Cambridge DACMagic, anyone? (THREAD II)

[baka1969]

Quote:
Originally Posted by i_djoel2000  


" you can always ask the professional hand to do it, of course there are many in your place right? "


Wouldn't a Dac1 be cheaper? Seriously I can't see spending however many hundreds of dollars to have someone do the upgrades. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with my humble stock DM. lol

 

[shawn_low]

 
Quote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by i_djoel2000  


" you can always ask the professional hand to do it, of course there are many in your place right? "


Wouldn't a Dac1 be cheaper? Seriously I can't see spending however many hundreds of dollars to have someone do the upgrades. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with my humble stock DM. lol

 
Actually, if you know a local HFer or friend who can do this, they might do it for free/cheap/beer.
 

 

[baka1969]

Quote:
Originally Posted by shawn_low  


" Actually, if you know a local HFer or friend who can do this, they might do it for free/cheap/beer. "


Are you from Philly? Not only can I provide beer (Yueingling of course), but I'll throw in a Steve's Prince of Steaks cheesesteak.

 

[i_djoel2000]

Quote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by shawn_low  


" Actually, if you know a local HFer or friend who can do this, they might do it for free/cheap/beer. "


Are you from Philly? Not only can I provide beer (Yueingling of course), but I'll throw in a Steve's Prince of Steaks cheesesteak.

i'd really love to steal the steak and dig it..but unfortunately, i'm in Indonesia 

 
yeah, local HFers or fellow friend would be good too...and the components needed to do the mod are not that expensive too..just around USD50 and much better improvement than buying USD100++ PSU 

 

 

[baka1969]

Quote:
Originally Posted by i_djoel2000  


" i'd really love to steal the steak and dig it..but
unfortunately, i'm in Indonesia 
yeah, local HFers or fellow friend would be good too... and the components needed to do the mod are not that expensive too..just around USD50 and much better improvement than buying USD100++ PSU "


I don't think the cheesesteak would ship well. LoL

 

[debitsohn]

yea anyone in OC or LA that can ill ... well we dont have anything like the cheesesteak.. so instead ill offer money!

 

[ElephantTLK]

Well i did mods to my DacMagic. Changed capacitors, opamps, diodes... And make my own XLR-RCA diy cable. What a upgrade! It was worth money and time to do this. Bas opened up and also treble. What a change! But not best for bad recordings. If some bad recordings did sound before upgrade good now does not sound so good. But when you have good recording... No way to listen to original DacMagic! 

 

[.Sup]

Quote:

Well i did mods to my DacMagic. Changed capacitors, opamps, diodes... And make my own XLR-RCA diy cable. What a upgrade! It was worth money and time to do this. Bas opened up and also treble. What a change! But not best for bad recordings. If some bad recordings did sound before upgrade good now does not sound so good. But when you have good recording... No way to listen to original DacMagic! 

Good for you! Enjoy it
 
taken any photo during modification?

 

[ElephantTLK]

Sorry. No photos. Well only photo of parts... But everyone who know how to solder there is few things that can be changed quickly and done easy.
First what i would do is make XLR>RCA cable. With 50kohm resistor connected between pin1 and pin3 (XLR). Then on pin1 connect ground and on pin2 plus signal. That is all.
 
Second thing i would do is to open DacMagic and bypass capacitors (connect them with wire). I have photo of this.
 

This 6 marked ones...
 

 
You need to just connect them with wire as seen in photo.
 
These two things (cable, capacitors) allready change sound. So everyone who does not want or cant do more this is allready good modification.
 
Then there is a lot of capacitors to change. This is what i did change. I have list what to change.
 



Really it take me long time to do everything. First time ever solder/desolder opamps. But it was worth. Now i have much better sound. More open, more unforgiving with much better detailed sound. There is no way back to stock DacMagic. 

 

[.Sup]

Wow amazing, haven't do much soldering but its possible I will give it a go anyway. Is the resistor for XLR>RCA necessary?
 
thanks for the pics Elephant

 

[KevDo]

I might as well stick my little bit in. I've had my DacMagic for at least 9-10 months now. I've been using it with:
 
XBMC under Linux with FLAC -> Optical to DAC -> Linn XLR Interconnects -> Bel Canto EVO2i -> Wireworld Speaker Cable -> Quad 22L's
 
I've been using it in Linear since I got it. I could hear little differences between the filters at first but never A-B'd to find the best one. I have noticed the DAC can sound as if it's teetering on the (sorry for the term) "bright" side, almost like thing glass that's about to shatter, leaving the sound a tad cold at times; saying that I can have the amp at unity gain and have no problem with distortion of noise etc. I'm now trying the Minimum filter as at first listen, sounds a tad warmer.
 
Overall I'm happy with the DAC. It was initially a step-in until I could upgrade to a better DAC but I've put that off, which may tell you something.
 
From low volumes to ear piercing stuff I can follow the bass lines from start to finish, they're so clean and defined. Voices, male and female sound excellent and natural with all the little breaths and "clicks" of saliva etc, sounds gross and good at the same time. The air of the piano and puffs of the drums surround you with ease. 
 
I can't fault the DAC really and I'm still using the original PSU.. undecided whether to make the trip to Maplin to pick one up? (if so what's the one I'm after?
 
 
p.s. just FYI, my musical tastes include anything from Joanna Newsom to Leftfield, Pink Floyd to Bobby Gentry, Belle & Sebastian to George Gershwin, and a lot in between.

 

[i_djoel2000]

Quote:

Sorry. No photos. Well only photo of parts... But everyone who know how to solder there is few things that can be changed quickly and done easy.
First what i would do is make XLR>RCA cable. With 50kohm resistor connected between pin1 and pin3 (XLR). Then on pin1 connect ground and on pin2 plus signal. That is all.
 
Second thing i would do is to open DacMagic and bypass capacitors (connect them with wire). I have photo of this.
 

This 6 marked ones...
 

 
You need to just connect them with wire as seen in photo.
 
These two things (cable, capacitors) allready change sound. So everyone who does not want or cant do more this is allready good modification.
 
Then there is a lot of capacitors to change. This is what i did change. I have list what to change.
 

 

Really it take me long time to do everything. First time ever solder/desolder opamps. But it was worth. Now i have much better sound. More open, more unforgiving with much better detailed sound. There is no way back to stock DacMagic. 

you bypassed the 6 electrolytic caps only? what about the wima mkt?
 
did you change the power supply caps and diodes as well? the stock caps and diodes seem crappy..
 
what opamp did you use to replace the old one? i use 4 pieces of LM462
 

 

[FauDrei]

you bypassed the 6 electrolytic caps only? what about the wima mkt?

Output Wimas and electrolytics are in parallel pairs, so if you bypass one of them you bypass both.

 

[i_djoel2000]

@elephant: did you replace the power supply diodes and caps as well? what did you change it to?

 

[ElephantTLK]

Yes... I did replace all caps with Panasonic ones and somewhere Oscon/Sanyo. And 8 diodes.
 
Diodes i used are:
http://si.farnell.com/international-rectifier/10mq100npbf/schottky-diode-1-5a-forward/dp/1651113?Ntt=1651113
 
I did use LME49720 (soic case style) opamps... Its the same as LM4562 i guess. Just renamed.
 
http://si.farnell.com/national-semiconductor/lme49720ma/op-amp-hifi-audio-dual-powerwise/dp/1433166
 
So i did replace much. Maybe will go step further in future and replace RCA to BNC in digital input 2. But am not sure if i will do this. I am happy with that what i did get with this replacement... If i would change half of dacmagic it would not make sense. Better buy DAC level higher...