To mod or not to mod a Sony SCD1

Case in point of modding economics. You buy a a "build like a tank" $1500 SCD-1 and do $3000 worth of mods. Your $4500 modded player now has a resale value of $2500.

Alternatively, you can buy a used "build like a tank" Emm labs CDSA se for $5000. In a fire sale, resale value is still $4500. Do the math.

Now, your modder will tell you the modded Sony with "trounce" the EMM labs player - this type of claims are not consistent with my experience. Even if the modded Sony is marginally better, I'd rather have a $500 writeoff on my balance sheet than $2000.

Aplhifi Which Bur -Brown Dacs are in the Sony?
And how many Dacs are in the Sony?
I tried to Google this and could not locate an answer.
Thanks Gary

There's only one Dac in the Sony, a PCM 1796.

Mystang,

Aplhifi Which Bur -Brown Dacs are in the Sony?

The service manual lists DSD1796 which is the same as PCM1796.

In my previous post I've mistaken the 5400 with a DVD player. So here is a correction:

The 5400 is not even Panasonic; it is built around a single MediaTek chip (Sony re-labeled) that is found in every $100-200 DVD player (Pioneer, Sony, Oppo, etc.) It is a single-chip-DVD-player processor with HDMI output. The video capabilities are unused in the 5400 but they have PCM and DSD on the HDMI connector. Apart from the fact that this is the most cost-effective single-chip solution available (so the different internal stages interfere with each other), the entire processor runs from a single 27MHz clock reference (that has nothing to do with audio, BTW). Then, inside, there is an extremely jittery PLL to provide clocks for the audio.

Though Sony did a clever job clocking the DAC directly from the 22M audio reference, they are using programmable PLL (75pS jitter) to "convert" 22M to 27M for the MediaTek chip. This results in enormous jitter level coming with the audio data stream to the DAC.

Oh well, what can I say? Blows my mind reading "Sony 5400 the best under $10,000".

Best,
Alex Peychev

Aplhifi Thanks for the detailed description.
Gary