@@tenmillionvolts Yes, it can be capacitors, but the display tubes themselves are also getting dimmer because the cathode emission decays and the phosphor wears out. If the display is evenly dim, it might be capacitors or weak cathode. If some digits/segments are brighter, that is because the phosphor is worn out on the dimmer segments. There is a huge difference in lifetime between VFDs. Some are still perfectly useful after 30 years of 24/7 operation, others become dim beyond usefulness within 10 years. I have a 1997 Kenwood mini hifi with a huge VFD, it is on 24/7 since 1997 and it is still perfectly readable even in daylight. 2000s VFDs tend to be a lot worse. I've seen some which became noticably dim after 5 years, and unusable after 5 more years.
The CD player was a joint development between Sony and Philips. I have a late 80s Technics player that is still going strong all these decades later, it even plays CD-R discs although it was never designed to do so as they hadn't been invented when it was released. The only repair it's ever had was that I had to change the loading belt many years ago. Sony and Philips also invented the SPDIF interface, SPDIF actually stands for Sony Philips Digital Interface.
What a pleasant surprise to see you again Kelvin! TH-cam must like you also. They gave you top of the page placement. At least on my phone screen, and I havent watched one of your videos for over 6 months. I would put more belief in a review by you than reviewers with all kind of fancy test equipment. You still have to have "ears." Your down to earth simple to understand evaluations are refreshing. I got into cd players late, mainly because of a big lp collection, and hearing through the grapevine that analog sounded superior. I started looking into ways to improve cd players sound, 3 decades ago. There are literally about 50 or 60 things you can do inside a cd player to improve its sound. Many external things too. Listening to cds, I always thought digital had great potential. Pre cd era digital lps like The Nightfly and Rio by Lee Ritenour (what an album), convinced me of that. When I finally started getting into cd players in the mid 1990s, my experienced ears couldn't help but notice the edginess, the brashness, the lack of warmth and openness, the mechanical quality of the sound and the glare. Modifying the players, the openness was the first thing that most noticeably improved. Then all the other things came along nicely. I thought the exaggerated leading edges would be the last bad thing to go. But no, the last bad quality to go was the "glare." It's the players, not the cds themselves for the most part that was the problem. Hearing cds without any digital/electronic glare is a revelation. I think cds generally now sound pretty much as analog as analog, but without the noise. I have reel to reel too; not just phono. I've discovered now that cds have that smooth warm sound, with great continuity. I never thought this could happen. I was convinced of analog's superiority. The so call "digital sound" and "digital artifacts" are because of the players themselves. With a very small % of exceptions. So I now have what sounds like a collection of audiophile lps with superior cleanness and all the other good stuff; but they are CDs! I still play lps too & like them. But one doesn't sound obviously more digital than the other any longer. Great video and glad you're back and alright!
Great to see you reviewing again , you have a terrific way of reviewing please keep in good health and keep on keeping on reviewing for our knowledge and understanding
Kelvin- Where have you been?? You haven't aged in the couple of years that you have been missing in action. This video has better sound than the others. Welcome back!!
Hi Kelvin. sooo happy you're back, mate. Glad you liked the Victor Wooten album, A Show of Hands, as from one bass head to another it's a fantastic album. Looking forward to more content on your channel. All the best.
Real good to see you man just bought a Sony CD player 1990 with a TDA 153 chip that chip is in the same family as the 1986 player you have r2r based ladder DAC big mid-range very analogue sounding welcome back keep in touch with your fans
Hello Kelvin it's made my day seeing you back on TH-cam. Great review of an old bit of Phillips kit. My first player was a Mission DaD7000 which was a Phillips 104 b I think tweaked! I loved it but I had come from a budget Technics turntable so I guess I've never really experienced a higher quality deck to compare. I agree ref things to go wrong by the way, simpler the better in my book. I hope to see more content from you soon.
Welcome back mate! Glad you're fine. Nice review of a packed in features, vintage piece. Philips, among other importand innovations, is also very well known for its disk drives, found in dozens of models of cd players from many, many brands. That hidden, program keyboard is simply adorable...
I bought one of these in 1987 and still use it today. I haven't heard a better sounding CD player. Mine was purchased in the USA and is branded Magnavox but is otherwise identical, including the British spelling of "Favourite." Like yours, mine makes a faint whirring sound when it spins, and the loading mechanism sometimes malfunctions. This was well reviewed at the time. I bought mine for around US $380 new. I use it with KEF 104.2 speakers and an Adcom GFA 555 II amplifier. Only the preamp has changed over the years. It's a pleasure to hear your opinions even if I don't agree with all of them. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, which, for me, is my current system. Is your lava lamp for sale?
I had one of these for 25 years! I loved the sound of this machine. I later added an Arcam Black Box 3 Dac. Considering CD is technically superior to vinyl in every way it's hard to understand why vinyl sounds 'better', but somehow it can. That machine is way past it's sell by date and would sound much better for a thorough service. It was never brash when new and would compete very favourably with some expensive turntables at the time. It's a bit like running a 30 year old car without a service and expecting it to perform well. Good to see you are alive and well mate.
Kelvin, fantastic to see you back. You have been sorely missed amongst us “saddos” who form the TH-cam hifi community. I was one of those people who swallowed the “perfect sound forever” line, sold my LPs for giveaway prices, regretted it and then spent the next 40 years rebuilding my collection. I actually think CD can sound quite good now, the issue is that it’s taken 40 years to get there and it’s still not as involving as a decent turntable setup. The very best of luck with the relaunch of your channel, if that’s what this is, looking forward to many more videos.
