Equaliser Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 (edited) The thread will point out my slight bit of prejudice towards Audio Alchemy. As with most American companies from the fall of the 80's to 90's, a lot of them that made had CD player products eventually went defunct because they ran out of Japanese gear to re-badge without consumers suspecting any difference present, companies such as CAL, Audio Alchemy, Wadia, Krell and many more all had a share of period of selling re-badged players from the far East for huge amounts with nothing different aside having the electronics stored in a big American styled aluminium enclosure. While Audio Alchemy on the other hand did have some good products such as there line up of digital processors and pre-amplifiers, there CD transports and CD players were mostly re-badged cheap Sony and Pioneer based players with a few slight modifications done here and there. Aside from the ACD-Pro and DDE 3.0 transport, the rest was garbage inside. The unit in question is one Dallas Clarke didn't have time to repair..... Some pictures: Roughly angled grind and cut face plate holder. For a transport that cost $450 back in the days I expect better. What kind of way of transformer mounting is this? One knock to the case and the transformer spins around. CEC transport with Sanyo SF-90 laser. The case, PCB's, transport...everything except the transformer, faceplate and outer cover is a complete unit from a CEC unit. The only addition they added here was an IEC socket. This picture tells a thousand words. What you see here is the original PCB from the CEC unit. Now this particular player has some reliability and faulty problems with the transport not reading discs unless the player has warmed up but no sound is outputted from the digital receiver chipset. All the craptastic KELNA (Korean version of ELNA?) caps most likely have gone over there specifications and no longer work as I cannot even get a waveform on the O-Scope when probed on a few crucial pins of the relevant output chipset. What else is funny here is see the 3 RCA holes in the case, but only 1 is being utilized? If you guessed it, then you're right. The original player had some old CXD Sony DAC chipset and its relevant receiver chip IC701 and IC700 removed (seen above), some traces are cut and new wires soldered so rather have the signal going from the transport mechanism to the original DAC chip, the DAC chip is removed and the signal goes straight to the digital receiver chipset on the buffer side, this then goes directly out to the single RCA connector you see above, smart way of doing it because FIFO from the buffer as it is prioritised, the signal goes out straight and raw rather then re-routed through the DAC IC then to the digital receiver and output to Coaxial. The original channel output RCA sockets are also snipped and cut off if you haven't noticed. Face plate buttons. Plastic screen for VFD hot glue gun stuck on....really??? Now I haven't sorted out the problem but it's a complete clusterfk at this stage. Market value on these things? Anything over $250 for a complete working stock DDS 2.0 or 3.0 is criminal. These things are worth no more than $100 and while they may have some added value because it's labelled with a big brand, a modern $50-80 Blu-ray player sounds better and is more reliable because once these old players break, there is no service manual or schematics and 99% of the parts are obsolete. More electronic shenanigans to be posted soon. Edited August 28, 2015 by DefQon 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lansche plasma guy Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 Good work DefQon, Its refreshing to see someone posting on the truth behind a lot of this crap rebadged stuff. Interesting read. LPG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Marc Posted August 28, 2015 Administrator Share Posted August 28, 2015 Is it possible, given that this unit has been modified that it is not typical of how they were sold when in original condition?Some of those things are / could be the result of dodgy mods over the years?I know nothing about the model so have no idea, but thought it might be worthy of suggestion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Equaliser Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 Good work DefQon, Its refreshing to see someone posting on the truth behind a lot of this crap rebadged stuff. Interesting read. LPG Cheers... Yes indeed there is a lot of crap stuff out there people pay through the roof prices without knowing what they truly are paying for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Equaliser Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 Is it possible, given that this unit has been modified that it is not typical of how they were sold when in original condition? Some of those things are / could be the result of dodgy mods over the years? I know nothing about the model so have no idea, but thought it might be worthy of suggestion. Good point but no this unit is complete stock because this is the third DDS 2.0 that has gone through these hands. The only difference between this unit and 1 other unit I've had (and the 4 pictures of units I've seen posted online) is the transformer. Possibly due to different regions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decky Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 I could show you some very similar examples to the one above - if only rules would permit me to do so. Good write-up! