JVC (Victor) CD4-1 CD-4 Demodulator. Anybody have any experience with it?

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Q-Eight

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
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I need more equipment like I need a 14th hole in my head, but the opportunity has come up for me to purchase a JVC CD4-1. Curious as to whether anybody has had any experience with it either good or bad and/or would it, could it, might it be an upgrade from my Technics SH-400?
 
I can speak only to the CD-4 demodulator built into two JVC receivers I own. Separation is clean. Spacial imaging is good IMHO. I suspect it is the identical circuit as in the CD4-1. Only other reference is a Panasonic demodulator built into a turntable that I run regularly. I output that turntable as discrete and push into the JVC receiver as AUX rather than use the JVC for the CD-4 demodulation. I sense no difference between doing it this way and letting the JVC do the demod, but I was not looking for a difference when I first set it up. Have spent far more time listening to the Panasonic demodulated output than the JVC, but only out of convenience.

Recommendation? One never has enough hardware.
Dave
 
The CD4-1 is Victor's 1st generation of product. The 4DD-5 is a 2nd generation. The CD4-10 is a 2nd generation version of the CD4-1. The attached pages are from Elecktor #008-December 1975. Pages 4 & 5 speak to the generations.
You have quite a find in the CD4 collectible world.
 

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Would this be a superior unit to the 4DD-5 please?

Without a schematic of the CD4-1 to compare to the CD4-10 I just don't know for sure. I would probably think not. A lot of companies do release a no bar holds 1st gen product only to dumb it down in in next gen releases. From all the info I have read about JVC I don't think this is the case for them. The CD4-10 is the second gen product of the CD4-1 and the CD4-10s became one of their statement pieces. Looking at the schematics of the 4DD-5 vs the CD4-10, you will notice the sticking similarity of circuits, enough so I can advocate for a 4DD-5s.
 
Thanks for all the info jwb474 :)

tbh I'm asking around as I'm considering alternatives to the 4DD-5 since I'm not totally knocked out by the results I've been getting from my 4DD-5 so far.. but before I totally write off the JVC unit I'm going to try experimenting more with settings etc., when I get some renewed enthusiasm for a format that at this point seems overly finicky and fraught with potential issues inherent to the format.. the only things that are keeping me going are testimonies of others here with decades of experience who have been constantly praiseworthy of CD-4 and that I have heard others' CD-4 things sound very nice indeed (though no idea what demodulator etc they were using).
 
Ah well, either way - I didn't go for it. Didn't really feel the need to drop a bill on another piece of hardware. I've been through a Panasonic, a Pioneer and have settled on my Technics SH400 CD-4 and have been less than impressed with the results of any of them. Might be my turntable but I really can't afford to replace it either.
 
Ah well, either way - I didn't go for it. Didn't really feel the need to drop a bill on another piece of hardware. I've been through a Panasonic, a Pioneer and have settled on my Technics SH400 CD-4 and have been less than impressed with the results of any of them. Might be my turntable but I really can't afford to replace it either.

fwiw Darrin I think, unless I can finally nail it, I've pretty much had it with CD-4 (and I've spent what is by my budget shedloads on new turntable, stylus, two JVC demods and all that baloney) and really I've had way more fun out of the Surround Master with SQ and QS records..

there may not be the separation with matrix stuff but there's not the sandpaper either.. plus, I've not gone on about it on here anymore as it's as boring for me to write about as I'm sure it is for you all here to read but the setup of CD-4 I have found to be a bloody nightmare..

..with matrix stuff you just seem to set it and forget it but I've spent hours again tonight trying to readjust the bloody 4DD5 to do a couple more records since it started squacking and cracking up out of nowhere on a record that was fine the last time I played it (I hadn't changed anything or adjusted the turntable in the time since.. the stylus looks nice and clean, the record was clean, it has been in the machine and then put in a poly liner.. total pain in the arse really I could have listened to a load of matrix records in the time.. and now I find tonight checking out the recorded-in test material (various people talking in different languages at the end of the Experience demo disc) the separation I'm getting is worse from CD-4 than it was before all this happened.. there's crosstalk from front to back in both sets of channels that was nowhere near as bad last time I used it all.. inexplicable and mildly infuriating! :D

maybe my expectations of CD-4 were unrealistic.. I dunno.. but its just been so much more hassle than SQ or QS.. for me anyway! I know many of you guys here have CD-4 licked but I've just had the worst experience with it and I think I've run out of steam with it sadly..!