CD players were more convenient and profitable than vinyl and streaming is more convenient and profitable than CD. What's best generally depends on the recording. Great to see you back.
Hi kelvin So glad to see you again, was wondering how you were ? Glad to see you looking well and back doing some reviews! I would be really interested if you could do a review of your favourite CD players for me to try out myself! Any chance of that please kelvin? Thanks so much for coming back and entertaining us with your excellent reviews! Welldone my friend! Warm regards Paul 😊👍
What I didn't miss in 1984 with my first CD player was the turntable rumble, pop, ticks, non-fill s-c-r-a-t-c-h, off center pressings (which irritated me the most!), and the warp of vinyl. I did discover that the way I listened to music on CD had to change verses the way I listened to it on vinyl. I had to get used to not having to "listen" for vinyl's anomolies. For me, CD verses vinyl is not an absolute dogma of one is "superior" to the other. I listen to and can easily enjoy both. However, there is a definite difference of experience between both formats.
Great to see you again welcome back. I actually had one of these, they were very very expensive and got great reviews at the time and were completely out of reach to a young apprentice and hifi nut . BUT...BUT Boots the Chemist started selling end of line models of hifi and camera gear. I was wandering through my Local Boots and spied one of these 650s for the special price of I think £79.89 instead of £279 they had been, so I snapped one up. It served me well for a couple of years, and its "cough " sonic qualities matched my ill matched budget gear beautifully LOL . So I was a happy chappy. As my wages and kit improved my enjoyment of its now slightly tiring soundscape waned but then i picked up a secondhand Audio Alchemy DAC so I fed the digital out through that and used the 650 as a transport for some years again.. So thanks for this video it was a warm trip down 80s HIFI memory lane.
I have an early 90s technics cd player, it has issues playing very low bass at the appropriate level. I suspect it's just old electronics in the output stage. My 10 years newer Yamaha player has no issues with that. The yamaha also has an adjustable output level, so I matched it's volume with my tapedeck and tuner. Can't match with the turntable as the volume of the pressings is all over the place. old electronics, capacitors specifically will affect most equipment of this age
It might be that your amplifier has a low impedance input of say 10-20k. This will roll off the bass. Some CD players need to see 50k or more. Yamaha amplifiers generally have 22k so their CD players are designed for a lower impedance. My Rotel 1072 reacts the same way. Anything below 30k and the bass rolls off.
Hope you’re well Kelvin. Glad you’re back. I had this CD player….I remember it came with a load of stickers for your CDs to help with the programming. You just typed the cd program number and the machine played the tracks from the disc that you had selected previously.
Hello Kelvin!!! Back around 2016-2018 I bought pre-owned CD players and high-end cassette decks in fine condition for $25--$50 free shipping on Ebay. Since then prices have exploded such that very few bargains can be found anymore. I can't afford to take chances on vintage gear these days.
Hi! I live near a thrift where they can't get rid of tape decks and CD players fast enough. They are normally under $15 bucks. What 80's/90's CD players do you recommend? I see SACD players too. Any thoughts on those?
Yes, that was a golden period. You never realise it at the time, or at least I didn’t. I did pick up quite a few good deals then . I remember thinking this Amp is like a Rolls-Royce to me, and they think it’s like an old banger that no one wants
Hi Kelvin, great to see you back in the hot seat. I've missed your great down to earth reviews, feels like I'm chatting to you in my front room. Yes I agree with you on past cd players, they doo sound hard, brash and uninvolved. Thanks for this, please come back again.
Nice to see you again and talking great of the first CD era, yes! i remember it was felt like something coming from the future at the times, very difficult to find music well mastered on CD nowadays but this is totally another story. Keep going on Kelvin
Good to see you back Kelvin. I have a 650 I got back in 2019 and it does look fantastic and with a bit of tinkering it sound great as well, mine now runs NOS from the Td1541 and I've upgraded the op amps
Kelvin, welcome back! I own a couple of Marantz CD73's which are a little older than your Philips player. I have restored one and the sound quality is seriously impressive. "Warm" is probably a good description of the sound. It has limited functionality but it's the music that counts. Sony/Philips/Marantz first players were all pretty darn good machines. Probably should note that Marantz was owned by Philips at the time and they appeared to be Philips defacto premium brand for a while. You are spot on when describing the mid range quality of these early players although the CD73 has no shortage of bass.
Personally, I prefer the 14-bit TDA 1540 converter. I have a Grundig CD 7550 with this converter and it is brilliant. Sounds like a record player. Regards, Kevin. Nice to see you again.
Good to see this old machines alive and working. Mine is a Sony CDP 750 with the same DAC from 1988, only serviced once for a change of the laser lens. Still a main part of my music listening set !!
DAC technology improved a lot in the earlier days. The 1-bit (bitstream) DAC that became popular in the 90s was a significant improvement for CD audio.
Great to see you back again. I remember my first CDs, Tom Waits and Springsteen albums that sounded simply dreadful to my ears. It was quite some years before a Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista DAC persuaded me to listen to them again.
6:55 'Which I guess is this circuit board here, which I kind of gives it a more analoguey sound ... " Your'e one of a kind, Kelvin. So good to hear from you!
