Arcam Alpha 9 HDCD player with dCS RingDAC - a giant killer

This is one of 5 Arcam models that feature RingDAC - a collaboration between them and dCS, another Cambridge based company which sells its RingDACs for $30,000+. Data Conversion Systems started as military supplier to go later into telco and to finally end up in Audio.
So if you do not have tens of thousands, this might be for you ;-)
Also featuring my favourite HDCD IC, the Pacific Microsonic PMD-100 chip.
This particular unit had been re-capped with some Sanyo Oscon, Rubycon and Elna Silmic capacitors.
Reads T.O.C. instantaneously and handles CD errors better than most - all this using half of the laser power of others.
Will have to do some serious listening to it over the weekend.
Faults? Just a normal service of belt replacement and cleaning of limit switches. Plus the replacement of cooked LM-317, +18V regulator.

• #science_technology
• #audio_repair
• #cd_player_repair
• #high_end
• #ringdac
• #hdcd
• #pacific_microsonics
• #pmd_100
• #dcs
• #arcam
• #alpha_9