Super Mod for Wadia iTransport

All of those mods do make a difference to some extent. Some more than others.

All of the useful parts (clock and voltage regs) come from Audiocom International who do the same mods. .: Audiocom International :.

I havent tried the internal DAC option that they have. But I absolutely doubt it can sound better than a superior sounding outboard DAC, despite what they say about the digital transfer.

Of course, there is a more simple way to get equivalent performance and for a whole lot less $$$.

I went to my local hobby shop and purchased a pair of 7 cell NiMH batteries that were made for radio control cars/planes/boats/etc. I also got an inexpensive charger made for those types of batteries. I made my own adapter plug so that I could plug them into the iTransport and I was good to go.
I'm getting upwards of 30+ hours of continuous play from each battery which leaves plenty of time for the other one to charge while not being used.

I tried all the mods that Asitek does (the useful ones anyway, honestly, that wood in the chasis isnt doing a darn thing!) myself and I percieve the simple solution of pure battery supply to be better.
And at a much lower cost of under $160 total.

If anyone at all is interested I'll start a new thread with detailed description of all that I did. For the cost involved I would consider it a no brainer for anyone who is using their iTransport in a high performance system.

Here is yet another company that do mod:

.: Audiocom International :. Modifications : Wadia 170 iTransport

No idea good or bad but it is expensive in relation to the itransport.....

"nternal Wood Damping-
Wood inside of a Wadia 170i? Why not? Wood is the best for tone! This is why instruments such as guitars and violins are
made from it. We have found out that if the component can physically fit blocks of wood inside, this is a much better vibration
isolator than a synthetic man made product made from either vinyl or asphalt. Sounds alot better! Natural maple and oak
wood is applied to specific areas to minimalize the amount of internal vibrations and ringing. The bottom cover of the 170i is
very resonant and applying wood there and some other areas as well made all the difference! The unit has a more solid feel
to it now."

Lolzzzzzzzzzzzz. "Wood is best for tone"? Just having it in the vicinity of your electronic item will make it AWESOME.

Umm, why wood when there aren't any moving parts?

!!!

Wood is useful in instruments because it resonates. That makes it rather useless in not-instruments.

Please, all of you, do not give these people your money.

darn you Champ04 ...I've been flying R/C for 30 years and know my batteries (or at least I thought so) ...was thinking of doing a battery mod for my iTransport, but thought I'd need finicky L'Polymer, or lead acid, or something else exotic to do the mod and obtain decent run time between charges. You are getting 30 hours from off-the-shelf NiMH??

If so, I gather these are the big 3300 MaH R/C car cells (c size) that you are using? Please share what you did and whether it really made any difference.

As for the other mods, Audiocom has a very good reputation. And I think it was Empirical Audio who commented on some of the cheaper parts in the iTransport that Audiocom addresses. (I also have a Chord DAC 64, so I could verify their results if there level 1 mods can be done at a reasonable price.)

If Vinnie at RWA or Empirical were to do mods to the iTransport I would surely bite, as those two are both excellent digital audio engineers.

response

Incorrect: because when you factor the digital cable (more connections, impedences, inductances, etc...), external dac power supplies (more noise and more mains distortions), internal jitter and stock parts (ie: signal capacitors, signal resistors, signal relays and all the other stuff that pinches the sound) in the stock outboard dac you will find compressed and veiled sound, that begs you wanting more. How do I know? Lets see, I have tried Northstar 192, Benchmark DAC1, Bel canto DAC3, Esoteric D70, Reimyo DAP-777, Monica 3 and others with the Itransports in comparison to the DAC board that I install that is optimal and transformer coupled. I could not come near the performance of my internal DAC solution, and it gets even so much better when connected to a "optimal" battery supply.

How do you know? Have you tried my battery supply? No you havent. You cannot just connect some NiMH batteries together and get equivilant performance out of our "optimal" battery supply. The internal impedance is so much lower and it is a tuned supply. We have tried many different approaches for a battery supply over the years and found the larger the battery with the lowest amount of internal impedance and a tuned capacitance circuit, tuned to the circuit its feeding is best for sound.



question: Ok so you have tried two units side by side, one with soundcoat damping material inside, and another unit with maple wood inside? I dont think you have, however I have and this is why I choose wood over a vinyl or asphalt based damping material. The music just seems more natural with the unit the wood damping.


The battery that I use in my upcoming BPS battery supply costs about $100 and is ultra low in internal impednace. Also, I use a ultra low impedance capacitance circuit for the battery, with specific amount of silver wire used to connect. This will be made into a wood box, different types/kinds will be available.

This product will be for the serious audiophile enthusiats. There is alot of time and labor involved and cost for parts is substantial but the outcome is incredible!

This is simple. If you are using a Ipod Classic or similar product you have moving parts... a internal hard drive spinning!!

The bottom panel of the Wadia 170i is very resonant and applying wood denses this panel and give the unit a more solid feel to it. Tapping on the bottom of a stock unit and the modified unit easily tells this.

Remeber, I use this with a full blown loudspeaker setup, whereas most of you will use this in a headphone setup so you dont have the vibrations caused by inside the room with the music...

But, with headphones, you will pick up even more resolution and detail over the typical loudspeaker system since you are eliminating the room and distance factors very considerably!

True, but the odds are that soon everyone will own a flash-based player, as it gets cheaper every day.

Let me get this straight... are you claiming that the vibrations caused by speakers adversely affect an ipod, but that you solve this problem by adding wood to the base of the Wadia?

Is that really what you're saying, Crazy D?

Hi,

Actually since the Ipod is open in the environment, I was thinking that a rubber drop guard cover might work to help stabolize some of these vibrations or maybe adding some material to the back of the ipod since the more vibrations and resonances will definiately react with a spinning hard drive, just like with a CD drive. I havent tried this yet to an ipod.

The wood added internally to the wadia is really meant for the internal circuit board and other parts such as clocks/etc and circuits that are prone to react negatively with vibrations based on the external vibrations coming in (either from other components or more specifically loudpspeakers) and then being pretty ringy inside the chassis. Example: Put a circuit board into a ringy metal chassis, and then put one into a wood chassisand you will get two different results. Plus you get ground loops/eddy currents in metal chassis, but thats a whole different conversation.

I am going to try some C37 lacquer soon onto the wadia circuit board and some parts and see what happens and do some comparisons as I have had positive experiences in the past but I couldnt ever get ahold of more of it.

Just being tweaky here...

Thanks for the good words.

I dont mod the itransport because the result would never be as good as my Pace-Car reclocker gives me. I decided that modding these cheap devices is just not the best way to spend resources or money for me or my customers. IMO, the thing to do is just use them (Sonos, Squeezebox, Duet, itransport, AirPort Express) strictly as data transport mechanisims and pick the one that has the human interface that you like best. Then add the Pace-Car reclocker to it to address the timing (jitter) and the result is a world-class digital source. No amount of mods to these devices can equal what's inside a Pace-Car. This puts the jitter control into a controlled environment where it can be effectively dealt with.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

BPS is a trade-mark of Empirical Audio. This is our battery power supply that we have sold for about 3 years now.

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/frComputer_Audio.html

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Hard drives function differently than CDs, as they are in a closed, fixed environment. The vibrations shouldn't really affect them.