General HIFI > Other DACs
Marantz 94 mark 2
stevenvalve:
Ian was over a few days ago with his full house modified Marantz 94 Mark2. He has spent many years perfecting it to this level. In its present state it is just brilliant and yes it has no valves. Its the only DAC that has been through this door that went neck and neck with my killerDac, it was very clean clear and noise free (one of his aims) Black indeed around the notes and they appeared to come from empty space. The sound stage is not as big and it does not have quite the bloom as the KillerDac, but is very similar in timbre and texture as mine and what i really like is it is not bright or white, instruments sound real, unlike most digital playback. It has none of the slow plodding nature of standard Marantz 94s. It is relaxed, natural, smooth, and has presents, with a solid image focus, yum its nice. Shows you can build brilliant from just good. But before you run out and buy a Marantz 94 remember he has spent many years tuning this machine and he knows how to get all the hard to find esoteric capacitors and resistors, and most are not commercially available. Anyway i will not rave on any more, but hopefully he can come to this page and explain how it works. The pictures do not show the full story, because underneath there is a compartment stuffed with more toys. I really could live with this Marantz because it makes Music, They should have built them like this in the first place.
vitavoxdude:
Hi Steve and Ian :)
Yes indeed it would be great hearing a blow by blow account of the upgrade path Ian has traveled in order to be able to be praised by SG!!! It must have a couple of great sounding TDA chips inside it then. What other equipment is the CD spinner being used with??
For something with OP-amps in the output chain it does not always mean it's bad............I recently put some dexa discrites in place of some OP-amps and was shocked at how much better it performed all round. I tired to avoid the more usual Burson's etc.
It is easy to spot a lot of the changes implemented, the changed dac decoupling caps, the obvious clock board and the diode replacements. I remember those original POOGE articles and that couple of hundred page Marantz CD65 upgrades on the DIY hifi site.
I would love for Ian to describe the process and give a guide to the uplift various stages took on. This website could do with more helpful information and it will bring increased readership I feel. ;D ;D ;D ;D
brenden:
Hi guys . I am travelling back home to Newcastle at the moment. Rest assured I will post a detailed account of my experiences with the Marantz cd 94 mk 2 as well as other equipment upgrades.
One thing I will say now is that it is a holistic approach rather than using a super TDA1541 double crown chip for example . You need to reduce noise in every circuit because its all connected .
In digital , added noise means jitter . Capacitor quality both in Electrolytic and film bypasses are critical to take things to the next level . Attention to clock power supply is critical as well as the decoupling caps around the TDA1541 ( super sensitive ) .
Thanks again to Steve and Jen for being so welcoming .It was an absolute pleasure to spend quality audio time at their home .
brenden:
Its difficult to know where to start. I could seriously write a book about my experiences .
i bought myself a brand new Marantz cd 94 mk2 around 1990 , but i was never satisfied with my sound and , after being on the merry go round for a number of years buying and borrowing high end equipment it seemed that every substitution always had tradeoffs when it came to musical satisfaction.
My gear was mostly excellent design and build quality such as the Stax mono blocs Classe DR6 so I came to the conclusion that it would be worth modifying my gear to add refinement to the reasonably dynamic sound i had .
During the late 90s i had performed literally thousands of mods and built up a memory bank of practical experience in what worked and what didnt . Not knowing aĺl that much in theory I wasnt constrained by preconceived ideas so I tried lots of radical stuff back then . I was even running battery clocks a decade before i realised there were other nutters out there 😊 . Eventually i achieved excellent sound quality through perseverance and trying to understand why things changed . For example this led me to studying capacitor construction quite intently .
Not algebraic theory mind you , rather , what different construction and materials bought to the table in a practical sense .
Anyway , kids came along and the system was totally dismantled sold or stored .
A few years ago i decided to rebuild a sound system based around the 94 and was confident i could improve on my original.
The Marantz cd 94 machines had all the ingredients for greatness . Arguably the best drive ever made in the CDM 1 and possibly the best chip ever made in the tda1541a ,excellent multiple regulated power supplies with generally good parts quality for a commercial product.
So what do we do to improve it if its so good ? Well the devil is in the details.
Firstly , to achieve greatness ,a component is only as good as its weakest link. There is no single place to start really .Its a matter of identifying and working through every single weak link till they are all eliminated or improved .
In the 90s I did a shootout with probably 20 different op amps .The bottom line without boring everyone about the differences was that the AD 827 and AD 847 were the clear favourites being excellent in all areas including dynamics which seemed to be a problem for many op amps being too smooth or bland . The originals in the 94 also had good dynamics but are coarse or ragged in comparison.
These are the op amps in my machine today . Not cheap but very capable. Op amps upgrade probably gave a few percent of the improvement in sound quality so dont expect miracles from any single mod or you will be sadly disappointed as with any of the other mods in isolation .As I said it is a wholistic approach with each mod being rather small incremental improvements
I will detail some more of the 94 changes in a number of posts as there is a fair bit to get through ,so i will end this one for now .. Cheers Ian .
vitavoxdude:
Well, I for one will look forward to your audio travels IRT the Marantz silver spinner. Of course having two of them I have an obvious interest on finding the things that worked ;D
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