Marantz CD12

[brenden]

Hooked up the  beautiful Marantz CD12/DA12  up and guess what ?

   It's still got it .  Sounds superb.   The very best of the tda1541a , and was  reminded why this player is considered a  legend  still today.

 

  Here is a photo  of two legends in my view .

    Stax CA-X  pro  and  Marantz CD 12   

 

               

[brenden]

And my super modified CD94 Mk2

   With very rare ( unobtainium ) copper foil PPS Audio  capacitors around the TDA1541A s1  single crown  chips  . This player will never be recreated .

[brenden]

And clock with all copper foils including Jupiters and Silmic 2 Super Gold caps 

[unclekanus]

The capacitors are PPS as in polyphenylene sulfide? What value are they Brendan?

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Steve M]

Hi Brenden,

 

The CD12 pairing looks very nice, a Ken Kessler HiFi News favourite. Does the modded CD94 sound as good ...just curious?

 

Cheers,

 

Steve.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Steve M

[georgehifi]

Ones got 2 x single crowns, the other got 1 X double crown

 

MARANTZ CD-94 Mk II

2 x TDA1541A-S1 (Single Crown)

CDM-1

MARANTZ CD-12	It's a Transport	CDM-1
MARANTZ DA-12	TDA1541A-S1 (Single / Double Crown)	It's a DAC

[brenden]

Hi Steve M and George .

  Georgehifi is perfectly correct regarding the chips used in these machines . I have owned and modified Marantz cd94 mk1 and mk2  machines since I bought my first new mk2  in  around 1990. 

  Only in the past year or so have I had the pleasure  of  owning  a CD12 /DA12 .

       My modified CD94 mk2 is in a different ball park to a stock one. and wasnt expecting  the CD12 to be any where near as good  to be honest .

     This particular  CD12  had issues from new , believe  it or not , so the previous  owners never really  heard what it is capable of . I was able to  rectify  those issues  and get it  up to  like new status  .

   Once fixed , it sounded glorious  and very close to my modded Cd94 mk2 .  To my surprise  the cd12 more than held its own in most areas    in some  areas even better . This really surprised me  having come so far with the modded machine . In some areas the modded machine  gets a slight nod . Dont ask me to pick a favourite. 

 

 

  So  its important  to  realise  the chips used are only one consideration  to the sound quality  of a particular  machine .

  The power supplies  are critical .  For example the CD 12  Supplies use a total of four massive toroidal  transformers   and totally separate power supplies  for each section. 

    The clocking arrangement  in the CD12 is also  superior using a dual clocking system  with 2 different frequencies .

   Then there are the decoupling  caps around the  tda1541 a .

  Almost every  commercial machine made used cheap polyester   caps around the tda1541 .These caps are critical to the sound quality of a CD player .The  DA12 uses custom made film foil  caps   which are vastly better than  usual .These are much larger and a lot more  expensive. There are lots of other refinements in the CD12 that are not cheap to incorporate  like extensive copper plated shielding  and  transformer outputs etc .

   The CD12 is the best stock player  I have heard  and currently   its a close call between  my pride and joy CD94 mk2   and the CD12 .

   

   

    

 

   

   

[brenden]

Hi Unclekanus .Yes these are polyphenylene sulphide .They are not metallised  but superior   ofc  copper foil . PPS is very close to the quality of polypropylene  but much thinner . Much better than mylar .

  They are also non inductive .  The leads are copper and not soldered  but either crimped by the foil or  spot welded in come way .

    They are not made any more unfortunately as they are the only copper foil  caps  small enough to fit around the dacs on the cd 94

    mk2    and even then it was tight .  

   These are 0.1uf   but there are a couple of rows that are  0.082 uf    which are close enough  as  I could not get any more  0.1uf 

       I did score a bunch of smaller sizes  from a guy in Japan ,ideal for digital boards lke the decoder board on the 94 .

   

Edited June 20, 2017 by brenden

[unclekanus]

Hi Brenden,

 

They sound like great caps for the job. And just a nice size also. I believe it's worth having the smaller value caps furthest away from the MSB pin on the dac chip. George would know about that for sure.

Did you try any of these little copper foils anywhere else in the digital section? Like on the digital input... .01uf or so?

[Steve M]

Brenden, thanks for the long explanation of the differences between your CD12 and modded CD94. As with all good hifi, the differences are subtle and the players are more similar than not.

 

Steve.

 

[brenden]

  Hi Unclekanus.  

                             You are correct  about the sizing  of the caps toward the msb 

   I did experiment  a bit  and did each row  separately  starting  with the msb .  The furthest from the msb affected more of the top end  . 

   The msb and the next couple seemed to affect the whole range and those in the middle seemed more sensitive to the mid range.

