Sansuis for CD4..Good, Bad, or Ugly?

[John Svensson]

A friend has a QRX7500 and QRX999 (?- hope that is the model) and is preparing to enter the world of CD4 playback, he has a period compatible, quality table and stylus (s)..... are the onboard demodulators on those good for CD4 or should he seek out a standalone demod unit? Frankly, if I had known about him being in my neck of the woods I would not have gotten out of CD4 myself...he is an audio repair tech guy!!

 

[John Svensson]

Bump....Nobody has an opinion on Sansui and CD4? Or is it a dumb question...like they didn't have inboard demods? @:

 

[Quadzilla]

Bump....Nobody has an opinion on Sansui and CD4? Or is it a dumb question...like they didn't have inboard demods? @:

My opinion? Use an outboard demodulator. Sansui quad receivers are great, but they are very complex and prone to hard-to-find faults (well-exploited by Quad Bob, as many people found out the hard way). I have a QRX-7001 sitting in a corner because it has some sort of capacitor problem ... not usually a big issue, but major surgery on a QRX receiver. The built-in demodulators are fine, but an outboard unit will allow much more flexibility ... including the ability to use a better quality stand-alone phono preamp, which will give you much better matrix decoding performance and overall better sound quality.

 

[John Svensson]

Thanks, my feeling was that a quality stand alone demodulator would be better and more flexible, but since I have no experience with the Sansui models I didn't want to talk out of my hat. He is the real deal for repairs, he has 2 Akai quad decks he is repairing for a client at the moment, I sat though an hour talk on Saturday about what steps he takes to repair or replace caps, ICs, rollers, belts, silk screening graphics, baths for metal components, test signals..... I must admit my eyes were glazing over.

 

[Quadzilla]

As far as performance goes, I would have to be convinced that there is a material difference between demodulator models (except perhaps the very rare high-end models). They all use pretty much the same circuitry, since JVC invented it (along with their cousin Panasonic) ... and JVC-branded demodulators were sold by a few other companies (Fisher comes to mind, but there were others). I expect the same goes for on-board demodulators in quad receivers.

 

[soundsation]

I am still testing, but I lean more towards the Realistic QTA quad receiver over the Sansui QRX for CD-4 lp playback.

 

[Quadzilla]

I am still testing, but I lean more towards the Realistic QTA quad receiver over the Sansui QRX for CD-4 lp playback.

Like I said ... "I would have to be convinced that there is a material difference between demodulator models" ... especially since Radio Shack didn't build that receiver, they outsourced it.

 

[vinylguy4]

Long time ago I tried to get a list going to see what each receiver/demodulator used.
Could kinda see what was later and maybe better.

CD-4 Demodulator Integrated Circuits:
Lafaytette CD-4 - CD894A
Claricon - same as Lafayette CD-4
JVC CD4-50 - CD4-392 ??
JVC CD4-10 - CD894, FA6012
JVC 4DD5 - CD894, TA7122P-B,A,C
Marantz CD400 - Same As JVC 4DD5
Marantz CD400B - HA1333, HA1334, TA7129P
Technics SE405 - CD894, LD3120
Technics SH400 - QSI5022
Sansui QD-01 - ?
Pioneer 240 - ?

Sansui 5001 - CD894A, VA3127
Sansui 6001 - CD894A, HA1328, BA3125
Sansui 7001 - CD894A, HA1328
Sansui 8001,9001 - CD4-392, BA312