Silence Please!!!!

tone,
re-read my post with your double entendre hat on. ok it may be poor but it made me laugh and that's what's important damn-it.
cheers

julian

 

Everyone sort themselves out. A female connector excepts a male connector into its body, er hum.

so on the back of semi decent kit is a femal connector. The bit on the end of normal leads and indeed shiney coloured ones is male.

der.

Question is, why all this work on a teac? surely surgery would be bette rcarried out on something worthy?

 

Gary,

The Teac VRDS mechanism is one of the best if not the best mechanisms around so its worth a little TLC to get the best out of it.

 

If its so good why is it being messed with? Timpy said it was crap?

Whats going on.

 

the mechanism is only part of the package. His Teac transport I believe was not one of the most expensive in the range and used quite cheap power supplies, clocks and damping etc.

Now you know from your naim experience that the power supply is crucial and you know what lengths naim go to. Timpy was just beefing it up in this area as there should be loads of potential for this player.

 

Good question Garyi, the teac has some great qualities, body/presence/organic sound, that is pretty good, but not what you would call groovy mate, times well, but Timpy is almost earthy, ie dry and lean ala' Naim & linn, he likes his Speed (although this afternoon he admitted bounce was a key factor too ), so by modding the taec we have found the bits he's been missing and added to the bits he liked, nuch in the same way you guys do when going from a cdx plain to a cds2 and XPS, another way of getting something without having to swop boxes and keeping the essence of the sound you like
Modding isn't for every one, never will be, but good improvements can be made for little outlay, even on naim gear garyi. WM

 

im getting 1) confused and 2) concerened for peoples saftey,what type of conectors are we talking about here?
if its standard 3 pin euro conectors (kettle conector)

this is a socket,no argument,it is designed so the contacts can be live without risk of touching live parts (without the use of tools )so is perfectly safe to feed power INTO equipment

and this is a chassis mounted plug,there avaliable like the cable fitted version,conecting these so they have a permanet voltage on them (plug to plug lead for example) above 50v is not permited.if you have any more questions please ask,im using these conectors almost daily on theatre lighting.
now if you want to get confusing have a look at neutrik "powercons"

 

Les, the chassis sockets are available in 125/250v 10/15/20amp varients mate, no probs, been using them for oh a few years.
We use them for all sorts of applications from test rigs to manufacturing process control, to data loggers. WM

 

yea i know got a got selection of em at work,however they are designed as a mains outlets,not inlet.Regardless of the electrical rating the 50v applys if theres a chance of coming into direct contact with live parts without the use of tools,something thats very easy to do with a line plug

 

Hi garyi / Robbo

Good question garyi as WM said also, something that had crossed my mind. Was it worth the hassle / extra expense, and will it ever approach what I'm looking for? It's not rubbish in it's standard form, but it was crap for me out of the box because the thing just wasn't fast or bouncy enough. Lots of laudable hi-fi qualities and a rich organic quality, but it left me completely unmoved at best and at worst irritated. As you will know, despite my anti-Naim leanings, I have to admit they often have bounce and tend to groove in a way that, once you've heard these qualities almost completely robbed from the music, you realise are two very important ingredients. WM and I agree on this, although we differ in so far as I like a leaner, drier, faster sound; while he doesn't "do" dryness, and he likes more organic and textural, but with bounce (cohesiveness in timing) as well as fast (speed and impact). In other words he's a fussy blighter , even fussier than me. The reason he's fussy though is becuase he knows it can be done, he can demostrate it at home even, whereas my aspirations (and budget in money, time and enthusiasm) are lower.

However, the Teac uses a transport that in other applications can perform in the manner that I'm looking for, and so the finger of suspicion started to point at the supporting cast in the transport, the Power Supply, clock etc, and a quick look inside confirmed this. The transport is good, but the application in the VRDS-T1 is economically challenged. Nicely executed, but there were definate areas for improvement, even that we obviously knew about. Afterall WM's been there and done it with similar Wadias and the like, which have basically the same fundamental building blocks, or related ones.

So to answer your question, that's why we took the gamble, I was in two minds, but from previous collective experience, it was a calculated risk rather than just stuffing the bits in and hopeing.
It does just go to show though, that I do seem to have a fairly strong FE leaning overall, which is probably why I run Kabers and a Densen. But don't tell anyone.....