Great to see you again Kelvin! I'm in Stereo for 45 years now. The old Philips players with the TDA 1541 can sound superb and much more analogous, driving, colorful, airy and beautiful than most of the modern players. But you have to recap them!!! Then you will be totally surprised how good these things can sound. One of the best players I ever listened to (and own) is the Philips CD 880, also with the TDA 1541 and I guess I listened to more than 300 different players in the last 40 years. I also found out that a lot of CD players need a time for warming up. Especially the TDA 1541 and the 1543 players often need more than 30 minutes to sound perfect. Then they loose a bit of harshness and midrange overstatement. You can read about that in different Dutch and German HiFi forums. Keep on doing what you do here Kelvin!
2 years ago I had a listen to this very CD650. Couldn't really tell it sounded any better than a modern-day DAC, at that time the Ares II. So... sold the CD650.
After all the hype in the build up to CD's introduction I was really relieved to discover that the ones that I heard in the early days, sounded pretty terrible. So, luckily, I never sold my vinyl. Of course I have digital sources now, but I can never lose myself in music in the way I can with a good vinyl LP.
Great to see you back. Are we going to get more than one video this year only joking hope to see more from you. Great video I can’t remember what model it was. But when CD players first came out, I brought myself a Phillips, CD player cost me £795 Back in the day, I think it was the first brand of electronics I ever brought after leaving school even though they’ve been out for a few years at that point
Interesting review, thanks. Not quite sure what you mean about the sound though. If you are using the digital out from this CD player, you are by definition using the DAC from the amplifier to which it is attached. And the DAC is what will give you much of the sound quality. Did you try it with RCA cables, so that you are using the internal Philips TDA1541 ? I have a 1984 Revox CD225 and it has twin TDA1540 DACs - and trust me, the bass this thing supplies is floor shaking if you want it to be. It gives such a deep, rich sound, but you need to be utilising the onboard DAC to get the proper effect. The sound from my Revox is every bit as good (albeit rather different) as from my turntable
I own a preloved 'universal' disc player that I digital out of to a DAC and the sound is great though I'm all in with streaming in the main (via vintage kit of course). I recently bought my daughter an all in one CD/ radio unit as she wanted to physically own stuff from her favourite bands. It seemed madness to buy a vinyl for her wall at current costs so I steered her to CD. She loves it and has raided my CD collection mostly accumulated in the 90's, which followed my vinyl phase and before my download phase. She also scours charity shops, no wonder the CD is coming back too
Nice review, honest and to the point. BTW-I enjoyed your Royd review and have been looking for one stateside ever since. Found a pair recently, 20 miles away from me, for $60. You were right, a very special speaker
Hello my Friend It does my hart good to see you upload a video again You have the best channel on TH-cam Ps I just got myself a Yamaha DSP A1 . Its an old av amp from 1998 It was 50£ and sounds amazing as a 2 channel stereo through a pair of Monitor Audio r352 You should review some early high end AV suround amps and receives they were amazing in there day and are Pennies now
Great to see you Kelvin! Have to agree about the CD player sound. I ended up going through about 5 cd players to find one that was decent sounding. Non of them really did. I use an R2R dac now. Also, I repair hifi and CD players generally have a maximum operating time on the laser - and can be expensive to source. DC Servo's fail even on good units and can be difficult to fix. I can recommend old Rotel and Sony units from mid 90's to mid 00's. They just keep going, and the Sonys sometimes have all the programming and jog dial features. P.S... Anyone heard a Sugden A48 mk2? There's one for sale near me and I'm very tempted.
Oh the sudden is just a great Amp. I reviewed it really one of my top favourites doesn’t seem to be working anymore my one If you Repair Amp S interesting thing about the Sugden is that inside there’s a din plug the separates I believe the pre-empower Amp. Just to let you know I think I have that right anyway
Thanks for sharing your views on the Philips CD650. I bought mine back in '85 and it still working. Only the remote for it no longer works. I agree with your comment on the high end versus vinyl, but having lost some of my high end hearing, it's not an issue. Lol Anyways, I am probably going to do a complete recap on it, as this player is still one if the best ever made to this day.
Philips cd 850 was the one to buy back in the day and also worked well as a transport only if you plugged in a dac like a deltec little bit ....welcome back
Bought mine in '86. Still works and for 22 years employed to real time burn the free CD's, some 800, from all the local libraries, via the Phillips' digital output into a Tascam CD recorder's digital input and use an Audio Note DAC Kit for playback.
Great to see you back kelvin. You analyze these things so well ,tons of experience that most reviewers don't have. I am roughly your age and remember this period of transition and agree to every bit you said. Hope to see you reviewing old equipment and More.
All Philips cd players up to the CD 960 were as you described, the CD 960 is the player with the most analog sound I've heard (the CD 880 should have been even better, but it wasn't), I directly compared the Meridian G06 and the Naim CD5i with the CD 960, he beat them in all elements.
@@damirhlobik6488No. Not quite. The loading mechanism was designed by Marantz not Philips. The 960 used the Marantz designed loading mechanism, so a Marantz in a Philips box seeing as the Philips was built on the Marantz production lines in Japan and mostly designed by them.
Great review. Agree with you on lack of raffinment on the top end. Had this machine on daily duties for around 15 years. But these machines can be upgraded to sound really highend. There have been important developments for highend cd players over the last two decades. The beauty is, these improvements can be retrofitted in older machines also when you are a skilled diy audiotechnician. This cd player is worth it to do so, because it has very good bones. Love this channel, all the best from the Netherlands.
