transport for derek shek nos-dac

I have a Derek Shek nos-dac, still very happy with it, but my Rotel CD play I've used as a transport has started to pack in - well the CD drawer is anyway. I think the teeth on the cogs that move it in and out have worn out and sometimes I have to lever the drawer out with a knife!

Can anyone recommend a good transport?

 

Also, my DAC is the old white version with the LED inside (LED no longer lights up). Is the black one a big improvement?

 

I use a Meridian 500 with mine, which cost £400 s/h. There certainly was an improvement when compared to using my Pioneer DVD player, though the level of it was not great from a cost/benefits point of view. I don't think that I could justify spending a huge amount more on one.
One interesting point to add, the Meridian allows exchange of power cables. I found that changing the stock unit to a WM sourced cable (NOT cheap, but IMO well worth it), that the improvement was bigger than the change to the dedicated transport.

Other transports worth considering are Teac VRDS units.

 

Id get another Rotel, Marantz, Philips that uses a CDM4/19 like your current Rotel probably does. Thats the cheapest option. (actually you can get replacement cog but they are almost as expensive as a whole 2nd hand unit) If you want to spend more then something a bit more solid like a Teac VRDS re-clocked.

 

it will take a very good transport....ie £1k There are a number of differences in sound between the two ..and a great many things you can do to squeeze a little more from either unit..[without great expence] I found the transparent one a little more laid back than the black one, but for the cost both are good value if you like the flavour of the sound. They are never going to be dac64 etc but they will rive a lot of stuff a run for there money ..which for me is a good thing.

 

i feed my transparent nos with signal from a pioneer PDS904 (ref other posts both heve been tweaked by Zanash) to good effect. I'm told the pioneer stable platter transport is highly regarded and its certainly givving up more following the tweaks.

IMO its worth looking out for a Pioneer - never had an issue with mine.

Dunno what your current cabling is but i'd also recomend you consider a Zanash supplied CDP - NOC i/c - for me it was the most significant 'upgrade' in all the changes that were made (digital and analogue i/c's changed to Zanash's silver stuff, CDP and NOS tweaked with Schottky's and Wimas / internal wiring now silver, casework damping etc.......etc!)

 

I have a silver digital cable actually, in fact I got it from someone on here I think. It has silver bullet plugs. Made a difference to sound - a bit more focused I think.

 

Remworking the dac helps also changing the PLL values and using quality parts make a slight difference.
Building a top quality psu for the nos pays dividends too, I believe Zanash has knocked up a pretty fair one, documented on here also.

 

Damn thing keeps frying the LC Audio reg boards or I should say the LCAudio reg boards keep frying themselves...number four is about to go back. All the curcuit and layout has been checked by LC Audio It appears that different parts of the super reg have failed on each one. The last one the opamp blew sending a jet of hot gas into a cap searing off the plastic coating. The first that went fried its positve mosfet and the unit it was attached to full 30vdc into a 5vdc device ..and I wondered what the funny smell was!.

I've decided to build a standard type psu with plenty of filtering before and after the regs...see how I get on. At leastits going to be reliable!

 

Pete,

Our regs can handle 2 amps constant, I use a minimum of 40kuf on a nos dac

 

I've A/B'ed the black one vs. the older one and would say so, yes, tighter bottom and better detail. Neither of them were mine so I wasn't biased, honest.

Jon

 

Yes that sound similar!
WM....
Off the top of your head what current does the NOS draw

I wonder if thats the problem........Though I'd find it hard to believe the nos is drawing more than the LC boards can supply.

 

I always build a psu thats way OTT,IMO the only way to really get some performance from the unit, as even in fairly hot spec (and stock psu which is usually 15v, 1 amp) pretty average at best can't understand why people really rave about this.
What voltage are you suppling to the Dac Pete?

 

the nos III[black] was 14.5 vdc as suggested by the maker.

I agree totally ..but the unit was built for someone else. I always go OTT [especially with trany ratings]. LC audio seem to be using the reg board to drive much higher loads. In one email they suggested a small secondary voltage torroidal ..but the board died before implimentation

 

TDA1543 takes about 50mA, its input voltage should be no higher than 8v
What else is on that NOS dac board? CS8412/8414, reclocker etc?

 

I have a few spare CDM4 drawers, if you want one.

Just PM me with your address, and I will send you one.

 

Yep thats what I thought....cs81412 reclocker trent[?] not a lot more. I'm thinking that there's aweakness in the board design..as three units have had different failure modes. thats not to say the unit is bad ..they sound sublime whilst they work !

 

Is there any links or resistors on the board you could remove and feed say the dac chip direct by that LC audio reg? you'd obviously need to lower its output voltage if theres no other reg before the dac chip.
Don't suppose theres any Oscon caps etc that the LC regs doesn't like, I know ALW's SR's don't like low ESR caps on the output but I wouldn't imagine it would fry the things
Is there a website with any details for this dac?

 

Interesting all the units I've seen come with a stock so called 10v psu thats actually gives 15v & 500 ma LOL!!!!

 

yep, well, pictures at least - www.sigtone.net

Jon