    These  middle ones are critical to get right as vocal warmth can be swayed depending on cap size and quality .

   So I found I could get away with smaller sizes on at least the two rows furthest from the msb  (most significant bit )

 

   These caps are fabulous on the decoder board .I did one at a time replacing the metallised mylar  and every one made a difference .

   Most striking was the blacker back grounds and reduction in hash .Yo dont even know its there until its gone .

   A nice copper film polystyrene  on the tda1541a    usually the 680pf  or 470 pf also works a treat .

[unclekanus]

Good to see some love still out there for the old Philips chip. It's definitely still my cup of tea.

I've gone up to 4.7uf on the msb, followed by a couple at 1uf and then down to .22/.1uf from there with great results.

The caps around the chip all play a part in the sound, that's for sure. The 15v supply pin decoupling cap especially.

Try a 22uf k73-16 there with the shortest leads you can manage.

 

[brenden]

Thanks Uncle .

        Its still a work in progress atm .  I have a huge array of  the best parts available but still keep an open mind . Will have a look at the k73

       I love the 1500v auricaps .I have Duelund vsf  on the outputs 

    Big size  Elna audios where I can fit them .

  All these changes together make for a  very large degree of musical satisfaction.  

 

   I also prefer  non oversampling .

   The trick is to build this around great gear to start with .

  The CDM1 transport  TDA1541A chips . So for me the best  start point   to do an all out mod  are the cd94 cd95 cd99 cd12 etc .

   If ever you want any small copper caps to try let me know. 

  I have more parts than some shops lol .

      

[TNETENNBA]

 Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone is still on the topic of the CD-12 system.

Found an interesting bug in the DA-12 unit where marantz has actually implemented an error on the PJ16 board. This is the board that has the electrical I/O's. Relating to the three digital coax inputs, SYSTEM 1 & 2 and TAPE IN, there's a transistor circuit configured in differential pairs which serves to bring the SPDIF coax levels (approx. 0.5Vo-p) to HC (TTL) logic levels before interfacing the 74HC153 selector IC. With reference to SYSTEM 1 coax input the schematic diagram in the service manual shows that the input (pin12) of the 74HC153 is connected to the node of Q312 collector and the cathode of D314. The two transistors configured in a differential pair have their emitters tied to -12V (erroneously drawn as ground ) via a 2k7 resistor and the base of Q312 ties to ground. This actually results in a voltage level of -0.5 to 4.5v going to the input of 74HC153. The 4.5 volts is fine but -0.5 volts on the input low side of things is entering the Absolute maximum rating of the HC series logic. Any voltage below -0.5v will start the input clamping current to flow from the IC's input pin. Now in this case it's still quite safe in this circuit as the current is limited by the emitter resistor R313 (2k7) and would never exceed the maximum specified rating of 20mA.

The main point observed here is that if they connected the input (pin 12) of 74HC153 to the Anode of D314 instead (of the Cathode), they would have achieved the correct and desirable input voltage range of approx. 0 - 5 Volts and not hitting the -0.5V threshold. This is the case for all three coax digital inputs in the DA-12 unit.
I really wonder if the latter is what they really meant achieve. To me it seem to be the case, and it is a circuit implementation stuff up. I really can't figure out any good reason for that circuit to be wired up that way.
Anyway, I did a simple mod to my unit to correct the voltage range as above and checked the trace on the scope to see the voltage swing to be between 0.15v input LOW and 4.85v input HIGH avoiding the -ve threshold.

Anyway, I wonder if anyone can follow my tech rant maybe it's too much information?

Just thought I'd share this with the marantz CD/DA-12 Philips LHH1000 community out there. The mod is quite simple, if anyone is interested.

Kind regards,
TN

Edited November 20, 2021 by TNETENNBA
clarification, spelling

[Be Quiet...Listen]

On 20/11/2021 at 11:14 PM, TNETENNBA said:

 Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone is still on the topic of the CD-12 system.

Found an interesting bug in the DA-12 unit where marantz has actually implemented an error on the PJ16 board. This is the board that has the electrical I/O's. Relating to the three digital coax inputs, SYSTEM 1 & 2 and TAPE IN, there's a transistor circuit configured in differential pairs which serves to bring the SPDIF coax levels (approx. 0.5Vo-p) to HC (TTL) logic levels before interfacing the 74HC153 selector IC. With reference to SYSTEM 1 coax input the schematic diagram in the service manual shows that the input (pin12) of the 74HC153 is connected to the node of Q312 collector and the cathode of D314. The two transistors configured in a differential pair have their emitters tied to -12V (erroneously drawn as ground ) via a 2k7 resistor and the base of Q312 ties to ground. This actually results in a voltage level of -0.5 to 4.5v going to the input of 74HC153. The 4.5 volts is fine but -0.5 volts on the input low side of things is entering the Absolute maximum rating of the HC series logic. Any voltage below -0.5v will start the input clamping current to flow from the IC's input pin. Now in this case it's still quite safe in this circuit as the current is limited by the emitter resistor R313 (2k7) and would never exceed the maximum specified rating of 20mA.