GREAT TO SEE YOU AGAIN , , that trip down to that used audio shop video was very nice as all the good shops like that are now shut down in my city ...., Picked up an old luxman lv 105 CD player that has tubes in it , coolest part is the bypass function , has rca pre in , can be used as stand alone in line tube buffer for a sreamer, tape deck ,etc , also has two rca outputs , one fixed the other variable , can go to directly to Amp , plays well with the older stuff , pairs best with my Mc 250, after the tubes have warmed up for ten minutes things change in a interesting way . A whoosh of big air , Yes.. Did that a/b thing back in the day with cds too , It was a high end tape deck in the end that showed me what I was missing with cds in the 90s .
Good to see you again Kelvin. Hope youre doin fine. Anyway,like you i remember that time pretty well. CD-Audio around the mid-eighties became suitable for the masses,because player prices fell steeply. The technology trickeld down so to speak into the middle and even a bit later into the consumer class. Personaly i got my first player in the late eighties. (Up to that time i was busy buying records from the bins and 2nd hand markets. Truth being told it was vinyljunkie time because you could get really rare and good stuff for literaly a buck or two....) Well,back then we had a little circle of friends who were all musiclovers and hifi nuts. But only one had a CD players at that time, a exellent sounding but already aging Technics SL-P10. We also had a bit of a connection to a very good hifi /high end shop back then. In fact as we decided to finaly buy CD players we could choose from a bunch of loaned gear from that store. A bunch of Phillips and Sony players up to 1k in price. After some listening sessions the Sony players were choosen over the Phillips ones. Especially the larger players from that model generation (CDP-950 and CDP-750) sounded very close to a pretty decent turntable.
Kelvin- Can you reply to this? After watching your review of the Sansui 331 -881 series I have always been interested because of your enthusiasm for this series. I have a 2000x and a possibility of buying a 771 for $250. Are they different in sound to buy the 771 because as you said (it's really all about the sound") Thank you Kelvin and welcome back!!
Truly, I do not have experience of the 2000 x But I’ll give you my best guess The 2000 is older, and my guess is the 771 will be better I’m gonna doubt there’s much in it . If you find out, To me, the 771 at $250 looks great. it’s a vintage classic and it sounds super
Kelvin Thank you for your reply. -I went ahead and purchased the 771 and when I receive it I will A/B it to the 2000x and will post my evaluation. By the way, out of all the Sansui products I have owned (at least 20) the 2000X has been one of my favorites. Really worth a listen. Will let you know in the next 2 weeks. If its okay with you I will post here as well in the your 441- 881 video?
Hi Calvin, nice to see you back, I ve missed your videos! There is something true in your words on direct and fast comparison of sound. BR, Joe, Austria
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🤗 GREAT TO SEE YOU AGAIN,KELVIN WE HAVE BEEN WONDERING WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING 🤔THANKS FOR THE TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE💚💚💚
My pleasure
Hey Kelvin! Long time no see. Glad you're back mate.
Kelvin, it is not Liquid Cristal Display (LCD). It is a Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD) - two completely different technologies. Regards.
Ok thanks for that I wasn’t too sure
All vacuum fluorescent displays I have owned over time get dimmer and dimmer until they are unreadable.
@@swinde It's often due to the capacitors drying up in the power supply. I used to replace a lot of them and bring the display back to full brightness
@@tenmillionvolts
Thank you. I have several products with these displays that I am still using. I will give it a try.
@@tenmillionvolts Yes, it can be capacitors, but the display tubes themselves are also getting dimmer because the cathode emission decays and the phosphor wears out. If the display is evenly dim, it might be capacitors or weak cathode. If some digits/segments are brighter, that is because the phosphor is worn out on the dimmer segments. There is a huge difference in lifetime between VFDs. Some are still perfectly useful after 30 years of 24/7 operation, others become dim beyond usefulness within 10 years. I have a 1997 Kenwood mini hifi with a huge VFD, it is on 24/7 since 1997 and it is still perfectly readable even in daylight. 2000s VFDs tend to be a lot worse. I've seen some which became noticably dim after 5 years, and unusable after 5 more years.
Great to see and hear you Kelvin. Hope you are well mate.
The CD player was a joint development between Sony and Philips. I have a late 80s Technics player that is still going strong all these decades later, it even plays CD-R discs although it was never designed to do so as they hadn't been invented when it was released. The only repair it's ever had was that I had to change the loading belt many years ago. Sony and Philips also invented the SPDIF interface, SPDIF actually stands for Sony Philips Digital Interface.
Where you been ??
What a pleasant surprise to see you again Kelvin! TH-cam must like you also. They gave you top of the page placement. At least on my phone screen, and I havent watched one of your videos for over 6 months. I would put more belief in a review by you than reviewers with all kind of fancy test equipment. You still have to have "ears." Your down to earth simple to understand evaluations are refreshing. I got into cd players late, mainly because of a big lp collection, and hearing through the grapevine that analog sounded superior. I started looking into ways to improve cd players sound, 3 decades ago. There are literally about 50 or 60 things you can do inside a cd player to improve its sound. Many external things too.
Listening to cds, I always thought digital had great potential. Pre cd era digital lps like The Nightfly and Rio by Lee Ritenour (what an album), convinced me of that. When I finally started getting into cd players in the mid 1990s, my experienced ears couldn't help but notice the edginess, the brashness, the lack of warmth and openness, the mechanical quality of the sound and the glare. Modifying the players, the openness was the first thing that most noticeably improved. Then all the other things came along nicely. I thought the exaggerated leading edges would be the last bad thing to go. But no, the last bad quality to go was the "glare." It's the players, not the cds themselves for the most part that was the problem. Hearing cds without any digital/electronic glare is a revelation. I think cds generally now sound pretty much as analog as analog, but without the noise. I have reel to reel too; not just phono. I've discovered now that cds have that smooth warm sound, with great continuity. I never thought this could happen. I was convinced of analog's superiority. The so call "digital sound" and "digital artifacts" are because of the players themselves. With a very small % of exceptions. So I now have what sounds like a collection of audiophile lps with superior cleanness and all the other good stuff; but they are CDs! I still play lps too & like them. But one doesn't sound obviously more digital than the other any longer. Great video and glad you're back and alright!
