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Micromega Junior - today's €8 flea market find...

Magnus Bosse

Magnus Bosse

Member
and now I am wondering a bit: It looks like a standard Philips CD player with a (slightly) different front. Inside the plastic case I see no Micromega modifications/additions to the Philips base (CDM9/TDA1543). Its made in Belgium as well!

But the sound - marvelous, powerful, energetic and a nice soundstage!

Does anybody know anything about this machine?

Thanks a lot,
Magnus
 
I used to own one. Bought it second hand in the early/mid nineties. It had a good rep back then and I liked mine a lot. I remember taking it to a friend's place and A/B testing against his high-end Yamaha CDP; the Micromega was better in every respect.

In fact I probably still have it stashed away somewhere. It was a couple of house moves ago and I haven't used a dedicated CDP for some time!
 
You'll probably find they've upgraded some caps and op amps. A lot of those Philips machines are fundamentally very musical players, probably more by accident than design.
 
RustyB said:
You'll probably find they've upgraded some caps and op amps. A lot of those Philips machines are fundamentally very musical players, probably more by accident than design.
Click to expand...

I think the Engineers knew what they were doing!
 
I'm on my second Micromega Leader which is a similar player also based on the Philips CD610. While the overall style of sound of the Micromega is similar to the Philips they are a lot better. The Philips has that typical CD harshness that makes you want to switch it off before long. The Micromega is more detailed and organic sounding without sacrificing pace or dynamics.

Micromega have done much more than upgraded a few caps. The whole main circuit board is different, the transformer/power supply is larger and they've squeezed in the DAC from one of their larger machines. Apart from the plastic box the only Philips parts that remain are the CDM4 transport and the display and headphone units.
 
Mr Pig said:
...Micromega have done much more than upgraded a few caps. The whole main circuit board is different, the transformer/power supply is larger and they've squeezed in the DAC from one of their larger machines. Apart from the plastic box the only Philips parts that remain are the CDM4 transport and the display and headphone units.
Click to expand...

Hello,

this is interesting. Do you have pictures? Mine seems to use a CDM9.

Best,
Magnus
 
Congratulations! At that price, you'd have been mad not to buy it: all the Micromega players were fantastic.
 
The Micromega Junior was based on the Philips CD618. Very little was altered - the PSU "upgraded" and (I think - was a long time ago now) JRC op amps in place of the regular items. Open it up to compare and you'll spend some time playing spot the difference - not easy because they're so alike. It was actually built on the same line as the CD618 - so more Micromega by Philips, than Philips by Micromega. I recall it sounded pretty good. Kind of like a Philips CD618...
 
Mignun said:
The Micromega Junior was based on the Philips CD618.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot! For me it looks like a mix between the CD610 (fixed headphone output) and a CD614 (variable headphone output with some additional outputs on the back). Both have TDA1543 whereas the CD618 has SAA7321GP.

Thanks,
Magnus
 
Mignun said:
The Micromega Junior was based on the Philips CD618. Very little was altered - the PSU "upgraded" and (I think - was a long time ago now) JRC op amps in place of the regular items. Open it up to compare and you'll spend some time playing spot the difference - not easy because they're so alike. It was actually built on the same line as the CD618 - so more Micromega by Philips, than Philips by Micromega. I recall it sounded pretty good. Kind of like a Philips CD618...
Click to expand...

Ah ha. I've got a 618, mildly tweaked, use it in the workshop. It's a nice sounding player, with particularly good user interface.
 
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