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P.T. Ordinal DAC :still valid as a used purchase?

basilio

Active Member
good evening.
I have the opportunity to purchase a P.T. ordinal with Philips 1307 filter on board. The motherboard is intact and the electrolytes do not have liquid spills. The price is 150 euros. Serial number over 70000 and perfect chassis. I read negative things about reliability but the sound was superb they say. Of this dac I really like the look is a half measure of easy insertion in the rack. But the sound?
I am a lover of vintage hifi
I ask for information / experiences about the 1307 filter (many want the 22 bit bit) and if you advise me to give up the purchase.
The switches on the filter are not set and the instruction manual is not present.
 
If it's lasted this long, that was clearly a reliable unit. PT did have a flakey rep for reliability but plenty of good stuff was made and I've always liked their sound qualities. Needless to say at that age, there may well be items that need replacing such as caps etc. If you buy it, I'd budget for spending a bit more on it just in case as that must be at least 25 years old.
 
the seller declares it fully functional, so for the moment it does not require intervention. The capacitors are many inside but I don't think we have a high cost and I have manual skills with the soldering iron.
What about the 1307 philips filter tonally compared to the other available options, how did it sound?
 
it’s quite old, so it may need some capacitor fettling as mentioned above, IIRC it’s a dual differential TDA1547 DAC output which never achieved cult status like some DACS, I had one for a while but as I was comparing it against a DaCapo which was a lot better but cost a lot more. I am not sure how it would sound compared to a modern DAC but it won’t sound terrible, the serial numbers probably started at 70,000 btw pink were never a big manufacturer.
 
There's been one for sale on the Bay for umpteen months, continually relisted, for what that is worth by way of background info'.

Digital is what bankrupted PT. They got less than great reviews. No doubt there will be reviews for the DAC available online from the time of release.
 
so I seem to understand that it is better to stay away. The look is attractive but the sound and the quiet audiophile life comes first
 
There's been one for sale on the Bay for umpteen months, continually relisted, for what that is worth by way of background info'.

Digital is what bankrupted PT. They got less than great reviews. No doubt there will be reviews for the DAC available online from the time of release.

IIRC they always reviewed well, trouble was they didn’t play the hifi game with regards BS, also the build quality was less than stellar.
 
As a major generalisation, PT digital was slated. Failure of their CDP was what killed them.

Whether that was justified or not, I have not the slightest idea, but it was so.

PT analogue kit, as another major generalisation, was lauded. I lived through the rise and fall of PT and do not recall anything being said in the press (Audiophile in particular was always seemingly very positive) about anything but the reproductive qualities of their kit.
 
As a major generalisation, PT digital was slated. Failure of their CDP was what killed them.

Whether that was justified or not, I have not the slightest idea, but it was so.

PT analogue kit, as another major generalisation, was lauded. I lived through the rise and fall of PT and do not recall anything being said in the press (Audiophile in particular was always seemingly very positive) about anything but the reproductive qualities of their kit.
Didn't they do a high end integrated and a matching cd player? I remember thrm being quite well reviewed but very expensive at the time (3k ish?)
 
There will be reviews from the time online, maybe I am completely wrong. There has also been a DeCapo (?????) CDP for sale for ages (or is that the DAC?).

PT was all about engineering innovation and clever mechanical design, with some electronic design fairy dust from John Westlake added in. They were never straight electronics design gurus, which is what DACs are about.

Why buy a 30(?) year old DAC anyway?
 
I had a DaCapo many years ago along with the battery power supply. It sounded great, I had the 1307 in mine and I really liked it. I used it with a Micromega Duo 3.1. In terms of reliability it was not very good. The Dacapo itself had a couple of faults that needed repair (poor build) and the battery power supply which I added later failed just outside of the warranty period. The Dacapo itself proved to be reliable once the initial repairs had been done - it was eventually replaced by a Theta Gen Va which was a fantastic DAC but much more expensive. As said above I'm not sure I would buy a DAC which would be 20+ years old now !!
 
you write on a forum just to hear the opinion of other fans. This is a fantastic resource!
Many can't listen to their CDs, without a 16-bit conversion, while the new generations are oriented towards liquid music, and in the meantime the market that has almost definitively killed the classic CD as a support, relaunches the vinyl, reissuing new and old titles.
 
As a major generalisation, PT digital was slated. Failure of their CDP was what killed them.

Whether that was justified or not, I have not the slightest idea, but it was so.

PT analogue kit, as another major generalisation, was lauded. I lived through the rise and fall of PT and do not recall anything being said in the press (Audiophile in particular was always seemingly very positive) about anything but the reproductive qualities of their kit.

I don’t remember bad reviews for digital equipment, the DaCapo got a great review in hifi news and hifi world had it for many years in its classic kit. They failed for a few reasons, poor QC, recession and apparently one manufacturer made “a joke” in a company magazine about catching AIDS from their products, which apparently cost them quite a few dealerships.
 
Didn't they do a high end integrated and a matching cd player? I remember thrm being quite well reviewed but very expensive at the time (3k ish?)

I remember the Integral amp, a horribly bling thing with little icons on the fascia to indicate source. Like a Chord only even worse looking, if that's possible. I had one for a good few weeks, a loaner from a dealer while I was waiting for delivery of something. It sounded fine but there's no way I could have lived with it for any length of time.
 
I've got an Ordinal (with the 1307 filter - I've not heard any others). I picked it up a few years ago (from ebay), and the caps where showing signs of leaking. I swapped out the caps (with Panasonic, from memory), and it works fine.

At the time I had a Naim CDSII (which had been upgraded from a CDS), and I ran it with a S-XPS lead and XPS. Comparing the two, I thought the Ordinal held up very well (and I was only using a DVD player as a transport). The Naim was more balanced, whilst the Ordinal seemed to push the mid-range forward more. However, considering the price difference, it was pretty impressive.

I ran it for a while, with a 'headless' Mac mini, for streaming iTunes (with a USB to SPDIF adaptor), until I decided to reduce box count. I got rid of the Naim, and bought a Audiolab 8200CDQ, retiring the PT Ordinal.

I have lent it out a couple of times, and never had a bad report, but not used it myself for a few years now. I do remember that it runs quite warm (even in standby mode), and the internal PS has a slight 'charred' look to it. I do not think this is unusual, but I tended to turn it off at the plug, when not listening. As an aside, the Audiolab also runs very warm, so maybe that just the way John Westlake designs them...

It maybe worth a punt, especially as you indicate you can solder. DIYAudio had several threads on these (and the dacapo), which I found helpful when I bought mine.

I'm now tempted to fire up mine again.....

Good luck, Graeme.
 
I have lent it out a couple of times, and never had a bad report.......

And as one of the lendees, I can say that it sounded very, very good!

Hi Graeme, wondered whether you'd turn up on this one. How are things at The Mill.......has anyone broken T5B yet?
 
It's all as mental as ever! But that won't surprise you.

Hope the Boss is treating you well, and giving you time to relax.

Better not take this thread too off topic, though!
 


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