Grundig 905
(a JVC with a Grundig sticker)
This player is a wannabie Grundig Fine Arts. The last player from the
good old days, marking the new era of OEM'ing in far east. From this
player - it was downhill for Grundig (and all European majors).
The case and front is still like G9000 F-A but inside - oh my goodness
- it is a JVC mechanism and JVC PCB. Not that I have something against
JVC, but I really expected Grundig :-(
I checked the DAC - not a K2 or something, but a decent, 20 bit, fully ballanced DAC.
Voltage outputs do not produce much noise, so lampization was a snap.
Actually, it sounds very good. Just like most japanese players of that
time. The sound is very very liquid and smooth, with expansive 3-d
soundstage.
I would probably prefer Gru 9000 for same price and with same look, but
this "pretender" definitely sounds much better than it looks inside.
An all-plastic mechanism, (but JVC's own one, very reliable)
The black square chip is iondeed the DAc himself. The 4 resistors on
the left hand side are four signal phases. Ready to connect to the tube
grids via a capacitor.
The converter is not Philips, not Burr Brown, but the JVC proprietary one.
The black long thingies right from the DAC are 4 dual op-amps in japanese style housings.
External lampizator (silver box) during the testing.