Pansonic DVD Player mods

Perhaps you saw the shootout on AudioAsylum where a $85 Panasonic DVD player beat a bunch of players...some costing as much as $10,000. It came in third in the test but keep in mind the player was stock and using its own stock power cord. See this link and this link. I bought a Pansonic DVD-S55S (DVD-A player/$129 list) in early May at Fry's electronics for $79 plus tax and did a few mods on it. It sounded really good on the bench headphone system and then I put it into my shelf system to burn in and enjoy. I knew it was good but did not know how good it was until I put it in my main system in place of my modded Philips DVD-963 player. I used the same 24/96 disc on both machines and was astonished that the simply modded Panasonic was as good as the much more modded Philips. I am now currently using the Panasonic as my reference piece in evaluations of my forthcoming amp. It really is that good!!!!!

 

The mod consists of adding an IEC connector for using better power cords (we use the ZCable Gold Lightning with a Heavy ZSleeve....he he....a $550 list power cord and conditioner combo to great effect), do some power supply mods, some output stage mods, damp many parts and add a handmade muting circuit to get rid of the DC surges on turn on and turn off........the cost of the mod is $200 plus return shipping. We have been doing some further experiments (now 7-8-04) and have taken the player to new heights. We have a modded S47 here and it is at least as good as the S55.....very close. The S47 has the advantages of being easier to get, looks nicer, has a coax digital out, does not turn itself off after 30 minutes like the S55, has a repeat button on the remote (the S55 needs to be hooked up to a TV to get the repeat feature), and uses a clock that would be easy to update (advanced mods). We are looking into a $150 clock update option and will be trying it within a week on the S47 we have here. The latest and best version of the mod removes the output stage entirely. This lowers the voltage to 1 volt (so would not be passive compatible in all systems) and also inverts the phase (so best sound on most discs would be attained with the speaker wires reversed (red to black and black to red at either the amp or speaker end). I can keep the 2 volts output (or even increase the output voltage to as much as 4 volts) using the modified output stage but it will not sound quite as good as using no output stage and the S47 is definetly not as good as the S55 when run this way. When they are both run without the output stage the sound is comparable.

 

Here is a recent post by someone who owns 11 CD/DVD players and feels his cheapo 5 disc Pannies are as good as his Sony SCD-1!!! and much better than the cheapo Toshibas that are the latest rage. Another post here where someone compares his stock Panny F87 to a stock Toshiba 3950. The F87 is the latest DVD-A changer model and has HDCD decoding as well and is currently listed on Amazon for $109 including shipping. And another post recent here where someone compares a Panny S47 with the Toshiba 3960. The S47 ($99 list/DVD-A single disc player) is the replacement for the S55 but has two channel outputs only. Generally, a single disc machine is easier to mod, sounds better, is more reliable (less moving parts) and is cheaper.....so all things being equal, I would go for the S47 or S55 (if you can find one-discontinued). You should be able to get a S47 for less than $100 delivered.

 

There are other decent inexpensive players including the Pioneer 563 universal player but this Panasonic is miles ahead of the Pioneer in sound quality. In fact, it sounds way better than the Pioneer 563 that I performed a $400 mod on.

 

We do not sell Panasonic players, you will have to send us yours or have a mail order company drop ship the unit here....or you may want to get a unit at home to try for awhile and make sure it is reliable before sending it in to get modded.

 

So, for about $300 total you can get a DVD-A player that will be at home in a truly high end system.......Why does this player sound so good? Probably because it has such a simple digital signal path (super integration of functions in very few chips) and the jitter just happens to be fairly low and the parts are decent but who really knows?

 

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