Sony ES CDP Mods?

Up the capacitance of all caps around the dac.
Reach out to Steve Sank at talking dog transducer co. He helped me plenty. He also may tell you to forget it on that model as some do not respond as well for the money spent to do it.

True on modwright
Some of the 1bit players didn't respond as well as the ladder dac earlier models.
Hard to believe that modwright had anything for a carousel player. That is a new one on me.
I have had many Sony ES players i hot rodded a 508 and my x33es both still going strong. Those lasers in the early models are just bullet proof.
Gave the 508 to my son 5 yrs ago it is his daily driver.

dpowell wrote: »

Someone local is selling a hot rodded and recently serviced x33es for just under $600. The more I look at the cost of modding players, it might actually not be as over priced as I originally thought.

The Sony x33es used all Elna Duorex II caps. Those were the most corrosive caps i have ever had the pleasure of removing. They leaked down the leads and through capillary action got into the copper traces and just ate them gone. The only way to tell they were leaking was to look at the backside of the board for black streaks were it ate the copper trace. If i was to ever buy a x33 i would most definitely remove both top and bottom covers to take a look see at what was going on.
Buy the way that player cost less than 600.00 new. I bought mine for just shy of 500.00 brand new in the early 1990's 91 or 92 maybe.
It would be interesting to see what was hot rodded on it.

Did you checked inside for previous updates? I got a old Parasound CD player and the internal DAC was loaded with Nichicon Muse caps, no sure if that was stock...

dpowell wrote: »

I wonder if the x33es released the same year as the C333ES? Curious if Sony used the same caps.

Date is on the back of the unit. My ES knowledge tells me no. X33,X55 and X77 came out way before the X333,X555 and X777 series I'm fairly certain. The first series i remember would be the 500 series then the X## series and then the X### series. I found they had lower than 500 series later but iirc they were Japanese only for a while. Believe it or not the X55 was really the dog in the middle. The X33 and X77 were more highly regarded player's. Sony had some very highly regarded upper ES players that I only dreamed of owning as they were WAY out of my price range even used. They had some high end players that after the very first SACD unit came out that technology washed down to the CD only players that used a heavy brass center puck on the CD and the laser no longer moved the tray with the CD moved across the laser.

On another note Pioneer had some huge success with their "Stable Platter" machines. Those like the Nakimachi <(spelling) Dragon players are still to this day bringing like new prices on the used market. Many very high end companies used that stable platter transport in their machines.

DSkip wrote: »

Anything during that time period using Elna capacitors should probably be replaced ASAP. I've heard from several resources now that the real Elna capacitors were reverse engineered by an imitator and not done well. Somehow they got into the hands of major manufacturers and resulted in massive failure rates - like the RT series from Polk.

It was not just Elna. Several big names had some counterfeit problems during that time. The Elna Duorex has a well deserved reputation for their corrosive problem. Word from several well regarded sources (to me anyhoot) was they used a fish oil base in the dielectric. The Cerifine uses ceramic and the Silmic uses silk fibers. Both of those are highly regarded electrolytic caps.

Those all Nichicon? Looks like it from this side.

Good deal those are pretty robust