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronal Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 (edited) It's interesting that you mention the need for warm-up. I had a look at a DDS 3 transport that needed to warm up before it would operate. Is there a reason for this? Edited August 28, 2015 by bronal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Equaliser Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 (edited) Faulty. With this unit its a hit and miss after 20 minutes of power up and the electronics have warmed up i.e. electrolytic capacitors charged and etc. Edited August 28, 2015 by DefQon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hensa Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 Could I politely suggest, in light of recent threads on sna about defamation, that it might be prudent to remove reference to the brands (other than the brand of which the lid has actually been lifted - Audio Alchemy) that have been named in your opening paragraph... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted August 28, 2015 Volunteer Share Posted August 28, 2015 Something on Lampizator about this http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/REFERENCES/AudioAlchemy/Audioalchemy.html 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Equaliser Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 Something on Lampizator about this http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/REFERENCES/AudioAlchemy/Audioalchemy.html Indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted August 28, 2015 Volunteer Share Posted August 28, 2015 I could show you some very similar examples to the one above - if only rules would permit me to do so. Good write-up! Which rules? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Equaliser Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 (edited) Which rules? He is a MOT (Member of the Trade/Commercial seller). If he talked down a product from X manufacturer that could be a sponsor on SNA, this can lead to trouble for Marc. It is also in a way seen as bad mouthing your competition which is why MOT and Commercial Members on every audio forum out there are not allowed to discuss negativity about X product insight that would make there own product better in comparison. This is what I know could be different here. Edited August 28, 2015 by DefQon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted August 28, 2015 Volunteer Share Posted August 28, 2015 Gotcha. Fair enough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Marc Posted August 28, 2015 Administrator Share Posted August 28, 2015 He is a MOT (Member of the Trade/Commercial seller). If he talked down a product from X manufacturer that could be a sponsor on SNA, this can lead to trouble for Marc. It is also in a way seen as bad mouthing your competition which is why MOT and Commercial Members on every audio forum out there are not allowed to discuss negativity about X product insight that would make there own product better in comparison. This is what I know could be different here. Actually it has absolutely nothing to do with sponsorship or our commercial partners, but everything to do with a member of the trade talking badly of another brand. Aside from being professionally discourteous, they could potentially have a hidden agenda. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Equaliser Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 Actually it has absolutely nothing to do with sponsorship or our commercial partners, but everything to do with a member of the trade talking badly of another brand. Aside from being professionally discourteous, they could potentially have a hidden agenda. Good to know it has nothing to do with sponsorship. I know a few other audio sites that are backed heavily by sponsorship that due to this being one of the factors don't allow MOT's to talk badly of competitors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decky Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 My agenda is so hidden that I did not even know about it . 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addicted to music Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 My agenda is so hidden that I did not even know about it . It better to keep quite than to opinionated a bad point, especially if your in the industry. There is a saying is that what goes around comes around, and believe me it happens. Hypothetically say Rep A bags the crap out of one product to the enth degree, the next day a decision from high in the food chain makes a decision to take on that brand and market the very same product that rep A was highly critical of, so now rep A has to represent that product! Its a small world out there so to have credibility always highlight the good points. I refuse to purchase a product of a representative or a sales person when they start slurring the opposition products, it's that simple. back on this topic, rebadging products isn't new, it happens in every industry. In my industry I see it all the time, if a company is trying to fill a gap in a market segment they may find it cost effective to get the oppositions product that's already exist in that market segment and come to an agreement so they can fill that missing segment. It's s win win for all, because the opposition is now selling your gear that's coming out of your factory and the best thing is you don't support it, they do! I would say back in the 80s and 90s most high profile audio brand in the west would have been left behind in R &D, speed and production costs on CD players, hence the reason they have remarketed a player under there logo as they struggle to keep up with powerhouses of the East. Why start from scratch to fill a market segment when it's already done, it's easier to utilised the production facilities that already exist and just modify the products to your specs. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Equaliser Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 I'm willing to bet with all the esoteric brands from the West of the time cloning cheap Japanese players, the Japanese manufacturers weren't aware of the re-badging and re-boxing players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts