Are Vintage DACs Any Good? Sony DVP-S9000ES Makes The Case

[@stuartboros7693]

I use this player as a transport for my Benchmark DAC1 hdr. I haven’t found another transport that sounds as good with the Benchmark.

[@AT-wl9yq]

There's too much focus on dac chips. A dac has 3 main parts. The digital section, the analog section and the power supply. Most of your sound quality comes from the analog section and the power supply. Dac chips do make a difference, but nowhere near as much as people think. Give the exact same dac chip to 10 different designers and you will have 10 different sounding dac's. Sometimes very different sounding.

[@HiFiTurtle]

100% agree but there are many chip focused audiophiles out there. Same thing happens when restaurants slap "waygu" in front of a burger or steak.

[@loismikestachura978]

I miss Sonys older stuff

[@eur1gys]

Find a rock SACD (they made a few if those) and try it. You will love it.

[@HiFiTurtle]

I'd love to own the Kraftwerk Minimum-Maximum Album, but man! Thing is pricy!

[@pioneermax1906]

I own 2of these units they sound great to me !!built like a tank in a good way

[@raykuiper4979]

Well, this DVP S9000es is such a great device. I do own 3 devices, use them as CD-DVD player . The sound quality is on a high level. Did compare it with a Philips blue-Ray player 9600. Here in Europe Germany it was new 4900 DM

[@Zockopa]

Around a decade ago i got two Sony DVP-S715 for very cheap. These are also DVD/CD combiplayers and were highly regarded for their audioquality when they were on the shelves. I overhauled the output stages and their sub power supply of one and got it to the soundquality of a CDP-X333ES who was the reference cd player. And that for around 50 bucks in parts. Well,the thing with modern DACs is that they can way (!) more than CD which is technicly a obsolete medium today. And their output- stages can often also be upgraded to offer better soundquality (although DIYìng with SMD parts is certainly not everyones piece of cake). However,some of those old DVD/CD combiplayers certainly offer the best bang for the buck for the technical inclinend musiclover,because the market back then was in a transitional phase and high quality combiplayers had a mass market appeal for the producers.

[@pennfootball71]

Auralic has copper lining in their chassis on their higher end streamers. Aavik electronics are making copper chassis components in the I-880 and P-880 class A amplifiers. So higher end companies do make things like this still...so does Marantz in their cd player have copper all over the case in their SA-10. Yamaha A-S3200 has a copper lining as well. Thicker aluminum panels are also dampened better from other manufactures. Audionet suspends its boards on rubber gaskets to prevent vibration. A lot of companies separate components to prevent emi or cover transformers or put them in another chassis. Copper is not always the best way it is one solution out of many.

[@mcgjohn22]

Maybe for a budget piece for someone on tight budget. DACs and clocks have come a long way since then. If a person has slightly larger budget, may want to try an Ares DAC from the digital out on that player.

[@psyphonyxaudio]

I really like your CD collection. I have about half of those same discs. =) There is a Denon SACD player in my local area .. used sale for about $90. I might grab that just to hear what SACD is about.

[@HiFiTurtle]

I do want to try a real sacd one day. Someone tell Mikael Åkerfeldt to release Ghost Reveries on that haha

[@erwindewit4073]

Wow, nice! I don't think vintage is always better, but it can be a great value. I use a Marantz CD11LE from 1991 as my transport, and to this day, it's hard to find something much better in my experience. And I only paid $850 for it.. It's full of copper, high end components and would cost a fortune to make today... But still, it is fairly old, so things will fail ... For a DAC, I use a 2006 dCS Delius and Verona clock. No DAC chips here, it's a ring DAC and a FPGA. Oh, and the pre amp in it is amazing! $2250. It was something like $18000 new! Is vintage always best? Perhaps not, but wow.. I also use a 1991 Accuphases pre and power amp (recently rebuilt). It's really good, but not the bargain the DAC was... Really cool to make a video about this stuff!!

[@ptg01]

My experience with these Sony DVD player that is also a CD/SACD player is playing the SACD layer on hybrid discs (i.e. having CD layer too) s quite problematic.. Something to do with Lasers having trouble focusing on the SACD layer, if you have hybrid discs. Now if you have single layer SACD, then it doesn't have problems reading SACD itself.

[@HiFiTurtle]

Good to know

[@TriAmpHiFi]

Soundstage & imaging............................................ How does the Sony decide when to pan instrument left or right? How much imaging does the Sony extract from a mono recording? Acid Jazz, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊

[@TriAmpHiFi]

. The answers are never & none. There is no such thing as any component "having" a better soundstage or better imaging. Components CAN NOT add or improve soundstage or imaging over what's in the recording already. Pure nonsense.

[@HiFiTurtle]

Certainly strong. As strong as the Benchmark but not as much as the ECM imo

[@Saturn2888]

How does it measure? What's the dynamic range?

[@HiFiTurtle]

Audio Section Frequency responses: CD: 2Hz-20kHz, ±0.5dB. SACD: 2Hz-100kHz, ±0.5dB (-3dB, ±1dB at 50kHz). DAD (96kHz PCM): 2Hz-44kHz (-2dB, ±1dB at 44kHz). S/N ratio: >115dB (DVD) Harmonic distortion: DVD, SACD: 99dB.

[@dennishill290]

🍺👍🔊🔈...! My Yamaha CDX-1060 from 1993 is still working and I've a video of it. Nice Sony... !

[@h0ll0wm9n]

Own several Yama’s myself. All from the 80s. Red Book 16/44.1 pcm sounds best on 80s cdp/dac . I own/have owned modern digital. Denafrips, Schiit, etc. DeltaSigma or R2R or whatever… after about 1990, the sound turned BORING!

[@dennishill290]

​ Agreed...for most part...the Yamaha CD-S303 with a burr-brown 1780 and the Yamaha BD-A 1060 with the burr-brown 1795 get me going, and the Yamaha CD-S1000 WITH TWIN burr-brown 1796 chips sounds better than the others with ESS SABRE chips...to me... or any straight red-book non sacd player usually sounds good.

[@h0ll0wm9n]

Great content -- thx, man! Now, get yourself a CD player from the mid 80s, replace some electrolytic caps, lube up motor and transport, clean the contacts and , then, even your Sony DVP-S9000ES will sound boring!,

[@HiFiTurtle]

I'll keep my eyes peeled for sure

[@pennfootball71]

Wow first of all you better companies are not making "chip dac's" and do hold their value because you can update them to the latest technology. This is the case for dCS that has an Apex upgrade program and Lampizator can always be updated as well. Even MSB has a 100% trade in program to get the next higher up model. The prices for these dac's remain high especially after you upgrade them.

[@HiFiTurtle]

DCS's last generation is going for about half of retail, Lampizator and MSB depreciate as well. Also the generation before Vivaldi, Rossini, Bartok was not upgradable. Also you realize an FPGA is still a chip? HiFi doesn't need the latest Spartan chip, but if you don't get the latest update without shelling out $$$$ to me that's not holding value Is that depreciation more than speakers or amps? Perhaps more evidence is needed but certainly compared to the likes of Wilson and Dan D'Agostino products

[@pennfootball71]

That's why I said they hold their value after the upgrade so you keep it up to date. I knew you were going to say this. Let's just bang on rocks with sticks it is easier than audio. @@HiFiTurtle​