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The Best modifications for the Sony 5400 sacd

I have spent much time trying to get the most out of the Excellent Sony 5400 sacd player ,I have heard the Terrafirma light clock mods which was very good, the best I had heard Until while on business I Called Dan Modwright and his just completed upgrades for this player. What I heard was much more realistic and he infomed me he is using the latest from Audiocom - U.K their Superclock 4 which has a super low 2 picoseconds of jitter .Modwright uses the excellent 6sn7 vaccum tubes for the analog input stage and the 5ar4 vacuum tube for the substantial seperate power supply .Dan said to have the lowest noise and best regulation the power supply had to be seperate and Vacuum tube ,also for the masterclock Dan completly built his own analog section
and supply capacitors, including his excellent Nichicon Gold , and Panasonic audio caps for the clock to guarantee no noise degrades the very sensitive digital section. I can tell you first hand it makes a good cd player a Great one .
I recommend asking for 2 Bybee purifiers for the incoming
at the IEC which this unit had ,and Hifi tuning Fuses .This unit lacks Nothing.
Now looking back at the terra firma mod it is way overpriced for the little you do get, for just over $2k you now have a player that is up there with the best !
I left my deposit and my unit goes in week 2 of June .
I will update the forum on breakin when my unit returns which will be 3 weeks after received.
128x128audioman58
jayctoy's avatar
jayctoy
3,677 posts
 
Dan modified my Sony 9000es more than five years ago.
I still dont have the itch to even replace it,its sounds
very musical,I have two friends who heard this unit and
they end up ordering from Dan,with Dan you cant go wrong.
esmith3671
30 posts
 
The following quote is from the ModWright XA-5400ES Ultimate Truth Mod web page: "The tubes are purposely driven VERY conservatively to give 10,000-12,000 hours + of tube life."

I'm sure this mod improves the sound quality of the player however, I stick with solid state because I don't want to have to change tubes when they burn out. What exactly does the owner have to do after the 12k hours of use? I assume the owner must mail the player back to ModWright for maintainence, and how much will that cost? How much time will it take? Then do you have to let it burn in again? Is the improvement in sound quality really worth all of that?

I'd like to hear about other mod options that don't involve tubes.
pkubica
134 posts
 
Not sure what you expect out of a piece of equipment but 10,000-12,000 hours is a lot of time. That's over 2 hours/day for 16 years. More than the tubes will be worn out after 12,000 hours, probably need a completely new transport or more likely a whole new machine. You probably need to consider the mod as "Good for the Life of the CDP".
Paul
nwavesailor
38 posts
 
When the 6SN7 tubes need replacing you simply plug in a new pair. No need to return the player to ModWright.

10,000 hours is playing the unit for 5 hours, 7 days a week, for 5+ years.
esmith3671
30 posts
 
The player costs $1500 retail and sounds very good as is. Paying more than another 100% in price is not going to yield a 100% improvement in sound quality. I realize we can't really quantify "sound quality" but just for the sake of argument I'll be ridiculous and do so. If this mod, or any mod for that matter, yielded even a 25% increase in sound quality on this unit I would be astonished. To put it simply, I think modifying this unit is going into the well into the realm of diminishing returns.

I would also like to know how much a pair of replacement 6SN7 tubes would cost.

That said, I'll probably pay for the ModWright modification just to hear how good it sounds.
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