Mind you I said that the other day on here and I've still been tinkering with the bloody JVC box all night, so.. :eek:
 
It does not have anything to do with your CD4 experience (mine is about the same) but poly liners can be bad. I don't know if new ones are OK, or if only some old ones were bad, or if it was a combination of someone sleeving a wet record, but I've seen several where it looked like the sleeve had bonded with the record, visually, and it made it noisy. It did not clean off.
 
It does not have anything to do with your CD4 experience (mine is about the same) but poly liners can be bad. I don't know if new ones are OK, or if only some old ones were bad, or if it was a combination of someone sleeving a wet record, but I've seen several where it looked like the sleeve had bonded with the record, visually, and it made it noisy. It did not clean off.

Oh bloody hell.. that's bonkers! :yikes

Thanks for the info.. so what should I replace them with? :eek:

Ps. Did you say your CD-4 experience was similarly a bit underwhelming?
You know, I keep thinking.. what am I doing wrong..!?
When I can get the separation to acceptable levels some songs sound great but some get sandpaper-y.. frustrating because it feels like I'm nearly there but then right back at the start.. it's like snakes and ladders! Or 4 channels forward and 4 channels back! :D
 
Can try one more thing that really helped me.
I finally broke down and just recently got a very low capacitance cable and that got CD-4 working for me again.
I bought a Blue Jeans LC-1 3 foot cable, 12.2 pF per foot.

vinylguy4
 
Can try one more thing that really helped me.
I finally broke down and just recently got a very low capacitance cable and that got CD-4 working for me again.
I bought a Blue Jeans LC-1 3 foot cable, 12.2 pF per foot.

vinylguy4

Thanks for the info!

Were you having intermittent problems or overall performance issues?

My Technics' phono cables are hardwired to the turntable but I could get that sorted I suppose..

have to say after tearing my hair out all night and into the wee small hours trying to get it setup 'juuust riiiiight',
I asked my other half "can you hear that noise in the left rear channel? I can't hear it in the right but in the left oh God..!"
..they rolled their eyes and said "NO! it sounded great before you started fiddling with it again! Stop being such a fusspot!"

:eek:

..so I think I may leave it for now.. and revisit tuning it up over the Christmas holidays or something..
that or I need to marry a fellow Quaddy.. nobody understands me! :D

"Hello, my name is Adam and I'm a Quadaholic. Help!" :ugham:
 
Thanks for the info!

Were you having intermittent problems or overall performance issues?

My Technics' phono cables are hardwired to the turntable but I could get that sorted I suppose..

have to say after tearing my hair out all night and into the wee small hours trying to get it setup 'juuust riiiiight',
I asked my other half "can you hear that noise in the left rear channel? I can't hear it in the right but in the left oh God..!"
..they rolled their eyes and said "NO! it sounded great before you started fiddling with it again! Stop being such a fusspot!"

:eek:

..so I think I may leave it for now.. and revisit tuning it up over the Christmas holidays or something..
that or I need to marry a fellow Quaddy.. nobody understands me! :D

"Hello, my name is Adam and I'm a Quadaholic. Help!" :ugham:

Adam, it REALLY sounds like a bad input and/or output connector on your JVC demodulator.:yikes And the more you fiddle with it, the looser it might get. Have a service technician check the connectors with a probe because seriously, the solder holding them in place might have dried out after so many years.

I had a BRAND new Direct TV cable box in my summer home installed and since I'm using an ALL analogue pre amp (NO HDMI) I was warned by the 'cable guy' that the analogue outputs were 'tempermental' as EVERYONE is utilizing the HDMI. Well, he was absolutely correct. One has to jiggle the RCA cables to get a decent signal and then they cut out. Those analogue outputs are PURE SHITE. And this from a brand new device!

BTW, messing with your hardwired RCA outputs of your Technics TT may open up another can of worms. You'd have to basically cut them and have a separate L&R analogue output installed to make it work. While I DO agree that better cables might result in better all around sound (SQ and otherwise) better to find a TT with detachable cables then to 'attempt' to have your Technics TT modified. Might even be cheaper in the long run.
 
Thanks for the info!

Were you having intermittent problems or overall performance issues?

My Technics' phono cables are hardwired to the turntable but I could get that sorted I suppose..

