Marantz CD player CD6002 vs (PhilipsTDA1541 chip based) DIY DAC!!

subhobh

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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:)!!
 
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thanks for sharing this. Sounds promising. I am more inclined towards USB (async) dac these days as that should make any reasonable laptop/ comp sound good.
 
The two DACs you have mentioned are different sounding, one is a NOS with. A house sound. Most will not prefer complex sound through the NOS dac
the purist implementations don't have the digital filter either, giving you another kind of sound.



Cheers
 
Thanx for the review .. Wanted to have an idea of the kit used. So did a quick check on ebay and found this
Hi-End CD DAC TDA1541 A ( CS8412 & SAA7220 ) Kit Deluxe - eBay (item 280384314217 end time Jan-03-11 19:27:20 PST)
Think this is the kit that has been used ..
Posting for reference ..

Looks nice!! But in this you have to get the power supply and chasse done. Lot if quality factor depends on that. Also you need to have a good quality SPDIF cable to get the Digital signal (not sure if its providing a coax input). Later on you can further upgrade couple of output stage caps to take it into next level.
 
The two DACs you have mentioned are different sounding, one is a NOS with. A house sound. Most will not prefer complex sound through the NOS dac
the purist implementations don't have the digital filter either, giving you another kind of sound.

Hi,

As Subho already mentioned about the cap & transformer updrades, also planning to remove the digital filter. Take the current output from tda1541 to a tube stage and finally this will be 1X sampling, no re-clocking and ofcourse no digital filter. I already have the details from tda1541a lampizator and may be in 1-2 months time I will get this done.

Till now my experience: Outperformed cd5001, 6002 & 7001 with all kinds of music (beauty of this dac is its neutrality). Waiting to test it with marantz sa15s1 or may be arcam fmj cd37 (guess!).

Intention is to encourage people to try DIY route as it is very interesting and one does not need to spend a lot. As and when budget and time available, small upgrades with better result possible.

Rgds,
venu
 
Hi Subodh
is this non-upsampling DIY DAC?
How does this DIY DAC compare with upsampling DACs like Dacmagic & V-dac.

Thanks
Sanjeev
 
Hi Subodh
is this non-upsampling DIY DAC?
How does this DIY DAC compare with upsampling DACs like Dacmagic & V-dac.

Thanks
Sanjeev

The DIY DAC is an up sampling one. In less word I would say that I loved the clarity, midrange (especially Vocal) and the. I believe Musical fidelity Vdac is NOS (not sure though, please correct me if it is please!!) But CA Dac Magic is up sampling.

I have personally auditioned Vdac and Dac Magic, but never get a chance to do an A/B comparison. Now, it is subjective to personal music listening test but I found Vdac and Dac Magic is different sounding DAC. Dac Magic has the more clarity and sharp but Vdac is better on Midrange smoothness and soundstage, it further improves if you add upgraded power supply. But both of them are modern DAC chip based unit.

But the Dac I have mentioned earlier is an older DAC but have a sense of natural sounding effect. But again, can say better or worse, it subjective to personal taste again.
 
hmm CDP as transport is good but consumes the CDP money..

now we have good a diy DAC,how about diy transport... anyone dared to do mods as in the DIYA audio thread(singaclone story) with CD boom box to transport ?
any boombox available here if sounds excellent would be great.
 
Subhobh, thanks for your review.
As Kaushik pointed out, the DIY DAC becomes an affordable solution only if we can find an affordable transport.
 
May a good CD-rom become good option.

A good transport is not an easy assembling job, you need good quality material, good metal tray to get rid of the jitter. So in now budget we have to rely upon the big players!! A computer CD-rom is a high speed device but not a very good transport, because it cannot handle lot of error correction.

I believe acoustic portrait is already at it. Lets see how they come up with their own transport, DAC and software.
 
Purchase the Audiolab 6000A Integrated Amplifier at a special offer price.
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