subhobh
Active Member
Marantz CD player CD6002 vs (PhilipsTDA1541 chip based) DIY DAC, an interesting comparison!!
I just wanted to do this A/B comparison of these two from a long time and finally got the opportunity. I managed to bring the CD player at Venus (Gvenu on the forum) house and attached his gears with it. Honestly I wasnt expecting the result; it was quite surprising for me! A comparison between a branded stuff with a DIY stuff! Seems kind of boring. At least it was with me initially, but the experiment made it quite interesting.
So at the first place let me give you a quick background of both the gears.
As everyone knows that Marantz CD6002 is one of the most popular CD players from the family of Marantz. The heart of the CD player has a Philips transport and Cirrus Logic (CS4398) DAC chip (http://www.cirrus.com/en/pubs/proDatasheet/CS4398_F1.pdf ref for tech savvys). Marantz continues using this same chip on one of their reference series SACD player, but of course the implementation got gradually improved.
Now lets take a look on the DIY DAC that I have compared with (sorry forgot to take camera). Unlike the readymade units its totally assembled by Mr. Venu Nair all by himself and transformer & chassis got done locally. The heart of the DAC is the famous Philips TDA1541 DAC chip, CS8414 receiver IC and SAA7220 digital filter. At the O/P stage AD797 op-amp is being used. The DAC accepts digital audio S/PDIF and it its terminated with high quality gold plated RCA. The analog outputs are also terminated with high quality gold plated RCA sockets. This is a 16 bit DAC with 8 X oversampling. WOW, too technical.. At least for me.. Surprisingly this DAC chip has been used on Marantz CD7, so I believe its kind of an old product. So old is gold? Its too early to say that.
Now the way we performed the comparison is, initially we have put the CD player in place and used the Analogue RCA out to connect the pre amp and then for the comparison we have attached the DAC unit with the digital coaxial out of the CD player (So basically using it just as a transport) and then Analogue RCA out of the DAC unit to connect the pre amp.
Bothe the greats ware on a good break-in position, I believe we got the best out of them.
On this session our preferred music was, Instrumentals, classical, rich Vocals and couple of soundtracks.
First we started with couple of latest Sound tracts where we have multiple vocals busy instruments playing on the background. On this the CDp and then CDP+DAC combo was quite similar on my ear and I couldnt find any substantial difference.
Then we played some classical and rich Vocals tracks. All over the CDP+DAC combo handled the vocal part beautifully. Immediately I noticed there is an improvement on the transparency and resolution. The vocal became more prominent and the depth of the vocal notes was clearer. I enjoyed the lovely presence of air on the tracks. In once word I should say it suddenly became more musical and I got an urge to listen to it for further fifteen minutes.
Then on couple of instrumental tracks difference was further prominent. There was an improvement over the soundstage. The instrumental tracks became livelier, as it was never. The presence of the different instruments became prominent and it was truly playing with deferent intensity. Again I must say, I enjoyed the lovely presence of air on the tracks. We couldnt stop music listening for next one and half hour. Wow!!
So, my verdict is, the award goes to CDP+DAC combo. And the CD payer alone is a junior brother.
According to Venu, he is going to modify it with high end o/p caps (Audiance Auri) and add high quality de-coupling caps around the DAC also using multiple transformers for the different power supply section. Wow, then definitely I would like to compare that upgraded unit with some of the reference series CD/SACD player. Mr. Venu please keep us posted
!!
I just wanted to do this A/B comparison of these two from a long time and finally got the opportunity. I managed to bring the CD player at Venus (Gvenu on the forum) house and attached his gears with it. Honestly I wasnt expecting the result; it was quite surprising for me! A comparison between a branded stuff with a DIY stuff! Seems kind of boring. At least it was with me initially, but the experiment made it quite interesting.
So at the first place let me give you a quick background of both the gears.
As everyone knows that Marantz CD6002 is one of the most popular CD players from the family of Marantz. The heart of the CD player has a Philips transport and Cirrus Logic (CS4398) DAC chip (http://www.cirrus.com/en/pubs/proDatasheet/CS4398_F1.pdf ref for tech savvys). Marantz continues using this same chip on one of their reference series SACD player, but of course the implementation got gradually improved.
Now lets take a look on the DIY DAC that I have compared with (sorry forgot to take camera). Unlike the readymade units its totally assembled by Mr. Venu Nair all by himself and transformer & chassis got done locally. The heart of the DAC is the famous Philips TDA1541 DAC chip, CS8414 receiver IC and SAA7220 digital filter. At the O/P stage AD797 op-amp is being used. The DAC accepts digital audio S/PDIF and it its terminated with high quality gold plated RCA. The analog outputs are also terminated with high quality gold plated RCA sockets. This is a 16 bit DAC with 8 X oversampling. WOW, too technical.. At least for me.. Surprisingly this DAC chip has been used on Marantz CD7, so I believe its kind of an old product. So old is gold? Its too early to say that.
Now the way we performed the comparison is, initially we have put the CD player in place and used the Analogue RCA out to connect the pre amp and then for the comparison we have attached the DAC unit with the digital coaxial out of the CD player (So basically using it just as a transport) and then Analogue RCA out of the DAC unit to connect the pre amp.
Bothe the greats ware on a good break-in position, I believe we got the best out of them.
On this session our preferred music was, Instrumentals, classical, rich Vocals and couple of soundtracks.
First we started with couple of latest Sound tracts where we have multiple vocals busy instruments playing on the background. On this the CDp and then CDP+DAC combo was quite similar on my ear and I couldnt find any substantial difference.
Then we played some classical and rich Vocals tracks. All over the CDP+DAC combo handled the vocal part beautifully. Immediately I noticed there is an improvement on the transparency and resolution. The vocal became more prominent and the depth of the vocal notes was clearer. I enjoyed the lovely presence of air on the tracks. In once word I should say it suddenly became more musical and I got an urge to listen to it for further fifteen minutes.
Then on couple of instrumental tracks difference was further prominent. There was an improvement over the soundstage. The instrumental tracks became livelier, as it was never. The presence of the different instruments became prominent and it was truly playing with deferent intensity. Again I must say, I enjoyed the lovely presence of air on the tracks. We couldnt stop music listening for next one and half hour. Wow!!
So, my verdict is, the award goes to CDP+DAC combo. And the CD payer alone is a junior brother.
According to Venu, he is going to modify it with high end o/p caps (Audiance Auri) and add high quality de-coupling caps around the DAC also using multiple transformers for the different power supply section. Wow, then definitely I would like to compare that upgraded unit with some of the reference series CD/SACD player. Mr. Venu please keep us posted
!!
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