Thanks for the info, my friend K
Good to have you back on the firm, Kelvin
Great to see you again Kelvin, missed your videos. Brilliant as always mate!
Great to see you reviewing again , you have a terrific way of reviewing please keep in good health and keep on keeping on reviewing for our knowledge and understanding
That the plan 😄thanks
Kelvin- Where have you been?? You haven't aged in the couple of years that you have been missing in action. This video has better sound than the others. Welcome back!!
Thanks mate yeah I hung the mic from the ceiling much better
I got 3 CD players :
Philips cd 104
Philips cd 480
Philips cd 620
All sound good !! 😊
Hi Kelvin. sooo happy you're back, mate. Glad you liked the Victor Wooten album, A Show of Hands, as from one bass head to another it's a fantastic album. Looking forward to more content on your channel. All the best.
Real good to see you man just bought a Sony CD player 1990 with a TDA 153 chip that chip is in the same family as the 1986 player you have r2r based ladder DAC big mid-range very analogue sounding welcome back keep in touch with your fans
Hello Kelvin it's made my day seeing you back on TH-cam. Great review of an old bit of Phillips kit. My first player was a Mission DaD7000 which was a Phillips 104 b I think tweaked! I loved it but I had come from a budget Technics turntable so I guess I've never really experienced a higher quality deck to compare. I agree ref things to go wrong by the way, simpler the better in my book. I hope to see more content from you soon.
Welcome back mate! Glad you're fine. Nice review of a packed in features, vintage piece. Philips, among other importand innovations, is also very well known for its disk drives, found in dozens of models of cd players from many, many brands. That hidden, program keyboard is simply adorable...
My Good God..such a nice feeling to see you back..❤
I'm still using my Marantz CD42 mk2 bought in1993.
Great to see you again Kelvin! I recently bought a Philips CD 160 but it stopped playing after 1 CD. Whilst it did play, I enjoyed the sound of it.
I bought one of these in 1987 and still use it today. I haven't heard a better sounding CD player. Mine was purchased in the USA and is branded Magnavox but is otherwise identical, including the British spelling of "Favourite." Like yours, mine makes a faint whirring sound when it spins, and the loading mechanism sometimes malfunctions. This was well reviewed at the time. I bought mine for around US $380 new. I use it with KEF 104.2 speakers and an Adcom GFA 555 II amplifier. Only the preamp has changed over the years. It's a pleasure to hear your opinions even if I don't agree with all of them. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, which, for me, is my current system. Is your lava lamp for sale?
Great to see you back. The truth about audio equipment was hard to find until I happened upon Stereo Review X.
It’s riddle wrapped ina mystery
Except it’s not really just no one want to tell the truth
Nice to see you back Sir. I still have my Sony 337 esd and would never part with it it’s a beast.
I had one of these for 25 years! I loved the sound of this machine. I later added an Arcam Black Box 3 Dac. Considering CD is technically superior to vinyl in every way it's hard to understand why vinyl sounds 'better', but somehow it can. That machine is way past it's sell by date and would sound much better for a thorough service. It was never brash when new and would compete very favourably with some expensive turntables at the time. It's a bit like running a 30 year old car without a service and expecting it to perform well. Good to see you are alive and well mate.
Hi Kelvin, good to see you.. ive gone down the old cd player route too..im using an old Philips cd104. Sounds amazing with its twin dacs.
It is great to hear from you again 👍🏽
Thank god! we though you had popped your clogs or something. Glad to see you back Kelvin, top bloke.
Kelvin, fantastic to see you back. You have been sorely missed amongst us “saddos” who form the TH-cam hifi community.
I was one of those people who swallowed the “perfect sound forever” line, sold my LPs for giveaway prices, regretted it and then spent the next 40 years rebuilding my collection.
I actually think CD can sound quite good now, the issue is that it’s taken 40 years to get there and it’s still not as involving as a decent turntable setup.
The very best of luck with the relaunch of your channel, if that’s what this is, looking forward to many more videos.
Thanks for the feedback .of course I agree turntable really is king
CD players were more convenient and profitable than vinyl and streaming is more convenient and profitable than CD.
What's best generally depends on the recording.
Great to see you back.
Streaming is NOT profitable for the musicians hence rip off gig tickets...
As the film & TV industry is finding out getting rid of physical media and relying on streaming is destroying their industries.@@domfjbrown75
Glad that great Kevin is back
Hi kelvin
So glad to see you again, was wondering how you were ? Glad to see you looking well and back doing some reviews! I would be really interested if you could do a review of your favourite CD players for me to try out myself! Any chance of that please kelvin?
Thanks so much for coming back and entertaining us with your excellent reviews!
Welldone my friend! Warm regards Paul 😊👍
Hi Paul And, thanks.
Certainly if I get hold of her good CD player I might do a expensive mid budget comparison. Thanks for the idea. Cheers K
Thanks kelvin you are a diamond geyser as they used to say! Looking forward to seeing your next video 👍😊
Very good to see you picking up reviews again!
Great to see you again! Your videos are the best on the hifi subject. Greatings from Brazil.
Thank you very much K
Excellent to see you again. Keep the videos coming!
