HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

I bought the little Sony CDP-S1 from 29mile a few weeks back now and I have to say that I find it blander than a bland thing, and no, I'm not confusing bland with neutral, I mean bland. I don't know what Richard heard from this thing but I'm certainly not getting it.

Can't really comment as i have only heard mine through my PA system. Doesn't sound bland through that but then not much does.

So you don't think it has any get up and go ? Lacks impact / dynamics ?

All of the above. It's only saving grace is it's fast access and nice ergonomics.

I suspect Doc liked it for the timing it possesses. He valued that above everything else.

I would usually put bland down to too much impedance in the power supply / regulators. Or maybe it is the anolgue output stage. But who knows without modding the bollox off it.

Have you tried it as a transport with a different dac ?

No I haven't. To be honest I'm really not that bothered as it's only ever used as background music. Even when I still had my Tube Technology Fusion, which is a cracking player, it hardly got used. I bought it mainly out of interest and also because of the painfully slow access time of my Pioneer universal player.

Fair enough. Yes it loads up fast and skipping tracks is instant.

Under the hood of a Sony CDP-S1 . It's all very tidy (for now ).



A nice little EI frame transformer That socket in the left of the pic is to daisy chain 240 V to the other components in the stack. Not required now.



The psu has individual rectifier diodes and some smallish red smoothing caps (4,700 uf & 2x 1,000 uf). You can see the shiny silver oscillator that supplies the clock (45.158 MHz if you are interested).



The transport is a Sony KSS 240A. Nothing fancy but there will be loads of these around if a replacement is ever needed.



The Dac chip is on the underside of the board. See my bandaged thumb in close up



The Dac chips (there are two i think) are a Sony Pulse dacCXD2562Q and CXD2567M. A bit of a funny going on this one. I get the
impression the first DAC gives voltage out, the current pulse DAC converts this to current out which is then converted back to voltage in the ususal I/V converter.

The CDP-S1 is imo no match for my modified Naim CD3.5 in every subjective parameter i could think of. Just as well otherwise i would now be throwing it all in the skip. This was the first time i had put it in my main system. By no means did the Sony embarrass itself, i could happily live with it's presentation.

No three legged voltage reg's to be seen. Some further investigation required and circuit tracing required. Some more psu's (and bigger) would be the order of the day i think. A new clock with dedicated psu i hear you shout. Oh yes please.

Tell a lie. I have found a TA7807s regulator (had to look it up) - 7 volt output. Does everything get fed by this single regulator? If so then this player is a bodger's wet dream

Apparently none of the pics are showing. Sorry about that