so is this the legendary SCPH-1001?

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Originally Posted by parallaxscroll

I don't know much about CD audio player specs, but what makes the SCPH-1001 PlayStation rival high-end CD players of the mid 1990s?

Is this the original PlayStation that came out in Japan in December 1994? (edit: no obviously not) I thought that was SCPH-1000 (edit: yep i was right)

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This thread had me do some digging, and it seems that Sony used an awesome chip for processing the audio, L and R outs of the chip ran directly to the RCA jacks, thus reducing possible noise that later systems would get by routing it through the Multi-out jack. As far as the quality goes, from what I've seen is that it is indeed a good CD player, although it doesn't match a $6000 CD player like some have said. It is allegedly superior to most cheap consumer players.

Whenever I get my new system in and swap the CD drives I'll report back on what I think. My speakers aren't audiophile studio monitors, but they are pretty good, and my ears are good enough that I don't think that any of my current dvd players/game systems make great CD players.

with my audio systems the problem is always the speakers and amps rather than the source since I never turn the speakers "up to 11" to get any real hiss or signal noise. Almost no speaker sounds good at super low volumes unfortunately...

I got the new system in, and swapped the cd drives. It wasn't a perfect plug and play swap, but it was no big deal. Anyway, I did some mild testing with a set of decent Phillips headphones, not audiophile quality but they can actually produce a nice range of sound as long as the source provides enough power. My stereo has the juice. I was using headphones because my girl is asleep...

I tried it the CD "Thrive" by Newsboys. Not really a reference cd, but it has the best recording quality of anything I could find in my whopping 2 minute search. I popped it into the PSX, PS2 slim using optical out, Xbox 360 with optical out, and my DVD player with coax out. Here is the order of quality:

PSX
DVD player
360
PS2

From worst to best, the PS2 was the loudest of them all by far, but loud doesn't necessarily mean good. The sound wasn't bad, but it was a tad harsh. The 360 had a balanced sound, but something just seemed missing. It's hard to explain, but the music seemed to lack depth. The DVD player (A cheap RCA, I got it to play DivX files) was a tad better, it filled out the midranges better but still had a touch of digital harshness.

And finally, the PSX. First of all, this was the only player I tried that didn't sound like a digital recording. The sound was much more natural, with a nice balance throughout the frequency range. Is it audiophile quality? I'm not really sure about that, but it seems to be the best audio CD player I've got at the moment.

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Originally Posted by GohanX

I got the new system in, and swapped the cd drives. It wasn't a perfect plug and play swap, but it was no big deal. Anyway, I did some mild testing with a set of decent Phillips headphones, not audiophile quality but they can actually produce a nice range of sound as long as the source provides enough power. My stereo has the juice. I was using headphones because my girl is asleep...

I tried it the CD "Thrive" by Newsboys. Not really a reference cd, but it has the best recording quality of anything I could find in my whopping 2 minute search. I popped it into the PSX, PS2 slim using optical out, Xbox 360 with optical out, and my DVD player with coax out. Here is the order of quality:

PSX
DVD player
360
PS2

From worst to best, the PS2 was the loudest of them all by far, but loud doesn't necessarily mean good. The sound wasn't bad, but it was a tad harsh. The 360 had a balanced sound, but something just seemed missing. It's hard to explain, but the music seemed to lack depth. The DVD player (A cheap RCA, I got it to play DivX files) was a tad better, it filled out the midranges better but still had a touch of digital harshness.

And finally, the PSX. First of all, this was the only player I tried that didn't sound like a digital recording. The sound was much more natural, with a nice balance throughout the frequency range. Is it audiophile quality? I'm not really sure about that, but it seems to be the best audio CD player I've got at the moment.

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what do you mean it wasn't a perfect plug n play swap? what was difficult about it? I'm just asking because I'm not going to bother if I'm going to have to solder wires together because the plugs are different or something (IIRC theres a plastic plug and a ribbon cable connecting the laser assembly to the mainboard).

Oh no, it's nothing like that. The ribbon cable worked fine as is, and the little 4 pin cable I reused from the old drive, it plugged right in. It's actually the plastic casing of the CD drive, it doesn't fit inside the old system without minor modification. I used some tiny wire snippers to snip some plastic here and there, and it fits fine now. If you want the non-ghetto way, I'm sure you could swap new lens assembly into the old plastic casing, but I wasn't going to do all that for a $8 PSX.

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Originally Posted by GohanX

Oh no, it's nothing like that. The ribbon cable worked fine as is, and the little 4 pin cable I reused from the old drive, it plugged right in. It's actually the plastic casing of the CD drive, it doesn't fit inside the old system without minor modification. I used some tiny wire snippers to snip some plastic here and there, and it fits fine now. If you want the non-ghetto way, I'm sure you could swap new lens assembly into the old plastic casing, but I wasn't going to do all that for a $8 PSX.

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oh, ok, that's not a big deal. One thing I was thinking since they intentionally moved the drive away from the power supply was to use the upper lid assembly from a newer playstation and reposition the drive. The only problem I see with this is there wouldn't be much to hold it in place because the placement tabs would be in all the wrong spots. I'll figure something out.