Kelvin my good man. I had to double take when I saw a fresh post. You are music to my ears man. ❤
My brother has a CD 101 with the toploader. A big advantage is that it plays damaged discs pretty well. I've got a slightly later model.
What I didn't miss in 1984 with my first CD player was the turntable rumble, pop, ticks, non-fill s-c-r-a-t-c-h, off center pressings (which irritated me the most!), and the warp of vinyl. I did discover that the way I listened to music on CD had to change verses the way I listened to it on vinyl. I had to get used to not having to "listen" for vinyl's anomolies. For me, CD verses vinyl is not an absolute dogma of one is "superior" to the other. I listen to and can easily enjoy both. However, there is a definite difference of experience between both formats.
Great to see you again welcome back. I actually had one of these, they were very very expensive and got great reviews at the time and were completely out of reach to a young apprentice and hifi nut .
BUT...BUT Boots the Chemist started selling end of line models of hifi and camera gear. I was wandering through my Local Boots and spied one of these 650s for the special price of I think £79.89 instead of £279 they had been, so I snapped one up.
It served me well for a couple of years, and its "cough " sonic qualities matched my ill matched budget gear beautifully LOL . So I was a happy chappy. As my wages and kit improved my enjoyment of its now slightly tiring soundscape waned but then i picked up a secondhand Audio Alchemy DAC so I fed the digital out through that and used the 650 as a transport for some years again..
So thanks for this video it was a warm trip down 80s HIFI memory lane.
I have an early 90s technics cd player, it has issues playing very low bass at the appropriate level. I suspect it's just old electronics in the output stage. My 10 years newer Yamaha player has no issues with that. The yamaha also has an adjustable output level, so I matched it's volume with my tapedeck and tuner. Can't match with the turntable as the volume of the pressings is all over the place.
old electronics, capacitors specifically will affect most equipment of this age
It might be that your amplifier has a low impedance input of say 10-20k. This will roll off the bass. Some CD players need to see 50k or more. Yamaha amplifiers generally have 22k so their CD players are designed for a lower impedance. My Rotel 1072 reacts the same way. Anything below 30k and the bass rolls off.
@@analoglooney I noticed it on the tape deck VU meters, and was running a Sony receiver at the time. but yes, about 30Hz and below rolls off
Hope you’re well Kelvin. Glad you’re back. I had this CD player….I remember it came with a load of stickers for your CDs to help with the programming. You just typed the cd program number and the machine played the tracks from the disc that you had selected previously.
Hello Kelvin!!! Back around 2016-2018 I bought pre-owned CD players and high-end cassette decks in fine condition for $25--$50 free shipping on Ebay. Since then prices have exploded such that very few bargains can be found anymore. I can't afford to take chances on vintage gear these days.
Hi! I live near a thrift where they can't get rid of tape decks and CD players fast enough. They are normally under $15 bucks. What 80's/90's CD players do you recommend? I
see SACD players
too. Any thoughts on those?
Yes, that was a golden period. You never realise it at the time, or at least I didn’t. I did pick up quite a few good deals then .
I remember thinking this Amp is like a Rolls-Royce to me, and they think it’s like an old banger that no one wants
Hi Kelvin, great to see you back in the hot seat. I've missed your great down to earth reviews, feels like I'm chatting to you in my front room. Yes I agree with you on past cd players, they doo sound hard, brash and uninvolved. Thanks for this, please come back again.
More to come!
Very glad to see you back!
Thank you sir
Nice to see you again and talking great of the first CD era, yes! i remember it was felt like something coming from the future at the times, very difficult to find music well mastered on CD nowadays but this is totally another story. Keep going on Kelvin
Really glad to see you back Kelvin. You have been missed.
I missed it too it’s good fun
Love this Video. Great to see you back on YT. All the best my friend.
2 long years, really missed you and a bit worried
Good to see you back Kelvin. I have a 650 I got back in 2019 and it does look fantastic and with a bit of tinkering it sound great as well, mine now runs NOS from the Td1541 and I've upgraded the op amps
Kelvin, welcome back! I own a couple of Marantz CD73's which are a little older than your Philips player. I have restored one and the sound quality is seriously impressive. "Warm" is probably a good description of the sound. It has limited functionality but it's the music that counts. Sony/Philips/Marantz first players were all pretty darn good machines. Probably should note that Marantz was owned by Philips at the time and they appeared to be Philips defacto premium brand for a while. You are spot on when describing the mid range quality of these early players although the CD73 has no shortage of bass.
Personally, I prefer the 14-bit TDA 1540 converter. I have a Grundig CD 7550 with this converter and it is brilliant. Sounds like a record player. Regards, Kevin. Nice to see you again.
Agreed! I have a 1984 Revox CD225 with the twin 1540s - it sounds awesome, so analogue
Great to see you back. I was in Audio Gold the other day. What a place.
I really like the sound quality of my phillips cd players .
Good to see this old machines alive and working. Mine is a Sony CDP 750 with the same DAC from 1988, only serviced once for a change of the laser lens. Still a main part of my music listening set !!
DAC technology improved a lot in the earlier days. The 1-bit (bitstream) DAC that became popular in the 90s was a significant improvement for CD audio.
So good to see you back!
Great to see you back again. I remember my first CDs, Tom Waits and Springsteen albums that sounded simply dreadful to my ears. It was quite some years before a Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista DAC persuaded me to listen to them again.
6:55 'Which I guess is this circuit board here, which I kind of gives it a more analoguey sound ... "
Your'e one of a kind, Kelvin. So good to hear from you!
