I have a conundrum!

[Ampboy23]

Last week I got to listern to a Shanling CDT 100 valve output CD Player and having no willpower, I bought it!

Taking it home and putting it in my Cyrus system, I'm not sure it beats my Dad3Q24 which is now a fairly ancient peice of kit. On specification and price the new(ish) Shanling should blow the Cyrus player out of the water, but the presentation of each player is very different and to be honest I'm finding it hard to adjust to this.

I am asking myself the following questions and would welcome some input from others:-

The Shanling is 4 years old and the valves have not been changed - will performance have taken a dip due to old valves?

The Dad3Q24 is a Cyrus product and therefore well matched to my Cyrus pre amp and mono'd power amps. But as I will be looking at building a Kel84 in the new year, should I persevere with Shanling on the basis that it may be a better match with new valve amp setup?

I have built myself some Fostex horns and I can see future without 6 Cyrus boxes providing the amplification...but I am scared of getting rid of kit that has served well, especially the Dad CD player.

I'm sure these are classic upgrade dilemas - but I have never had to face them before and it is quite troubling!!!

Any thoughts would be welcomed.

[John Caswell]

Hi Ampboy,
It is quite possible that the valves have aged and I would suggest replacement, as although small signal valves do tend to last sometime I would consider 4 years about change time.
As far as what does it sound like, your ears alone must really be the judge as no two persons hearing is the same. It takes a long time to train a good set of ears that are unbiassed. Perhaps new valves will be more to your liking, maybe not. Note the absence of the word "Better"

John - Dr John

[colin.hepburn]

Hi Ampboy
Well I think I would change the valve and see if that will re voice the player don’t forget that you can try different brands of the same valve I would post up what valve are in the played and the other members will give you some ideas as too what may work best

[Ianm2]

hmm, i am a bit of a fan of multi amped solid state rigs, especially when using an active xover.

[Ampboy23]

Thanks for your reply guys.

I spent last night A/B testing and I am happy that the Shanling has a little bit more sparkle even with the old valves.

The Shanling also has option of solid state output (it has two set of RCAs), HDCD and upsampling and this gives more options with very good or very poor disks.

I am going to sell my beloved Cyrus and change my valves. The stock valve is a 6N3P and it seems that if I can get hold of WE396A replacements this would be a good(ish) upgrade?

Any advice on where I could get replacements for a good price?

Richard

[BOONDI]

You could also try any of the ones listed here as direct replacements....

http://tdsl.duncanamps.com/show.php?des=6N3P*

[colin.hepburn]

Here,s A 6 moons review on CDT 100 http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/shanling4/t100c.html

[Ampboy23]

Colin & Boondi

Thanks for your further posts. Really helpful.

Always nice to read a positive review after you have taken the plunge!!

Richard

Hi Ampboy,

I also have a Shanling CDT-100. I bought it a couple of years ago as an ex-demo and I'm really pleased with it. Before buying, I home auditioned it against my old NAD C541i (which I have to say holds up amazingly against more expensive competition and anyone wanting a very good but inexpensive CD player could do far worse than snap one of these up at a bargain price on ebay!) and a Consonance Ref 2.2. The Shanling easily won in my mind in terms of detail (especially in HDCD mode) and tonal balance.

If you really want to hear the CDT-100 sparkle - try a good HDCD and use the solid state output.

Re changing the valves - I think you'll be doing well to track down any WE396A's they seem to be very scarce and if you do find them expect to pay dearly! I changed the original Chinese valves in my machine for Russian military grade 6N3P-DR which I got off ebay. I've just checked and there are currently some for sale by the same guy (item no. 280176046587 - £22 for a pair pls £5 p+p) and he has 2 lots so you could change all 4 (note the right-hand pair are only for the headphone o/p. Changing thevalves made some difference but not a huge leap. Having said that I guess the valves in my machine may not have seen so many hours of service.

I have also just changed some of the opamps - the 4 no. stock OPA2604's for Burr-Brown OPA627's on Brown Dog adaptors (from Parts Connexion) and these made a significant difference in terms of clarity (sparkle) so you may wish to do this? Cost is about £100. Read the latter part of Thorsten Loesch's review to get more detail... http://www.enjoythemusic.com/Magazin...2/shanling.htm . This is not a difficult mod as the opamps are on IC sockets so it's plug and play! As the Brown Dogs are a little bulkier than the stock opamps ther are a couple of caps you may need to gently ease out of the way but I did this without any trouble.

Hope this helps? Steve

[Ampboy23]

Steve

Thank you for your post. Really useful.

Since my original post I have sold my Cyrus as it became apparant that the Shanling offered a far more detailed and musical presentation. It just has a very solid midrange. It maybe took a while to adjust to this after many years listening to the Cyrus.

I have also sold all my many Cyrus amps (Pre, Power, Power supplies) and I am waiting on delivery of a couple of amps from Hong Kong. A 'Bewitch' 6550(Puresound A30) and a Consonance Integrated M100S.

So money is a bit scarce but I think I will go with the Op amp mods in a few months. (I have already replaced left hand valves with some GE396A equivalents from Watford Valves. These have only been in the player a few hours but I think they have made a difference.

Once again thanks for taking an interest.

Enjoy your weekend