I've had all kinds of problems over the years. I did have a bad cable connection in one channel in my technics SL-1600, so I did replace the cable
and connections inside with a blue jeans cable, I then had a good CD-4 setup. I also had a bad connection in my demodulator, one channel did not work.
So I opened it up and resoldered that connection, that also got things working again.
Also had more that a few bad demodulators, lots and lots of CD-4 problems.
CD-4 is a pain (IMHO).

vinylguy4
 
http://kabusa.com/production_rpt.htm

Fred, you might want to read this. There were low and high capacitance cables on SL1200's. I found high capacitance will definitely add to CD4 woes. Replacement is not hard at all, even for a novice with a soldering iron. I had similar experiences to yours and spent a lot on vintage CD4 cartridges and styli, demodulators and turntables before just replacing the audio cables on my SL1200mk2. I now have at least 5 CD4 demodulators in my garage and two or three in my bedroom closet. When I broke down and bought the AT440mlb cartridge and installed it on my JVC receiver, I had CD4 without any headaches and there was shock. I had almost flawless CD4 with no setup or adjustments at all. Doing the CD4 adjustments from the LP, I got CD4 reproduction so deent that only some of my set up EP's sounded bad. I should say that I used the built in demodulator on my JVC 4VR-5456. I haven't tried the built in CD4 on any of the 4 other receivers I have or the outboard models. All the fusing with twice the cables (for quad) is more headache than I can take, and four channel receivers and amps are twice as heavy! If cables don't fix your problem, then try dealing with your demodulators. If your demodulators really are toast, let me know and I will dig out one or two and try them out. I am sure we can work out an attractive deal if one of mine is okay. I could use the shelf space for another piece of quad gear.
 
Also, if it is just one channel, can check the anti-skate.

vinylguy4

Thanks! This is very interesting!

So if the rear left channel only is distorting what would I need to do to adjust the anti-skate on an SL1210 where the parameters are from +0.1 to +3.0.?

Would one increase it from where it is currently set? (i'm not near it to check but pretty sure it's at 1.5 at the moment same as the tracking force, as that's what the general consensus reading around online seemed to be, 1.5 for an AT440MLb on an SL1210 and set anti skate the same) or would it need to be reduced in order to cut back on left channel distortion?

I only have a vague idea how anti skate works but thought that increasing it (which pulls the arm away from the spindle?) might affect the left channels while decreasing the anti-skate increasing the arms tendency to pull towards the spindle would affect the right channels?

Might well have that totally wrong.. when I initially setup the antiskate (using the blank side of an old laserdisc) so that it neither pulled away from the hub nor pulled towards it, it was higher than 1.5, like 2 or something but then read (on the SHF I think) that it should be set same as the VTF on an SL12xx series and so changed it for fear of messing up the microline cart and CD-4 records! Anyway gotta get back to work (yawn!) I'll have another play with it tonight I think, meantime many thanks for all your help, much appreciated.
 
When I want to make sure my anti skating is set up properly I use an old Johnny Winter album. Don't remember the name but it's a 3 sided album with the fourth side blank. The blank side works great to check anti skating. You could literally track the stylus back and forth across the side by manipulating the anti skating control. Best way to check for me.
 
When I want to make sure my anti skating is set up properly I use an old Johnny Winter album. Don't remember the name but it's a 3 sided album with the fourth side blank. The blank side works great to check anti skating. You could literally track the stylus back and forth across the side by manipulating the anti skating control. Best way to check for me.

Oh yes its Second Winter I think with the blank side (mixed into Quad and never released afaik..?)

I've used the Deluxe Ed LaserDisc of Jim Carrey's Liar Liar (Side 4 is blank, so playing it up label side 3.. :eek: ) for some time it works great for anti skate setting and I had it setup like that when I first got the Technics a few months ago.. but then I got suckered in by someone (I think it was @ the SHF) who seemed to know what they were talking about saying "set the anti skate on an SL1200 the same as your tracking weight" (1.5 in my case) rather than whatever it was when I did it with Liar Liar (which iirc was not 1.5..!) I'll redo it at some point, I just can't face it at the moment the whole bloody CD-4 things nearly driven me berserk tbh..! :D
 
ps. can I just say a heartfelt "Thanks" to all you folks here..

..really you are an amazing bunch of guys and girls (nobody I know in 'real life' gives a stuff about this kind of.. stuff.. so thank you.
 
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