I do have O level physics
Great to see you back. Looking forward to more content. Hope you are well,Kelvin.
Yes all good more to come thanks K
The HiFi Master is back 😎
Who where
I still have a Philips CD 880 , still sounds good to me although the drawer can be a bit "sticky " to open.
Great to see you again Kelvin! I'm in Stereo for 45 years now. The old Philips players with the TDA 1541 can sound superb and much more analogous, driving, colorful, airy and beautiful than most of the modern players. But you have to recap them!!! Then you will be totally surprised how good these things can sound. One of the best players I ever listened to (and own) is the Philips CD 880, also with the TDA 1541 and I guess I listened to more than 300 different players in the last 40 years.
I also found out that a lot of CD players need a time for warming up. Especially the TDA 1541 and the 1543 players often need more than 30 minutes to sound perfect. Then they loose a bit of harshness and midrange overstatement. You can read about that in different Dutch and German HiFi forums.
Keep on doing what you do here Kelvin!
Thanks for your experience input
Hello Kelvin, Nice to see you again! Always enjoy your reviews and remember most of the gear you review. Love the vintage stuff! Thank you!
Remember my mom's gift for my 16 birthday. A simple Sony CD player with a Dire Straits CD back in the 80s. Tx Mom
2 years ago I had a listen to this very CD650. Couldn't really tell it sounded any better than a modern-day DAC, at that time the Ares II.
So... sold the CD650.
After all the hype in the build up to CD's introduction I was really relieved to discover that the ones that I heard in the early days, sounded pretty terrible. So, luckily, I never sold my vinyl. Of course I have digital sources now, but I can never lose myself in music in the way I can with a good vinyl LP.
I have to agree, warm sounding is fine and while you can hear a lot of details , the high end detail can be lost in the warmth , so to speak.
So good to see you and hear your voice, Kevin! There is so many audio equipment you MUST tell us about!
Working on it!
Great to see you back. Are we going to get more than one video this year only joking hope to see more from you. Great video I can’t remember what model it was. But when CD players first came out, I brought myself a Phillips, CD player cost me £795 Back in the day, I think it was the first brand of electronics I ever brought after leaving school even though they’ve been out for a few years at that point
Welcome back was a bit worried.
About time! I’ve been relying on the repeats.
Interesting review, thanks. Not quite sure what you mean about the sound though. If you are using the digital out from this CD player, you are by definition using the DAC from the amplifier to which it is attached. And the DAC is what will give you much of the sound quality. Did you try it with RCA cables, so that you are using the internal Philips TDA1541 ? I have a 1984 Revox CD225 and it has twin TDA1540 DACs - and trust me, the bass this thing supplies is floor shaking if you want it to be. It gives such a deep, rich sound, but you need to be utilising the onboard DAC to get the proper effect. The sound from my Revox is every bit as good (albeit rather different) as from my turntable
I own a preloved 'universal' disc player that I digital out of to a DAC and the sound is great though I'm all in with streaming in the main (via vintage kit of course). I recently bought my daughter an all in one CD/ radio unit as she wanted to physically own stuff from her favourite bands. It seemed madness to buy a vinyl for her wall at current costs so I steered her to CD. She loves it and has raided my CD collection mostly accumulated in the 90's, which followed my vinyl phase and before my download phase. She also scours charity shops, no wonder the CD is coming back too
So glad to see you back Kelvin!
Glad to see your back, keep up the good honest review's
Thanks, will do!
Nice review, honest and to the point.
BTW-I enjoyed your Royd review and have been looking for one stateside ever since. Found a pair recently, 20 miles away from me, for $60.
You were right, a very special speaker
Glad it was helpful!
Hello my Friend
It does my hart good to see you upload a video again
You have the best channel on TH-cam
Ps I just got myself a Yamaha DSP A1 . Its an old av amp from 1998
It was 50£ and sounds amazing as a 2 channel stereo through a pair of Monitor Audio r352
You should review some early high end AV suround amps and receives they were amazing in there day and are Pennies now
Welcome back Kelvin !! -from Boston Ma US
When I think of Boston, I just think of Bill Burr who I highly rate
Cheers from london
Turns out DACs were pretty important.
Good point
Great to see you Kelvin! Have to agree about the CD player sound. I ended up going through about 5 cd players to find one that was decent sounding. Non of them really did. I use an R2R dac now. Also, I repair hifi and CD players generally have a maximum operating time on the laser - and can be expensive to source. DC Servo's fail even on good units and can be difficult to fix. I can recommend old Rotel and Sony units from mid 90's to mid 00's. They just keep going, and the Sonys sometimes have all the programming and jog dial features.
P.S... Anyone heard a Sugden A48 mk2? There's one for sale near me and I'm very tempted.
Oh the sudden is just a great Amp. I reviewed it really one of my top favourites doesn’t seem to be working anymore my one
If you Repair Amp S interesting thing about the Sugden is that inside there’s a din plug the separates I believe the pre-empower Amp. Just to let you know I think I have that right anyway
Good to see you! I have gotten into your videos lately, and was worried there will be no new ones coming.
More to come! Thanks K
Thanks for sharing your views on the Philips CD650. I bought mine back in '85 and it still working. Only the remote for it no longer works. I agree with your comment on the high end versus vinyl, but having lost some of my high end hearing, it's not an issue. Lol Anyways, I am probably going to do a complete recap on it, as this player is still one if the best ever made to this day.
