Recap of dbx DX5 cd player

[Jim Pittsburgh]

I just wanted to give a shout out to Tom and Anders for their excellent work on recapping the dbx DX5 cd player.
The sound continues to improve and surprise  as it burns in... pretty cool listening to my old cds again without ear fatigue.... I never really liked the sound from my SL-P770 nor from the bluray players.

The short story is that I was the original owner of this unit but sold it about 15 years ago and it recently came back home lol  It sat for 10 years and last fall I was asked to sell it along with a bunch of my other old equipment by the interim owner lol. I tried selling it but for some reason no takers, thank goodness, so I started using it a little... I always really liked the "non cd" sound, and especially liked using the dbx DAR processor on analog discs.  Then it needed a belt and then started sounding "harsh" in the highs...the owner didn't want to invest in any repairs, so I took it to Tom.  He and Anders worked their usual magic, even putting in an Op Amp socket....

These were really highly acclaimed players back in the very late 80s. If you have not heard one... you should check it out. The three built in dbx processors are pretty cool.... especially the DAR ( dynamic restoration)and the ambiance circuit are great for stereo and on analog sourced CDs . (never used the compression circuit)   I think Tom has one on his shelf but I don't know if it was recapped.

Now I'm investigating replacing the JRC 4560D op amp.... which is another big learning curve!

[OldiesButGoodies]

I would echo the same. 

Anders and Tom worked on my Sunfire 400x5, removing the old Paccom electrolytics caps and recalibrating the amp afterwards.  The performance improvement was huge!!  Worth every penny. I was going to flip this amp (no surprise there, I am the Mexijew!), After this recap I am keeping it - it will probably become my main home theater amp.

Thanks you!

Pepe

 

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

Sorry I missed Jim's post back when he first put it up.   I got to hear his player and I will echo his thoughts that it sounds very nice indeed.   Even brass had a mellow, non fatiguing sound.   I'm sure the player will bring him many hours of enjoyment, it's a good one.

[Jim Pittsburgh]

Thanks to the op amp socket, yesterday
I was able to switch out the original 4560D
for a  4560DD. The DD is quieter and sounds
a bit faster, without changing the overall tone.

Pepe can confirm that the updated
dbx DX5 indeed sounds pretty darn good! And the
three dbx sound processors are just icing on the
cake..... Thanks again Tom and Anders

[OldiesButGoodies]

I dropped by Jim's house yesterday and listened to a few CDs.   It is not up to CD-80 standards IMO,  but it sounds great.  It would be nice to hear this player compared to the Onkyo 708 (or 706) and to the CD-80 in a bakeoff. 

I like the "Digital Audio Impact Recovery" DSP effect on this deck. 

OBG

[Jim Pittsburgh]

Rolled through a few more opamps in the DX5, both a OPA 2134 and a OPA 2604.... the 2604 was not an improvement in this application by any measure. However the 2134 worked exceptionally well and seemed to really take the unit up another step... very cool.   May try dual OPA627s next....  but pretty darn pleased right now! Both STAL and OBG  heard it this weekend with the OPA2134 and have given it their approval lol Funny part of the change out was that despite claims to the contrary, you could almost hear the caps stretching with the increased bandwidth....

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

I don't know what a cap stretching sounds like, but I will agree that is one fine sounding CD player.