CD Player Modifications. Is it worth the ?

When you speak about the value of modifying Pioneer DVD's, you need to speak of those models that are worth modifying. I have a Pioneer 503C carousel, which while working quite well overall as a transport, has developed a number of frustrating mechanical problems over its short life, and would likely not be a good candidate for several hundred dollars worth of mods. I really only expect to get a year or two of service out of this unit and don't see it as a long term purchase. To its credit, it was inexpensive and does a decent job as both a DVD player and an audio transport. However, there are likely higher quality Pioneer units that would certainly provide better value when modified.

I have spoken to Stan Warren on a number of occassions and he believes in his work. You need to have a Pioneer or Onkyo DVD player with the Burr Brown 24/96 or higher DAC. I cannot believe he would downplay what he does. If Stan did say something similar to what Sean is relating, he may have been comparing his modded Pioneer against a $2500+ player. (He has said such to me, but did not feel they were much better). So you can spend $450 for a Pioneer DVD player modded by Stan or spend $2500+ for something better; it is your money.

I have both a Pioneer DV333 in one system and a MSB Link DAC modded by Stan in another. If was worth more than every penny.

"Mods" very much understates what Stan really does. He redesigns large portions of the original circuit, removing bugs and design oversights, and upgrades the parts quality of the most
important components. He can be reached at (541)344-3696

Dan Wright at www.modwright.com does similar work.

The following is a link of a comparison of Stan's DVD player and a Camelot Morganna player. There is also lots of comments on Stan at the Chicago Audio Society website archives of meetings, etc. A Stan modded MSB Link DAC is their reference player.

http://decware.com/forums/General/posts/2403.html

http://www.chicagoaudio.org/

With no offense to Dan Wright, i would not place his level of experience or knowledge anywhere near that of Stan Warren's. As most of you know, Stan has been working with audio for a couple of decades now as both a designer and "tweaker". Someone with knowledge of advanced circuitry, years of experience and a good head on their shoulders is a tough combo to beat. This is not to say that Dan's work is not good or appreciated though, as his long list of satisfied customers and public testimonials says quite a bit about how far he has come in such a short period of time. I do know that he is working with some very knowledgable people and doing his best to "pick their brains".

As to my comments, i did not mean to stir up a hornets nest. Since there was quite a bit of "controversy" regarding what i said, i did some further digging. I was able to find out that the DVD player in question was a Pioneer 434. This is not one of the newer models that was mentioned to me as having the "low grade" dac's in them. So far, three different people have listened to this specific player in three different systems in three different parts of the country.

The first guy thought that it was measurably better than his stock Pioneer Elite PD-65. It was appr equal to the PD-65 used as a transport and feeding an Art Dio tube Dac. It could not hang with his Sonic Frontiers transport / DAC combo though, but this is to be expected. That is, if price has anything to do with performance. The only thing that i can remember about his system is that he has both a Morrison ELAD preamp and an Audible Illusions Modulus 3A. Which one he was running, i'm not sure. I "think" that it would be his AI, as the Morrison had gone back to the factory for some updates / changes. Can't recall which amps he has, but speakers are large ribbons with multiple dynamic woofers.

When he had let it run for a couple of weeks and had become completely familiar with it, it went onto the next guys house, who is the actual owner of the unit. While i know that this sounds weird, the owner had it drop shipped to his buddies house first for him to break in. This also let user #1 see what he thought of it so that they could compare notes.

In the owners' system, he was comparing it to a stock Sony redbook player, of which i'm not sure of the model. It was not their top of the line "redbook" player and is a few years old. From what i can remember, i think that this player was somewhere around $800 - $1000 when brand new. His opinion was that he preferred the Sony within the confines of this system. I do know that he is using a modified tube preamp, a hybrid tube driver / SS amp feeding large e-stat's. At this point, he offered to send the DVD player to me to check out, but i declined. I had too much other stuff going on and didn't want to tie up his gear.

It left his house and went to the third party's house. He is using a Pioneer laser disc player with a highly modified tube preamp, highly modified hybrid tube driver / SS output amp. These two pieces have about $4500 - $5000 in modifications and upgrades done to them. I don't know what type of speakers he is running though but i do know that they are not "off the shelf" models of anything available. In this system, the owner thought that the laser disc absolutely smoked the modified DVD player. The actual owner of the modified DVD player ( tester #2 ) has since purchased an identical laser disc player to user #3 and is now waiting for its' arrival. Needless to say, he wants to do a shoot-out with the Sony, LD and DVD players to see which one really does work best with his system.

Keep in mind that these results are ALL subjective and based on personal opinions within those users systems. Based on the above info, you can see some commonality with the systems involved. All of them are making use of tubed preamps, so this might have something to do with the results and how the DVD player "loaded up". Personally, i am a believer that gear DOES change "personalities" when mated with different combo's. As such, this player may work best with passive, buffered or active SS preamps, i don't know. I may have him send the unit over here so that i can check it out. If that is the case, it would be feeding an SS preamp and SS amp, so i would get to find out first hand. If i do get the unit and people are interested, i can report back with my thoughts on the subject.

I hope that this has not pissed anyone off, as i was strictly commenting on the subject at hand and trying to relay as much "honest" information as i could. Obviously, different people have different tastes, different systems and different hearing. If everything worked the same for all people, we would not be having this conversation now nor visiting a site for used gear.... Sean
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I own a Stan Warren modified Pioneer CD/DVD 5 disc changer.
I have personaly taken the unit to 3 audio salons and at least 7 other audiophiles houses. It also has been the digital reference for 3 Chicago Audio Society Meetings.
Sean, your friend took Stan Warrens words out of context. When Stan said that the unit was soft in the bass, he was referrng to the new pioneer dvd players with the new (cheaper) dac. He doesn't recommend modifing the brand new units. Please get your facts straight if you are going to badmouth Stan Warren or something that you haven't even heard for yourself. You told a friend of mine that you know Rich & myself. We do not believe that we know you.
Rich and I have spent the last 3 years trying to find the best affordable digital products. We have listened to $100.00 cd players on up to $20,000 dac and transports. The Pioneer may not be the best unit that we have heard but it sure is one of the top 5. It has sounded better to us than units from Wadia, Theata, Electrocompaniet, Krell, Levinson, and Sony SACD units to name a few. A couple of months ago we brought it into an audio salon that sells Accuphase and put my Pioneer up against a $12,000 cd player with upsampling. 3 out of 4 audiophiles strongly felt that the Pioneer was the more accurate sounding player. The person that disagreed worked for the store.
The Pioneer definately ranks up their with some of the best digital available reguardless of price. The only reason that I am selling my pioneer is because the Stan Warren modified MSB/Aiwa combination is the best that we have ever heard reguardless of price. We obviosly have not heard every unit out there, but we have heard a substantial number.
The Pioneer is also very finicky for getting the best performance. It needs to be mass loaded. A 5 lb. bag of sand on top of the unit works best. We found the Pioneer to sound the best when you use Mapleshades Isoblocks sitting underneath a 2" thick solid maple wood block with Final's Durumas sitting between the maple wood and the Pioneer.

I'd like to add to my post above, that I also have the Stan modified Aiwa to go with my Stan MSB Link II. Greggstraley, you may want to note that I recently tried running it with the MSB P1000 power base and felt it took another step up in authority accross the whole frequency range.

Thanks for the note on the DVD player. I will try the sand bag with my DV333 in the other system. A sand bag worked well back when I owned the original Cambridge CD4.