Toshiba 3960

George Grand

I drove thru twice, once on the way to Uncle Ben's, and once on the way out. He gave me the word and the drive out was a lot slower than the drive in.

Busby, Bisbee, pronounced the same.

cmy330go

can anyone here tell me where i might find easy to follow diy instructions for modding my own 3960??

Thanks in advance.

faster100

in the menu, whats the compression setting? dynamic range control? have mine setup on the tv now...

steveinaz

Yes. Dynamic Range control. You don't want compression enabled.

steveinaz

Originally posted by cmy330go
can anyone here tell me where i might find easy to follow diy instructions for modding my own 3960??

Thanks in advance.

Ask Mad Max or hit the internet, there's tons of Tosh mod sites.

faster100

Thanks steve,

done deal...

SomeDood

I own the 3950 and find it to be bright and fatiguing without the mods. In stock form, this thing isnt the giant killer everyone proclaimed it to be IMO. I hear that the mods transform it into another beast, though. Some people say the 3960 is better sounding than the 3950, both in stock form, so who knows.

I-SIG

Originally posted by George Grand
Is that old Wesley I hear? What you doing in Tucson man?

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

Same old Wesley, just in a new cowtown.

What am I doing in Tucson? Well, I have joined the ranks of the many paying taxes to support a sorry few. :mad:

Wes

madmax

Originally posted by SomeDood
I own the 3950 and find it to be bright and fatiguing without the mods.

To me the 3950 was very harsh in stock form but very nice after mods. The 3960 is actually OK in stock form but needs the mods to be in giant killer land. After mods it is slightly better than the 3950, especially on the high end.

madmax

SomeDood

Originally posted by madmax
To me the 3950 was very harsh in stock form but very nice after mods. The 3960 is actually OK in stock form but needs the mods to be in giant killer land. After mods it is slightly better than the 3950, especially on the high end.

madmax

hmm, looks like ill have to try the mods when i get more time. Were the mods hard to perform?

madmax

Most of the parts are easy but there is one surface mount op-amp that is tough. It is tiny with some even smaller parts right next to it. If it were not for that they would be a breeze.
madmax

George Grand

To tell the truth, I'm getting ready to leave this P.O.S. at the end of the driveway. Go ahead and laugh, after shipping and N.J. state sales tax, I paid $80 for it. THEN I find out I have to hook it to a monitor and access the onscreen menu in order to shut off the compression feature. So I hook it to a monitor, only to find the owners manual doesn't address this **** in ANY way, and now I find the compression I was looking for isn't called compression. It's called Dynamic Range Control. The owners manual sucks, the onscreen menu sucks, and the sound of it with D.R.C. engaged sucks.

I wish I never heard of this damn thing.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

madmax

I found the on screen setup quite nice and intuitive. George, are there any young children in your area? Maybe you could get a hand with setup.

Oh, BTW, maybe it was called dynamic range control rather than compression.

madmax

SomeDood

I thought that the 3950's best feature was playing movies ( who would have thought) . The most useful to me has been the "Dialog Enhancer" or whatever its called, it helps me understand what people are saying in movies. If you are still feeling bad about your purchase you could always sell it on ebay or something...these things are pretty popular.

George Grand

The local problem with this P.O.S., is the fact that none of the monitors in the house are easy to access. The easiest being the 19" in the bedroom, which does not contain an rf modulator. I have to hook a modulator in-between the P.O.S. and the monitor, and move stuff off the top of the dresser so all things can fit on it. I didn't feel like **** over the bedroom too bad, so I wanted to do all this before my wife, the former Theresa Talamonti, walked in on that mess, perhaps thinking I was planning on leaving an ugly set-up like that on a permanent basis. So funny guy Max, in the limited time I had to accomplish this, let's remember I was looking for something in the book called "Compression" and not "Dynamic Range Control". Maybe you have a small child in the area that can express your thoughts a little better.

Build quality on this thing is not exactly awe-inspiring, the sound (at present) is marginal at best. $80 wasted in my opinion.


George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

Early B.

If this thing sounds like ****, you're dead Max.

Uh-oh. Perhaps we should be checking the obituaries. Max, you still with us, buddy?

danger boy

you guys are funny. never thought GG would get so worked up about a DVD player menu. :eek:

i don't have my 3960 hooked up to a tv either. so i can't access the menu. i'll get it done eventually. no hurry. besides the the POS as GG calls it.. it's been a good sounding player in it's stock form. not great. but not half bad for a POS player. I think some times we expect a POS player to be free of problems.. like you would for say a Denon 2900. If the Denon behaved like a $60 player. i'd be pissed. otherwise. i take it for what it is..

George Grand

That thing is so shabbily constructed I'm afraid to walk near it. I don't mean while it's playing either. I mean normal footfalls making the thing fall apart. It wont sit on all four feet without stuffing something under the high foot. Actually, using a round level I need to press down on the high foot and then slip something under the diagonally opposite foot when it gets raised in order to attain perfect levelousity. P.O.S.!

I have it hooked into the He-Man rig, and it is nothing to write home about from a sonic standpoint my friend. It is clearly outclassed by a Sony ES machine that is more than a few years old, and a Sony SACD player playing standard cd's. It has also had about 100 hours of burn-in.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

2+2

This thread is actually pretty funny.....
George, I tend to agree with you...I was underwhelmed by the sound....outperformed by my Panny, DACs in my HK, etc. But what made me return it is that when I pressed the eject button, the whole unit moved back in the rack...it weighs about a pound I think.....so it went back to Best Buy. I think it would have been fun to take it apart and mod it like many have done to make it sound much better but I dont have the time for that.....

danger boy

Originally posted by George Grand
It has also had about 100 hours of burn-in.

that's the problem right there. it's probably not made to last 100 hours. it's past it's shelf life already. waaaaaaaaa!

