Topic: toshiba 3960 - flakier than 15 year old valley girl

[pfife]

I can dig the 4960, but man, it's pretty lame that it does this stutter thing at the track marks.  Its pretty hard to convince a skeptic that this player is da bomb when it can't even do seamless track jumps - technology from like 15 years ago or so...

[Daryan]

Mine doesn't stutter, but mine is also modded almost to the point where very little is now stock.  I have replaced almost every single cap on the board, and the next step is opamps.  Maybe that has something to do with it?

[George]

Apparently the toshiba 4960 is a rebadged samsung dvd unit: 

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=100799&highlight=toshiba+3960

I know my music hall cd-25 is also a rebadged unit, let me see if i can find the link for that as well.  It seems that quite a few audiophile-like sources are coming out of China at rock bottom prices.  Too bad the shipping costs far outweigh the potential cost savings.



Music Hall is made by shanling out of China I believe.

other way around.
Shanling is made by music hall

Ah ok, thanks for the clarification!  Maybe i should get one of those retro looking tube cd players from shanling    

Looks very star trekish, in person especially.

[cheshirecat]

Mine doesn't stutter, but mine is also modded almost to the point where very little is now stock.  I have replaced almost every single cap on the board, and the next step is opamps.  Maybe that has something to do with it?

I don't see why that would have any effect on the stutter, the caps you replaced should be in the power supply and analog section, stutter would be an issue reading the information from the disc.

Does this thing stutter on all discs or just particular or CDR/DVD-Rs?

[Nick in Edinboro]

I thought we already agreed that it was a caching/buffering issue...?  Unless daryan put some new "RAM" in there I don't think that would solve it

[Daryan]

I'm telling you, mine doesn't do this, I promise.   

Those shanling players on the gon are too cool, but dropping 2 g's on a cd player is just insane, as always, in my opinion. 


Think it's possible to change out the RAM at curiosity? 

[pfife]

I thought we already agreed that it was a caching/buffering issue...?  Unless daryan put some new "RAM" in there I don't think that would solve it

Yup.  I've also emailed a couple people who do mods on Agon and they said their mods wouldn't effect this problem.  We also determined that I might have a bunk unit.

Concerning the cd type- I only have a bunch of Taiyos, so I don't know if its a disc problem... but the discs play fine in my other cd players, so its still pretty weak that it chokes on discs other players dont.

[Daryan]

I have the schematic, does anyone know what a ram buffer unit would lok like on the schematic for possible replacement?

[Nick in Edinboro]

I have the schematic, does anyone know what a ram buffer unit would lok like on the schematic for possible replacement?

Why do you want to replace it?   You said yours worked fine...?

I have no idea if it's "RAM" or even solid state memory, I just sort of threw that out there.. Hell it could be JK Flipflops made out of shoe string for all I know..

[Daryan]

I don't.  I just thought I would look to see if it was possible for those that are having problems.  I did a little research, and this problem is NOT inherent to all of the units.

[nickgregory]

I did a little research, and this problem is NOT inherent to all of the units.

I dont think you understand the problem then because both of the outfits that do mods on audiogon acknowledge this is part of the design of the units.  With CDs, when you fast forward a track, it will start the song a second into it.  You will never notice it on most CDs, but on ones where the cuts are right at the start of the music you will.  I have it with my stock HD841 which the toshiba is a rebadged unit, or vice versa.  You will never hear it if you play discs straight through or if the songs dont start right on que

[Daryan]

I stand corrected then, as I guess I have never noticed it.  That said, if it is a problem with the memory buffer, I bet it could be fixed and could be corrected.  I just don't even know what to look for, but I have an inkling I know someone that does and ca find out if it is correctable. 


Do you guys actually pay all that money to have this thing modded at curiosity?

[George]

Those shanling players on the gon are too cool, but dropping 2 g's on a cd player is just insane, as always, in my opinion. 

I dunno.  A few years ago i would've dismissed those high priced audiophile players as a collector's item, but after hearing some high priced rigs, i liked what i heard.  However, i cannot tell how much of that sound is just the speakers over the source.  Hopefully in the near future i'll start getting more opportunity to swap out sources and see what works and doesn't, after all, it comes down to the sonic signature that attracts people like us to various sources.

Plus, it doesn't help that a few people on head-fi obtain a killer high end source and everyone that hears it falls in love with it   

[nickgregory]

Do you guys actually pay all that money to have this thing modded at curiosity?

no, mine is stock...it is a gap filler til I can get a better unit....

[scervin]

Do you guys actually pay all that money to have this thing modded at curiosity?

Not sure how you mean this, but I do believe you took a $250-300 receiver and and put $1400 into it.  Pot calling the kettle black???