New journey - Samsung HD841 Universal Player


Hello.

Based on a recent thread here on Audiogon, regarding a Toshiba 4960 Universal modded by Reference Audio Modifcations (total outlay - $700!) equalling an $11K Linn Unidisk, I have been wanting to purchase the electronically identical Samsung HD841, which I find far superior cosmetically. Sean's announcement of the Samsung HD841 Universal player being offered up as a closeout at Best Buy for $99 drove me to pick up the machine.

Just wanted to put forth my initial impressions of a fun Saturday night spent with the Samsung HD841. In time, I will send it out to someone to mod, and my intention is for this thread to document my journey with the player over time.

I went back to my AtmaSphere M60 monoblocks for this ride, although I had to insert my line level attenuators that I don't normally use as my Granite 657 (a SUPERB audiophile CD player which has at least equalled what I consider the best I have heard) has a variable out. I used two different speakers through the evening, Frieds and Cabasse. Cabling was all Coincident.

First a word on DVD players in general, as a big reason I had zero interest in DVD-A was the requirement of using a video monitor for setup. While I did use this after playing some music, I quickly learned if you can remember a few button sequences, all of the audio functionality I need for the most part can be thankfully done without a TV.

The player weighs a paltry 4.4 pounds so I read, and obviously in carrying it around, it is no heavyweight. Fit and finish is better than a lot of audiophile players I have come across. As is also the case of the remote. While the remote is overly complex for audiophile needs, considering its target audience is for HT and HDTV, I cannot criticize it one nit. Why can't we get as decent a remote when we shell out $4000 on a CD player??? I love the cosmetics of the player, and feel it reminiscent of the Music Hall MMF25 and Jolida J100 players. I will also pay the complement of disc initialization, particularly on SACD, impressed the heck out of me.

Through the night, the player performed mostly without any concern. Though, at one point, I did press some button which illicited some distortion that I feared was a bad tube, but pausing and restarting the player immediately corrected this. Keep in mind that my sonic impressions are of a player during its first three hours of life, and the true nature of this component will not be known until it gets 300 hours under it. I had the player running on repeat all night long, and will do so for probably two weeks. Hopefully, I will get another listening session in this evening. I absolutely cannot wait to hear it again!

Out of the box, the player sounded DEAD. But, I have become more or less accustomed to this with new equipment, and even new tubes. That it was stone cold probably added to this as well, as things were better even after the third song. One of Dan D'Agostino's pieces of sage wisdom is that a CD player doesn't sound its best until it has been on for two days. I more or less concur, and feel they should be left on always.

Let me get to my real complaint about the player first, just to get it out of the way. As I expected of a mass market player without the kind of overbuilt power supply of a serious audiophile CD player, the lower frequencies were not what I consider acceptable. As the night wore on, this got better, and in light of the overall performance of the player, I could probably grit my teeth and bear it. I am thinking that one of the areas a good modder does is correct this situation in a definitive way. Following in this vein, sonic heft was not much in evidence, and if you are someone who really feels this is a major reason you listen to vinyl as opposed to CD, you were not going to have your prayers answered by this player last night. For my own tastes, I kind of hope that the sound fleshes out more during break in, even without any modding.

In comparison to my Granite, obviously, the bass, weight, heft, harmonic richness, and being able to convey the emotion of the music, the Samsung did not take home the prize. I don't care that the Samsung is an order of magnitude less expensive, I had the ability of spending more to get a serious CD player so care only about the result in terms of absolutes. I am judging the Samsung against a very difficult foe to be sure, but that's my unit of measure.

That's about all I can say in terms of negative. To have these feelings regarding a component I paid $99 for is beyond astounding. Let me get this out of the way in short order - please don't shoot the messenger, become angry, or get your bowels in an uproar...

Factoring out the bass extension, impact, and fullness, unless you own a serious (and I mean serious) machine, your CD player is more than likely no better than this little Samsung! What's more disconcerting is that to my ears, most of the Arcams, Cambridges, Regas, Rotels, and Sonys have already been eclipsed. As time passes, don't be surprised if I expand this list.