Thanks for sharing
Philips cd 850 was the one to buy back in the day and also worked well as a transport only if you plugged in a dac like a deltec little bit ....welcome back
The CD960 was no slouch either, being the same machine as the Marantz cd94. Battleship build quality.
Hey Kelvin, great to see you back. I have a Sony CDP-XB920E. I'm not an expert like yourself but I still enjoy listening to CDs on it.
Hello from New Zealand. Kelvin great to see you again!
Hello
@@stereoreviewx Could you get your hands on a leak stereo 20 for a review?
Great to see you back on your channel Kelvin … it’s been too long , although I’ve enjoyed looking back through past episodes the last 12 months 👍
More to come!
Would be interested to see a review of the Sony with decent bass. Also your thoughts on Naim and Rega CD players.
I still use a RCD-855 CD player I bought new in 1989.
Bought mine in '86. Still works and for 22 years employed to real time burn the free CD's, some 800, from all the local libraries, via the Phillips' digital output into a Tascam CD recorder's digital input and use an Audio Note DAC Kit for playback.
Great to see you back kelvin.
You analyze these things so well ,tons of experience that most reviewers don't have.
I am roughly your age and remember this period of transition and agree to every bit you said.
Hope to see you reviewing old equipment and More.
Will do
All Philips cd players up to the CD 960 were as you described, the CD 960 is the player with the most analog sound I've heard (the CD 880 should have been even better, but it wasn't), I directly compared the Meridian G06 and the Naim CD5i with the CD 960, he beat them in all elements.
Interesting thanks
The CD 960 was a beast and built on the Marantz production lines in Japan. It was a Marantz CD94 in a Philips box. I still use my 960.
@@analoglooneyhave to correct you, cd 94 was philips in marantz box
@@damirhlobik6488No. Not quite. The loading mechanism was designed by Marantz not Philips. The 960 used the Marantz designed loading mechanism, so a Marantz in a Philips box seeing as the Philips was built on the Marantz production lines in Japan and mostly designed by them.
There he is! oy oy Kelvin nice to see you back
Great review. Agree with you on lack of raffinment on the top end. Had this machine on daily duties for around 15 years. But these machines can be upgraded to sound really highend. There have been important developments for highend cd players over the last two decades. The beauty is, these improvements can be retrofitted in older machines also when you are a skilled diy audiotechnician.
This cd player is worth it to do so, because it has very good bones.
Love this channel, all the best from the Netherlands.
Thanks fir your input my freind
I'm curious about your opinion on the California Labs CD player.
Great to see you again Kevin.
GREAT TO SEE YOU AGAIN , , that trip down to that used audio shop video was very nice as all the good shops like that are now shut down in my city ...., Picked up an old luxman lv 105 CD player that has tubes in it , coolest part is the bypass function , has rca pre in , can be used as stand alone in line tube buffer for a sreamer, tape deck ,etc , also has two rca outputs , one fixed the other variable , can go to directly to Amp , plays well with the older stuff , pairs best with my Mc 250, after the tubes have warmed up for ten minutes things change in a interesting way . A whoosh of big air , Yes.. Did that a/b thing back in the day with cds too , It was a high end tape deck in the end that showed me what I was missing with cds in the 90s .
Good to see you again Kelvin. Hope youre doin fine.
Anyway,like you i remember that time pretty well. CD-Audio around the mid-eighties
became suitable for the masses,because player prices fell steeply. The technology
trickeld down so to speak into the middle and even a bit later into the consumer class.
Personaly i got my first player in the late eighties. (Up to that time i was busy buying
records from the bins and 2nd hand markets. Truth being told it was vinyljunkie time
because you could get really rare and good stuff for literaly a buck or two....)
Well,back then we had a little circle of friends who were all musiclovers and hifi nuts.
But only one had a CD players at that time, a exellent sounding but already aging
Technics SL-P10.
We also had a bit of a connection to a very good hifi /high end shop back then. In fact as
we decided to finaly buy CD players we could choose from a bunch of loaned gear from
that store. A bunch of Phillips and Sony players up to 1k in price. After some listening
sessions the Sony players were choosen over the Phillips ones. Especially the larger
players from that model generation (CDP-950 and CDP-750) sounded very close to a
pretty decent turntable.
This is a helpful comment. I see loads of CD players coming in to my local thrift and was wondering which Sony's to look out for.
Kelvin- Can you reply to this? After watching your review of the Sansui 331 -881 series I have always been interested because of your enthusiasm for this series. I have a 2000x and a possibility of buying a 771 for $250. Are they different in sound to buy the 771 because as you said (it's really all about the sound") Thank you Kelvin and welcome back!!
Truly, I do not have experience of the 2000 x
But I’ll give you my best guess
The 2000 is older, and my guess is the 771 will be better
I’m gonna doubt there’s much in it .
If you find out,
To me, the 771 at $250 looks great. it’s a vintage classic and it sounds super
Kelvin Thank you for your reply. -I went ahead and purchased the 771 and when I receive it I will A/B it to the 2000x and will post my evaluation. By the way, out of all the Sansui products I have owned (at least 20) the 2000X has been one of my favorites. Really worth a listen. Will let you know in the next 2 weeks. If its okay with you I will post here as well in the your 441- 881 video?
Really good to see you back top stuff
Hey, good to see u back, Mr.
Greetings from Spain!
Ola
@@stereoreviewx An H is missing ;-) Hola!
Hi Calvin, nice to see you back, I ve missed your videos! There is something true in your words on direct and fast comparison of sound. BR, Joe, Austria
Hello Kelvin, great to see you back!!! Great video, as always btw. Hope more to come.
More to come!