Picked this tank of a machine up for £20 ($30) used, it's a real beast physically, not the prettiest CD player ever but I like 80s/90s Japanese 'square' gear. Apparently it had been sitting around for 10 years or so and sounded ok out the box, but quite thin and 'toppy' compared to my similar-era Technics class-AA and Sony ES machines... I let it sit for most of the day powered on and the sound improved massively- open, detailed, full. Treble could be a bit much with bright components, but with my pretty neutral Quad 520 and Rogers speakers it's impressive. I'm thinking I may re-cap it as it's now 30 years old, and worth the modest outlay.

Built like tank. Sounds sweet, open and warm due to the twin PCM56P Burrbrowns. Has a technics transport from the SLP1200, which can make it a little jumpy with bad discs. Looks ugly, but the sound quality and japanese build quality outweighs that. Last of the well built players I think......

Good base for modding;
Very accurate sound;
Switchable digital output;
Fixed and Variable outputs;

Sound is too accurate - even original CDs do make a difference;
R/C Cannot control the variable output volume;
CD Holder mechanism jams every once a while (well its 15 years old, quite good for its age by the way)

Listened that player after a 2 hour warm up on a studio monitor speakers with a nice Tube amplifier... astonishing !
After modding this player outtakes much more expensive CDs...

Customer Service

Haven't used it yet :)

Similar Products Used:

Marantz CD-80; Harman-Kardon HK7400, Onkyo DX6550; Onkyo DX7500