The main point observed here is that if they connected the input (pin 12) of 74HC153 to the Anode of D314 instead (of the Cathode), they would have achieved the correct and desirable input voltage range of approx. 0 - 5 Volts and not hitting the -0.5V threshold. This is the case for all three coax digital inputs in the DA-12 unit.
I really wonder if the latter is what they really meant achieve. To me it seem to be the case, and it is a circuit implementation stuff up. I really can't figure out any good reason for that circuit to be wired up that way.
Anyway, I did a simple mod to my unit to correct the voltage range as above and checked the trace on the scope to see the voltage swing to be between 0.15v input LOW and 4.85v input HIGH avoiding the -ve threshold.

Anyway, I wonder if anyone can follow my tech rant maybe it's too much information?

Just thought I'd share this with the marantz CD/DA-12 Philips LHH1000 community out there. The mod is quite simple, if anyone is interested.

Kind regards,
TN

Ok, I'll bite. What sound difference does that make?

[TNETENNBA]

On 04/12/2021 at 4:54 PM, Be Quiet...Listen said:

Ok, I'll bite. What sound difference does that make?

 

Who knows? But it's correct now and satisfies my OCD!

[Be Quiet...Listen]

7 hours ago, TNETENNBA said:

 

Who knows? But it's correct now and satisfies my OCD!

So, you cannot provide any insight at all as to the sonic improvements of that mod/correction?

But very obviously expect people to commit to undertaking it on blind faith? 

[sir sanders zingmore]

32 minutes ago, Be Quiet...Listen said:

So, you cannot provide any insight at all as to the sonic improvements of that mod/correction?

But very obviously expect people to commit to undertaking it on blind faith? 

I’m sure you don’t mean it that way, but your post comes across as a tiny bit aggressive. 
I don’t read any expectation for anyone to perform these mods, and even if there were, no one is being forced to do anything they don’t want to. 

[Be Quiet...Listen]

34 minutes ago, sir sanders zingmore said:

I’m sure you don’t mean it that way, but your post comes across as a tiny bit aggressive. 
I don’t read any expectation for anyone to perform these mods, and even if there were, no one is being forced to do anything they don’t want to. 

Ok. I guess people can read tone into or out of text. It would not have come across that way in spoken word. 

[muon*]

I wants Marantz CD12/DA12

[georgehifi]

On 15/06/2017 at 10:14 PM, brenden said:

Hooked up the  beautiful Marantz CD12/DA12  up and guess what ?

   It's still got it .  Sounds superb.  

 

Of course, it's TDA1541 R2R Multibit, ok it's just a touch lower rez than today's Discrete R2R mulitbit dacs can get, but it's still got the "real" dynamic swing and big rich mids to the music's sound, that Delta Sigma dacs just can't match. Especially when playing "non compressed" original issue cd format music (issues pre 2000). Not "compressed" re-issue after 2000 that are streamed/downloaded to you. 

 

Cheers George  

Edited July 25, 2022 by georgehifi

[Be Quiet...Listen]

8 hours ago, muon* said:

I wants Marantz CD12/DA12

They’re a great thing. 
If you can find one, grab it! 

[muon*]

Just now, Be Quiet...Listen said:

They’re a great thing. 
If you can find one, grab it! 

Out of my budget even if I spot a pair, but I can dream

 

Very happy with my modded CD60 with S1 single crown running nos, I have been very surprised at how much performance these chips have if given a chance (heaps of detail, dynamics and all with a very natural tone).

[Be Quiet...Listen]

Just now, muon* said:

Out of my budget even if I spot a pair, but I can dream

 

Very happy with my modded CD60 with S1 single crown running nos, I have been very surprised at how much performance these chips have if given a chance (heaps of detail, dynamics and all with a very natural tone).

Agreed. There’s something about those Philips 1541’s

[Southerly]

Uncle kanus,

never seen anyone use the superb Russian K73-16 caps in a CDP before. Apart from the absolute transparency of these caps is their small size. I have the modest but superb sounding CD6007. I'm sure that some work on the PSU and selected signal path resistor and cap changes - Z foil smd and K73-16 caps will remove the slight haze to the otherwise excellent sound.

 

In a friend's loft back in the UK I have a Marantz CD63 untouched. Maybe I will visit the UK next year and bring it back to France with me, not sure whether to sell it or check it out and see what mods are rec.