It's speed was lightning quick. I am not sure I have heard better. I didn't hear any grain, glare, or spit, though the player is definitely in the engaging and lively camp, so it could potentially sound bright in some systems. Complex passages in music didn't faze it one iota. It was definitely a Fred Astaire. The player was dead quiet with or without music playing, and I beleive its low distortion level was of note. Mostly, I heard detail and clarity and a whole lot of speed, though I think it needs to extend at both frequency extremes, which I think break in will mostly, if not fully, address in terms of the treble. It more or less got the midrange right, though I hope for more richness with time, and that, is a true accomplishment. To nail tonality is an impressive feat for me, as I cannot get far past components that just sound wrong to me (sadly, there are more of these than we'd expect). As I have heard on many counts regarding some of the sleeper CD players, this Samsung was not embarrassed by most of what could be thrown its way by more expensive machines.

For fun, I tried the SACD of Sonny Rollins "Way Out West". THIS was reason alone to buy the HD841! The low fequencies of SACD just walk away from CD. Despite my protesting above, I was quite impressed on this disc. From the upright bass, I was able to hear both the instrument's string and body resonances, and I have not had the pleasure of that in the past. In this arena, playing this disc, the sound was superior to my Granite, which can only play the CD layer, in several ways. What I hope will come in time is a bit more blattiness and bite of Sonny's sax.

My wife had me throw in a DVD to see if it worked, and it did so flawlessly. The ability to throw whatever kind of disc I have in my hands and have it sound or look good is something that I feel many of us have longed for since the high resolution formats were introduced. I now have that flexibility, and hopefully, after the mods are performed, first rate sonics for the long term as well.

I spent most of the time wondering how foolish we actually look in the high end. I know people who own nothing in their sytem that costs anywhere near as low as the $99 I paid for this player. Visions of the $11K Linn Unidisk equalled by this player's genotypic twin, the Toshiba 4960, ran through my mind. I wondered if a new day had dawned, making the purchase of an expensive audiphile player passe.
trelja
Agreed with the variance theory. If one reads the posts on the digital board on Audio Asylum, for example many people had to go through several "toshibas" before finding one that sounded decent. There does appear to be some variance is sound quality from unit to unit. Maybe the old saying of avoiding shirts made on Mondays and Fridays? hehe. :-)
I want to first thank everyone in the participation of this thread!

Barring me returning it to Best Buy, which would only be a result of the unit not functioning correctly, this will obviously be a long term thread. Something I will revisit at various junctures, to share my experiences, good and bad, with the player.

Despite what Sean thinks of us having very different experiences, as I read into his words, I find a great deal of similarity in our sonic experiences. One also needs to understand that our systems, at this point, are markedly different. But, yesterday, after a night of repeat (I am running the player 24 hours a day on repeat, and listening when I can), using a retrospective SACD of Sam Cooke, I heard basically all of what Sean described. Note, I played this knowing that the disc is quite thin sounding and harsh in many areas. I ended up reducing the volume, which, if anyone knows me, is something I am not very prone at all to. To be honest, it was relentless. Even to the point where I was happy to listen from other rooms, as I cleaned the house. Again, basically everything that Sean pointed out was coming through loud and clear. The highs were way out front, the bass as described before was not acceptable, and the vocals were shouty and harsh.

I should mention that I was running the Cabasse speakers, homemade jobs, in the size of the Harbeths. Unusual for today, as they are not full sized floor standers, nor minimonitors. As such, while they do a lot right, they neither image like a mini nor have the lows of a bigger speaker. They are quite sensitive and engaging, however, though with the Atmas can be bright if I am not careful. The Frieds are much warmer and more forgiving, along with having surprisingly musical and deep Line Tunnel bass. In this situation, the Frieds would have sounded better I am sure.

