MHZS Audio CD-66, Looks nice but is it any good ?

i'm trying to decide between the 33/66/88. would prefer front loading, hence inclusion of 33. price diff not all that impt, but no need to spend more if limited benefits. any thoughts or experience? thx in advance

Are there any new observervations of this machine. The features/price ratio seem compelling, but if quality is lacking...

Bartokfan, where can I get the mods that you mention done for $300?

Hi Guys,
Thanks for all of the information and your time!!!
It sounds like this could be a real nice machine once it is tweeked a bit.

Cheers
Bob

The only one I know of is this:

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=220028415386&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=012

The main problem with the cd66 are the 10uF electrolitic capacitors in the signal path. Very strange for such a great machine. I've changed these to Mundorf MCAPs and at the same time changed the OPA2604 for two OPA627 smd opamps. This made u huge difference. The tubes are now goldpin longplates (ECC803S by JJ).

Buying gear from China sometimes comes with some problems (at least in my case). With the MHZS the tubesockets aren't that good and with one tube the heating pins didn't connect properly, resulting in a failing left channel straight out of the box. I also changed the sockets.

With modifying the power section I meant the caps. Bypassing larger electrolitic capacitors with mundorf or other. Putting little caps parallel to the rectifier diodes (or bridges), to reduce the 'clicking' of these diodes. Maybe even using special caps such as Black Gates.

I failed to mention the audiogon member who sold me the 15 mentioned he regrets selling it, just after i sent him payment. If he could only hear the player now, he'd really know his mistake. As it come awefully close to the 17's performance.
The opamps in the 15 maybe superior to the 17's replavcements as i pd $50 each in the 15 and only $25 each in the 17. But the 17 with good tubes will best the 15.
I'll make a report as things progress.

Kevin i bought a cayin 15 tube player from an audiogon member 2 yrs ago. Has 2 6922's. he had Amperex BB's in it , one blew recently. I'm looking to replace it.
The other day i had the opamps replced and madea significant improvement. So all in all, this $550/used unit with BB's + opamp upgrade can be placed along side other units costing 2-3X's the price. As you mention the Classe not besting the MHZS, with no upgardes.
I'm sure if you rolled the 12AX7's in the MHZS(or is the 6922 tube?) + change the opamps, all can be done for under 300, you'd find it'd blow out the water the Classe. And several other highly regarded ss cdp's I see mentioned around here.
I know my Cayin 17 with new opamps + if/when I find the right 6922's will match other players in the 2-4K range
Point being there's potential and possibilities with these chinese tube players/DACs that for a minimum of $'s can be upgraded to become a real 1st class player.

I'm considering tweaking the power supply and/or caps.
My 2 cents.

Bob,

I purchased a brand new MHZS CD66 player from an ebay merchant in Hong Kong for $550.00. Mine is not modified. Out of the box it sounded a little bright (vocals) so I let it play continuously for approx. 150 hrs. and the brightness reduced a bit. I don't find it very tube-like. On the positive side, I do find it to be open & detailed. It is not kind to bright or poor recordings.

I did compare it to my Classe CDP-10 and felt the Classe to be more tonally correct but not by much. The Classe is 3-4 times it's price brand new.

For the price, it's a steal. It's built like a tank & has nice RCA output connectors.

Most likely I will sell it in the future on ebay or audiogon. Undecided as I speak.

Hope this helps. I will answer any more questions.

Kevin

Thanks. Not sure specificly you mean by modifying power supply. The Cayin offers 2 high quality power supplies. But i do recall my tech guy mentioning something about 'buffers" if this is what you mean.
He also did not highly recommend changing the caps to mundorf as it would only mean a "flavor" difference. He suggests I search out a quad of 6922's and put my money in that first. Then maybe looking at changing caps.
No i'm not getting caught up in the tweaks and forgetting the music. I'm trying to bring as much revealing to my music as possible. My classical collection is near complete and so have a few spare $'s for tweaks.

Anyone have a link to info on the newest MHZS CD 88. This machine reportedly has tube rectification.

Which caps would you change? The outputcaps are WIMA and judging by the size they are MKP10, which are, in my humble opinion, very fine caps. I've used them in the Music Envoy Monos (strangely the pre-amp comes with an all WIMA MKP10 interior, the power-amp not).
Mundurf MCAP supreme are probably better caps, but I wonder if the investment would pay of. 200 dollars also buys you a couple of good CDs. In the end it really is about the software, although I too can get cought up in the modification fever.... I sometimes find myself listening to the effects of a cable or mod instead of listening to the music.
With the Jolida I put Mundorf caps in the power supply, but I used WIMAs in the analog output section.
Bypassing the outputcaps with small, high quality caps is also an option perhaps.
With the Cayin, as with every unit, I would modify the power supply the most.

Changing the tubes is always an easy upgrade and fun. Especially the standard tubes in Chinese gear are quite bad sometimes.

Vince interesting the mods you made. I just had my cayin 17 opamps changed by a local tech guy. And it has made a significant improvement over what was out of the box great player. So changing opamsp is easy(they pop out) and highly recommended.
Now I'm looking for better 6922 tubes.
But also may change the caps to Mundorf, which will cost me 200/parts/labor.
Do you suggest changing the caps?

I have the CD66, which is a toploader. The CD33 is a frontloader.

I modified the player myself. I only briefly listened before I made the modification as I couldn't wait to open it up:) But straight out of the box it outperformed my JD100S (a JD100S is quite different from a JD100!), which is very tube-like and kind of unrevealing at times, but the Jolida won over my previous CEC-Wadia combo (which I used with a Spectral pre-power combo. The Spectrals were no match for the Music Envoys by the way...)
The MHZS is very detailed, I think the Jolida is somewhat more dynamic (this is what i can remember from the unmodified units). I intend to switch to the Jolida again in a few days, so I can compare them with the MHZS broken in.
Both models are modified, so my findings are of less interest to you perhaps.

Vince

i too have some questions.

vince, do you have the top loader (12ax7) or the fron loader (6n3) ??

before you had the player modified, could you describe the sound?? is it tube like in its subtractive coloration ? is it very forgiving of poor recordings ?, or is it closer to neutral and more like the modern tube sound.

incidentally, i owned the jolida. i didn't like it. it wqas too revealing and sounded like a solid state player.

Hi Bob,

I actually have one. I use it with a pair of Jolida Music Envoy Monoblocks and Music Envoy pre-amp.

I also have a Jolida JD100S cdplayer and I feel the MHZS is much better.

I reaaly hadn't expected such a step forward in performance. I must point out however that the MHZS is not original anymore. I upgraded some parts (tubes, caps and opamp).
But also the JD100 was substantially modified. Even to a greater extend as the MHZS already had much of the good stuff in it.

It really is a great player and unbeatable for the price I think. Especially when upsampling to 176,4 KHz.

There are some dislikes. There are no gaps to put your fingers in, so grabbing the disc to change it is a bit difficult sometimes.
The play button on the remote is not as sensitive as one would like, but that might be a foult of only my unit.
On the asthetic side there's the upsampling button on the remote wich reads 176,4 HKz instead of KHz.

There's also a CD88 out now which has HDCD and tube rectifiers.

Hope this helps.

Kindest regards,

Vincent - EPVINCE