Pushing On! (07/03/2001)

Dear Readers,

It has been sometime I have done updating the site here. Questions are stacking up, and work are piling up. How I envy the sections in monthly or quarterly magazines! But this is an on line magazine, and like everything today, 1388 certainly is a place where much effort and work is required!

Everyone in 1388 is laboring very hard on the launch of the Bit88. It is a great challenge for everyone here to develop and market an innovative engineering product. Ultimately, I sincerely hope we can have your support.

In the past week I had looked at rather a few players. Some very expensive ones, and some extra ordinary ones. I cannot publish all of them here, but would like to chat about two players, the Accrus and the Trojeb!

The Accurus player was an uncommon candidate. While most of us have seen Accurus amplification gears, not many of us have seen the Accurus player.

I was very taken in by the built and front facial of the player. However, the sound failed to impress me. It was somewhat compressed, ordinary and flat sounding.

While inspecting the inner board of the player, the built of the electronics showed a high standard. However, I was very amazed that the timing function was provided by a very simple ceramic oscillator. That was amazing.

I thought even by replacing the ceramic oscillator by a simple crystal module would improve the player many folds. I installed a trial Big Ben board on the player, due to the strange frequency adopted, and noted a mark improvement in the tracking, reading and response of the transport mechanism.

As the player was designed some time ago, the output op-amp was pretty primitive. Replacing the op-amp with high grade Analog Device op-amps was the final touch to the player.

For most company, this is the formula of building a CD player:

1. Obtain a transport mechanism
2. Design a digital filter/ Digital to Analog conversion board, based on cost
3. Depending on the price range of the player, design and build the casing accordingly

It is truly amazing that almost 99% of the companies ignore the importance of the clock. As such, it created a market for Tricord, LCAudio, and of course, 1388!

The importance of obtaining a good digital information from the CD is very important indeed. Imagine if the computer cannot read the CD, the program would not execute. If the CD digital section cannot extract information properly, how could the real essence of the music flow?

AH! TROJEB!

We have heard much of the Trojeb player. I was fortunate to see one when a customer sent in a Trojeb player for review and upgrade. Ah! Trojeb! Its sound was certainly musical because of the use of a pair of 6922/ECC88 as the output stages.

The Trojeb was built based on the Marantz CD38, a very basic but well built player. Trojeb has modified the player extensively, both on the analog and digital sections. But 95% of the emphasis of the upgrade was on the analog section.

My concern was of course on the digital section. Trojeb has upgraded the on board 16.9344Mhz crystal by a slightly better crystal, and have added extensive damping to the crystal unit. I personally felt that this upgrade was subtle, and not cost effective.

Due to space limitations, I installed the Big Ben clock upgrade at the back of the Trojeb. Despite the extensive upgrades done on player by Trojeb already, I am affirmative the Big Ben allowed much improvement on the definition, layering and dynamics of the music.

The Trojeb has one of the most elaborate analog output section. Charged with Burr Brown op-amp and tube output stages, the layout was certainly more elaborate on the Radford player I did. (The Marantz CD38 is currently replaced by the CD-4000. The CD-4000 is a much better player interms of technology, integration and sound.)

The analog section of the Trojeb consisted of a hefty transformer, and a superbly built circuit board.

While looking at the board, it reminded me of a low voltage tube buffer stage. Well, this section is indeed very similar to our BIT88! But we have an extra sound processing module to enhance the dynamics and resolution of the music!

Oh BIT88! BIT88! BIT88! I am anxiously awaiting the response of this little device!

Happy Listening!

Jon Wong