As to how it sounds, well we were listening to it tonight for a couple of hours, and even allowing for the fact that clocks and Never connects take 3 weeks to come on song fully usually (well they do in Wadias amongst others), it is a transformed beastie. It now does bounce, has a very focussed feel too and is retrieveing far more detail. There's more on every disk too, particularly in the bottom end, and it really bounces. It's quite fast, but the overall listening has gone from much worse then the previous Alpha 8 cdp tranny, to much better than that reference, which for this particular box was a revelation considering where it started. The 8 might have been a little faster (only have memory now to tell), but the Teac boogies, it's not just the speed of the main rhythym parts that seem important anymore, there are now more rhythym parts, made obvious in much the same way as a Nait 2 amp seems to do. They're not forced or edgy though, and the thing has real body, weight, impact, and colour to go with it, but also is now expressive and most importantly, interesting ......

Next stop? Well the bits cost a bit, and they're not an insignificant investment totting up their retail prices, so was it worth it. Well, even if it doesn't get any better than it is now after running in, then answer is definately yes.

Nothing else runs the TAG as well as this that we've ever tried, and even if the Teac's window of capabilites / prioritys only falls within 80-85% of the things I want out of a digial front end, it is just now so capable all round, i.e. better than anything else I've used at what I want, and even better at other things I hold less important, even though the bias seems a little skewed, it is still a fantastic result.

Would we have achieved as good a result, or maybe even a better one for my ears, starting with a player that had speed as a priority out of the box, and then tweaked that? Well I don't know. And to be fair, I don't think it's going to matter now either.

Cheers

 

garyi,

AFAIK the Teac VRDS transport mech. is one of the best, if not the best out there. Better than any Sony or Philips (used in most CDPs) for sure. It's well known to be used in all the Wadia transports and CDPs (except the 301) and I think it might also be used in Krell and Mark Levinson players.

So, the potential is there in the T1 to make a top class transport IMO. I certainly hope it's better than my aging modded Marantz!

timpy - all this tweaking has seriously improved the T1, but it begs the question of how the Arcam Alpha 8 might have responded to the same treatment allthough personally I reckon the T1 has more basic potential than most CDPs/transports.

Michael.

 

Well, the pics of the two chassis sockets you've shown look identical to the ones on the back of most of my hifi gear i.e. they are mains inlets. That's exactly the thing I'm going to stick on the back of my Teac instead of the captive lead.

Also, what you call a socket (your first pic) is clearly a plug, not a socket! Same for the thing you called a plug (the chassis mount thing) which is clearly a socket, not a plug

Michael.

 

Michael,

did you get the Teac yet?

 

Yes - picked it up yesterday. The seller was Steve Jeffries who works at Audio-T in High Wycombe....he mentioned that you are known to enter the shop on occasion

Won't have a chance to even listen to it, let alone mod. it until Sept. though - hols and everything

Michael.

 

Yes Michael, I know. We were talking about it last night when it suddenly clicked. Small world

Steve asked me what you were like. I said you were from Portugal. 'Nuff said

 

The clock 4, and 3 differenices, about 20% I reckon, the psu's although may look the same, are worlds apart. Never connected techonlogy is quite unique, and stunning
But I would reuse your DOB board and PSU for now, providing the Clock is 16.934, or as merlin says John may have a spare super clock one kicking about I'm sure WM

 

Michael, unfortunately the clock speeds between the two players are different. A mod (jumper change I think) will be required for the DOB for use in the Teac IIRC.

The Never Connected boards are very different and much better than the normal ones. A normal one would get you going and may be enough though. I personally think that the Never Connect bit is more important than the difference between the Clock3 and Clock 4, so I wouldn't worry about the board being based on the Clock 3. Ask Trichord about the re-use of the board in a 16.9MHz as opposed to the 11.x Mhz Marantz.

Cheers

 

The clock 3 I have is 11.xxxMhz (can't remember the last digits) so it's not the same but I could just solder in a 16.934 clock.

Still, I'm not going to be doing anything until Sept. anyway by which time I should be able to afford the Clock 4 and Never Connect

That way I'll be able to use my Marantz together with my old Alpha 6 amp in a second system in my home office...just need a pair of speakers

Michael.

 

realy? so every catolouge and supplier ive dealt with has it wrong then? have a look at http://custom1.farnell.com/cpc/prod...Test+-+IEC+-+Inlets-Outlets&product_id=257578 and http://custom1.farnell.com/cpc/prod...Test+-+IEC+-+Inlets-Outlets&product_id=257596

 

Fair enough - but that is extremely counter-intuitive

In everything I've ever dealt with plugs come on the ends of cables and sockets are in the wall or mounted on a device chassis. I imagine the very confusing application of the words plug and socket by the component suppliers relates to the fact that they think that a plug has pins and a socket has holes.

The same issue leads to the confusion over male/female in IEC connections because IEC connections (contrary to pretty much everything else) have holes in their plugs (so, is it male because it's a plug or female because it has holes??) and pins in their sockets (using my definition of plug and socket in that sentence ).

Michael.