Sean also has the benefit of hearing a lot of other players put into the "giant killer" category. Therefore, his opinions, along with others who have tried the Panasonics and the Aiwa, are most appropriate. Unfortunately, for this thread, I do not. I also value Ric Schultz's (at EVS) opinion, and his assertions weighed heavily into my decision to purchase this player as a mule to test how well these modded players actually performed.

As my family arrived for our Easter celebration, the player continued on repeat...

Later, in the evening, I tried again. Sam Cooke was much better sounding at this point. I am not sure if it's break - in, or the normal "system sounds better at night thing". But, for whatever reason, the additional nine hours smoothed things out considerably, making things actually listenable. Bass was stepped up from where it was, though still in need of some serious help.

As I progressed through other music - Sonny Rollins, Dar Williams, John Prine, and finally, Beth Orton, I continued to hear better and better things. Part of it was going in the direction of choosing music that did well, although my intent was to pick stuff that would show the player in the worst light. I must also mention that the Atmas warming up over the evening should not be ruled out of the equation. Surpisingly, Beth Orton's "Central Reservation", which I ended the night with, was beautiful. Expansive, open, luscious.

What I mostly had issue with in the evening was the treble, detail, and overall jump factor in the uppper midrange on up. There was a lot more there than I was getting to hear, and I knew it. Obviously, the bass didn't miraculously appear, but I've already touched on that. The Frieds would have helped, as will probably the mods when I get to it. I can say that after the morning listen, followed by reading Sean's post, I was a bit down on the sonics, but the evening session swung me back in the positive direction without question.

Ergonomically, the player doesn't respond well to using the remote for SACD. A lot of the functionality must be gotten through the video monitor, which more than defeats the point of SACD. I expected this from DVD-A (which I haven't tried), but to get it from SACD is frustrating, as it was supposed to be an AUDIO format. With my unit, I cannot skip forward or backward through a song, nor can I call up a song via its number on the keypad. In order to go to song 7, I either need to use the menu on the video screen, or keep moving to the next or last song until I find it. Not very good in my mind. And, I did have the distortion thing rear its head again. It happened as I skipped forward in a song. It has to be corrected by pausing, and restarting.

One thing I have been doing is performing break - in with both CDs and SACDs. I am sure, unlike my Sony SDC-C333ES, the player has but one laser for both, but I do wonder if each format breaks the player in differently. With that, I don't want to use a CD exclusively.

My intention is to probably mod the player in the later spring/early summer. Until then, I will give another serious sonic report card when the player is broken in. Apart from that, we can touch on whatever issues everyone brings forth in the thread.

Thank you all again!
Joe
Welcome to the club.

Here's a link to the 4960 mods thread over at www.AudioCircle.com

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=12613

There finally seems to be a group interested in this little player, now that the price went below $100. Do the mods I suggest, then you can rave about it some more. Then try the Superclock3 and you can put it into some serious competition.

Enjoy,
Bob
Bob: I checked the link at AudioCircle and just got done reading your initial assessments of the player as posted over at AA. I have to say that we seem to be in very close agreement on most everything in terms of sonic detail.

I do want to mention that i have had a highly modified DIO here and it did not impress me in the least. Quite honestly, a stock el-cheapo Pioneer universal player sounded better than the DIO did in every respect. As such, stating that this unit sounds surprisingly close to the DIO doesn't surprise me as i'm not currently impressed by either of them. Then again and as mentioned earlier, i'm thinking that i am the current owner of one of the mass produced "dogs" that Samsung / Toshiba shipped out.

Other than that, i was only able to make it through the first page of the thread that you linked to at Audiocircle, so i'll have to head back over there and dig further in. I still don't have much time on this unit and quite honestly, i don't know if this specific model that i have deserves much more of a chance. Then again, i have to wonder how much of the "poor sonic attributes" that i'm experiencing due to mass production would actually go away once i got into the internals and starting playing Dr Frankenstein with the various mods??? Would i come out with the same "beautiful creature" that you seem to be happy with or would i have a dressed up pig??? Sean
>
Bob, thank you for the link! Though, like Sean, I didn't get through it all, it will make for very interesting reading.