Modding the Consonance cd-120 linear

I've owned the CD-120 Linear, and it's a great player. But mods would most likely be limited to the power supply and reducing or eliminating noise and improving regulation.

Additionally, you could always look to upgrade the clock.

The CD-120 Linear has no op-amps and very few capacitors, and signal paths are kept very short - in all a very minimalist design that is quite effective.

I'm sure there are those out there that would offer mods for the player if you were to inquire. Many, however IMHO are not cost-effective. I have always done my own CDP mods.

Here is a quote on tweaking the cd120 linear from the following review:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/opera_cd120_e.html

"Ian large notes that the cd120L responds well to tweaking. He suggests a good inexpensive mod is to change the input caps to 0.47uf Hi-Q black gates, and use SCR 1.0 uf caps on the output stage. I would endorse both these proposals as likely to lead to worthwile improvements, having tried both series of caps myself, but this review is straight-from-the-box."

I would love to do this because I can solder but I don't know where these caps are located.

I've given very serious consideration to the idea of forming a relationship with an outfit such as those you listed above to offer a potential upgrade path for the CD120 Linear.

However, after assessing the situation, I've decided against it, and instead recommend moving up to either the Reference CD2.2 MKII or CD120T. Because of their clearly superior power supply (larger toroidal transformer, more capacitance) and output sections (6H30 Supertube output, multiple AuriCaps, RCA and XLR output, volume control), both of these players offer far more real world value than anything we could recommend in terms of modding the CD120 Linear.

Of course, one could argue against moving to an oversampling CD player given the background for the CD120 Linear, but these two players are sonically superior to the overwhelming majority of listeners. And, for those who do strongly adhere to the non-oversampling paradigm, we also offer two CD players which offer that topology with some very tangible upgrades over the CD120 Linear - not that I want to muddy the waters any further, as again, the two players I've just described are my recommendation...

DISCLAIMER: I am the importer/distributor of Opera Audio/Consonance high end audio components in the USA and Canada