FrankenZERO - A bang for buck exploration with a DIY Heart ! - Page 8

The really cool thing is CC, the journey has just begun...there is further improvements in store as the greenie's and all the new parts mature....hang on to your hat...

Peete.

Everything comes and goes with the PIO caps...alternating from tight to loose to missing altogether...that's the normal progression for these caps...when they have finished forming they have the best bass I've yet heard from a NOS PIO.....they simply allow the signal on the CD to pass with little effect on it other than a slight mid band warmth.

My initial impression of Frank ...well that's kinda difficult since I did the modifications in stages in order to evaluate each step in detail. Phase 1 made a huge difference IIRC to three areas over stock, first off SNR improved considerably, frequency extension in both directions was/is noticeably improved and finally dynamics / channel separation improved radically. The second Phase just improved upon these attributes even further....in short the FrankenZERO is so completely different from the stock unit it's hard to believe they are related.

I'm sure others that have now Frankie'd their Zero's will chime in with additional notes that refer to the stock vs Frankie changes ( mine has been in Frankie trim for over 4 months now so it's tough to recall all the details).

The bottom line is the collective job all the parts add to the whole. The PIO's are as important as the Nichicon,Elna,Panasonic and other caps are, as is the the Fairchild UF4007 diodes. It's tough to separate and evaluate just what the greenies bring to the table accurately. I do believe however that in every mod I've done thus far (on amps, preamps, CDP's other DAC's etc) the SQ improvements these Russian caps bring far outstrips there price tag.

The sum of the parts in this case have managed to transform the Zero into something highly musical,accurate and tuneful in the extreme. The best attribute of all, I think, is it's never fatiguing in nature and does not wear off with time. I still have trouble taking the cans off my ears every time I listen even though I know I should have gone to bed hours earlier.

Peete.

Hi CC,

You certainly have a unique parts selection happening on your Zero. I've done a pile of reading on BNC vs SPDIF jacks....it's not as easy as simply adding a BNC jack...have a look at DIY forum for exhaustive talks about pulse transformers, impedance mismatches etc etc.....after wading through pages of this stuff I decided BNC wasn't worth the effort for the tiny gain in SQ over a well made coax and a close to 75 ohm RCA jack.

That's my findings at least. I think with a hi quality well made glass TOSlink optical has the better SQ since impedance isn't a factor.

IMO at least. I do prefer COAX for the main rig...go figure.

300 hours from now CC...that lack of sleep you are experiencing now only gets worse ...sorry buddy

Peete.

Hi CC,

As far as I know those four caps are all 5V and under. If you look at the 2 voltage regulators nearby, the silk screening on the pcb is as follows +3.3V and +5 V. I have no idea what caps of those 4 are on the 3.3V circuit. I would need to pull the board and measure it to find out.

I think someone else made those measurements a couple of weeks ago but I can't recall who it was or what the results where.

Peete.

Hi Les,

Well not exactly....what you are talking about is adding additional filtering capacity for that particular spot. The electrolytic (aluminum can radial type) cap is bypassed with a high quality PIO or film and foil, poly foil...Teflon and foil...that is anywhere from 10 to 100 times smaller in capacitance to the electrolytic cap you plan on bypassing.

The advantages with bypassing are multileveled, unrestricted high frequency handling (a known drawback of any electrolytic type) or passing, lowered ESR through parallel connection, and additional filtering of unwanted noise components in the signal or power supply lines. The film and foil cap can also voice that part of the circuit to a small degree. Some find this desirable while others do not. I prefer the caps behave as neutral as they can on the original signal, of course that's almost impossible but it can be aspired to.

You can tune your unit () with careful selection, sizing and placement of your electrolytic/film cap networks in virtually anything that makes music reproduction possible, DAC's, H/Amps, Preamps, Amps, IPOD (LOL), etc etc...the real trick is knowing what to use and where to use it.

All of this is IMO of course

Peete.