Cost effective mods for a Sony SCD-777ES

Dave

Douglas Jesse (RAM east) performed the mods on my player. I did replace the RCA's with silver WBT's but that is about the extent of my modding capabilities. Douglas did replace the the caps on the power supply board but we stopped short of doing the voltage regulators as I was trying to minimize the cost. Obviously as you know the sky is the limit on where you can go with this player. The player sounds very good now and is the best digital I have ever heard.

The items you list sound interesting but I don't know if I could perform them myself.

Chuck

I agree - Tvad. Mine did not have as many Kern mods as the one on sale know. That is OK. There is no doubt in my mind that the transport is excellent. Playing with different DACs can become a new interesting aspect to get the sound right. A friend of mine has a Meridian 566 - 24 bit. Let me start there.

Tvad,

Of 30 odd mod/test cycles I've been through with the SCD-1, all but one or two changes were steps in a positive direction without any downside. The one or two mods I would consider "flavor" preferences-- i.e., mods that improve in one area while compromising in another, as you describe, usually in a trade-off between resolution & musicality-- were later corrected with improvements to power source. The experience of continuous improvement with a single player convinces me that absolute, not relative, comparisons are applicable when judging CDPs. Give me a player with high resolution, and mod it to add musicality. After the modding is done, one is finally up against the brick wall of the type of DAC or upsampler and the limitations of basic transport mechanism-- which doubtless together define the ultimate "flavor" of the machine. But there are so many compromises in most commercial players that short of SOTA, judging their quality based on type of DAC or upsampler is likely a red herring. This is why I'm inclined to restrict use of the "flavor" adjective to the best machines.

Dcaudio

Who did the cap and resistor work on your player.......or did you buy it that way? Also, hope the DAC works out for you.

Chuck