George Grand

2+2 the same thing happens to mine everytime I push ANYTHING on it. I have to put one finger on the top and exert a little downward pressure on the lid before I actuate any buttons. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't even weigh a pound.

George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

danger boy

get a slab of granite and weigh that bad boy down.. wait. it might crush it's innards. if it had any. we know it doesn't have any balls already.

:eek:

faster100

my extra rubber feet i installed but a kinda "no slip" effect on the unit... and i installed a iec plug/outlet which is larger and heavier and seems to keep it in place.... sound good in my rig, but again i don't know what a "high dollar" c d player sounds like....

heiney9

This has got to be the funniest **** I've read in a long time <ROTFLMAO>

Man's quest to find a pearl in a pile of ****!

I can relate to the player moving everytime the eject button is pushed. My 5 year old Pioneer DV-525 is the same way. I put a patio brick on top of it so when I push the power button the unit doesn't fly out the back of my TV stand. I wrapped the brick in a black satin cloth.

When people ask, I tell them it's a high-end stereo mod that increases the video resolution to near HD quality.

My other Pioneer the dreaded DV-333, which was newer, puked after only 6 months of light use. But so did 75% of all that were ever manufactured.

George, the DV-333 at the time was about a $250 player so needless to say I was pissed. As far as sound quality they both are pretty horrible, and I was under the impression that the Pioneer's were better sounding than most.

I'm not here to start a debate, but come on $80 Toshiba DVD sounds better than most stand alone CD players.......doubt it. Now maybe a modded one does, but the construction of the original dosen't sound like it would be worth while.

I use my Pioneer as a transport, as it is hooked to my Adcom GDA-700 DAC, and I use it to listen to cdr's and music DVD concerts. Hooked by itself w/o the outboard DAC makes me want to puke!

madmax

Originally posted by Early B.
Uh-oh. Perhaps we should be checking the obituaries. Max, you still with us, buddy?

I keep hearing these planes circling overhead but nothing has happened yet...

George, you sound a little jittery these days. Are you hiding new audio purchases from your wife? :eek:
madmax

Early B.

I'm not here to start a debate, but come on $80 Toshiba DVD sounds better than most stand alone CD players.......doubt it. Now maybe a modded one does, but the construction of the original dosen't sound like it would be worth while.

No need to have doubts. Try it for yourself or listen to a modded one. You can get a Tosh 3960 for $50 plus $30 in parts and it'll sound just as good as any $500 CD player. Of course in stock form it's a POS player, but isn't that the point?

heiney9

Originally posted by Early B.
No need to have doubts. Try it for yourself or listen to a modded one. You can get a Tosh 3960 for $50 plus $30 in parts and it'll sound just as good as any $500 CD player. Of course in stock form it's a POS player, but isn't that the point?

I suppose hearing is believing.....I would still be leary of the construction and overall build quality of the transport. I don't have a need for another DVD olayer right now, but who knows....maybe in the future. I won't write it off so quickly, but I am skeptical.

I have a brand new Toshiba SD-2900 in the box in my closet. Bought to replace my first Pioneer (DV-333). My dad gave me his Pioneer DV-525 after I bought the Toshiba, can the 2900 be modded in the same way? BTW the 2900 sounds like crap'ola too. It's even lighter than the Pioneer which I didn't think was possible.

bikezappa

George

I can't understand why you buy such a POS player. You are too old to be **** around with this kind of ****.

Peter

PS I sold my Sony reciever and it fit right into the box you used to ship the Yammy amp. Thanks, that saved me from any packing games.

George Grand

Heiney9,

I've got great sounding cd players, and been down a lot of different routes.

I've had heavily modified Magnavox CDB-650 in the form of Euphonic Technology ET-650 which cost me $5 at a yard sale. Lasted for YEARS and was the best sounding machine I've heard yet. Also used the Radio Shack CD-3400 portable (touted by Dick Sequerra and Joe Grado around 1994 as a giant killer) as a transport only feeding Audio Alchemy DDE V1.0 at the same time. It was a pretty good sounding combo, a little airier than the ET-650, but didn't growl as good at the bottom.

I'm perfectly happy with the Sony ES and the Sony SACD, but thought there just might be something to the Toshiba chatter. In un-modded form, there is not. With the limited time I had to try and "uncompress" (for lack of the correct term) the output, I wasn't able to accomplish it. Maybe next weekend I'll get another opportunity to try.

Peter, I read you loud and clear and you're 100% right. Too old for this crap. I'm glad the Yamaha combo worked out for you, all the way down to the re-use of the shipping boxes. My aim is 100% customer satisfaction.


George Grand (of the Jersey Grands)

heiney9

George,

Sounds like you've had good luck experimenting with your "budget components" (I don't mean that to sound negative) I personally have never had good luck with "budget" equipment, it never seems to hold up. I always seem to get what I pay for. I'm a heavy user I guess.

Plus my biggest problem is that I'm very satisified with my current set-up, which is getting to be almost 20 years old. I'm afraid to start changing things around because I might lose the sound I love so much. That's why I don't tend to experiment with different components, "budget or otherwise". I guess I'm afraid to take the chance, but at the same time I'm missing out on some truely good stuff (like the things you mentioned). I guess I'm getting old, but I really need to start experimenting with more equipment.

When I added my DAC I was convinced that the improvement was going to be minor and it would take days of listening to hear the changes, but I was wrong. The difference was instant and it was night and day. And the Nak was a $700 player.

I hear what your saying, but it still goes against my better instincts. I've been wrong before so it's possible I'm wrong now.

Heiney9