.
So two points, distance and vertical angle had to be adjusted at one single spot - the bearing / center of the arm. Hence the wide variation in quality.
But I suppose theoretically the Philips system was superior because only one horizontal servo was needed for keeping the track - for defects in the information layer, not on the CD surface. I assume that the swing arm was more likely to land back on the track after a ‘hole’ in the information plane.
In the other systems, however, two servos worked to keep the lens horizontally on track. They would have had to be at their horizontal resting point at the moment of the dropout, which practically never happens. There was the ‘dropout detection circuit’ for this case (as far as I know, the laser ‘freezes’ over the scratch), but in one case where I tried to adjust its sensitivity, I was unable to achieve any improvement.

 

[pogo]

Maybe DIP and SOIC package.

 

[restorer-john]

I remember that this adjustment was PITA and very time-consuming, as the lens simultaneously describes an arc and had to have the same distance to the surface of the disc at all points of the arc.

The adjustments you are talking about is the radial focus and the angle adjustment. And yes, they were/are a total PITA. Neither of those adjustments are required with a 3 beam linear...

 

[NTTY]

Absolutely. As soon as I repair the little devil. It was last used about 6 months ago and has decided to cease reading the TOC.

I’m interested too