[GermanGuy]

absolutely agree! just to mention colorfly europe in addition called me today asking if i have received the c4 and if everything is okay! great service indeed.

soundwise i feel back in heaven. it' s a day and night difference compared to the colorfly c3 and also the hrt microstreamer. the c4 has such an airy and spacious sound, now i can continue working on my tu-05 mods as my sound reference is back and working!

 

[GermanGuy]

any recommendations for a highend (portable?) music player with balanced output for my modded tu-05?

 

[ianmedium]

Have not heard it yet but the AK240 is looking a hot favourite for that roll. I think they are due in here in April so I will be able to report back on that. Otherwise the HM901 I think has that feature as well.

 

[xplosive]

GG you might try the RWAK120b that provides a true balanced output signal. I am also very interested in ak240. But not sure whether it will pair well with an extra amp.

 

[Sam Edwards]

Hey GG,
I can't get enough of the sound of the Meridian Director DAC. I think their 'apodising filter' is the best way to listen to CD quality music. It's also very strong with 96/24 material.
I'm running my AK120 (mini optical out)  through it and the sound is fantastic. I know it's not balanced, but I thought you might appreciate the input. It works for around 3-4 hours with a Morphie Juice Pack for USB power. 
At the moment I'm running it through an RSA SR-71B, which is a nice balanced solid state portable amp. I ordered a balanced cable for the HD800's and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

 

[GermanGuy]

Thank you all for your recommendations. at the moment i have to think of what i want:
 
- from all i have red about the meridian now it could be a nice device to be integrated into my amp as the HRT mircostremaer is nice to have but in comparison to the colorfly c4 not the sound signature i want
 
- the hifiman may be a good player, but i never liked the plastic like outfit of hifimans
 
- the ak240 may be the ultimate solution, but when seeing the price my heart stopped
 
- in the meantime i also found the ak120b, could be the natural "i want a new player with balanced output" choice for me
 
so what to to:
 
i think the meridian director will be on my shopping list next month while waiting for the first real prices for the ak240. but i think i will never buy one because for home use i then have to think of buying a highend multimedia streamer device or something like this.
 
the ak120b - let's wait and see (and wait for the colorfly c5!).

 

[GermanGuy]

spent a lot of time in just listening to music and tube rolling to verify my impressions with my modded amp.
 
while most of the impressions were similar to the ones posted before i yesterday was amazed how good the Lorenz DF91 - Lorenz DL92 combo sounds. The Lorenz DL92 really benefits from the improved bass response, now not having a somewhat unprecise, slightly bassy sound as described before. the combo now has an unbelievable level of texture and relaxing sound while not hiding any detail. Imaging and localisation are top notch, while the presentation is slightly less 3d and spacious sounding than the RFT DF97 - Philco 1S4 combo.
 
The Lorenz Combo is painting a very realistic, not only HD but 4K image of the music in front of you like sitting in the gallery looking down to the orchestra with a great feeling for the space and dimensions, wide and deep, while the RFT DF97 - Philco 1S4 combo paints a more 3d like image of the music (only 3K?), you really feel surrounded by the music, the soundstage is wider and deeper, you feel sitting in one of the first rows nearer to the music.
 
so good luck i have lots of different tubes to test and to listen to.
 
as my modded amp and the modified internal power supply boards and my bias battery board allow to adjust voltages as next step i will modify this parts again to have continously adjustable voltages for anode and bias and will integrate volt meters to measure and adjust the tube bias (to be precise the resulting anode current).
 
this will allow to finetune the sound, adjust bias to minumum distortion and to be sure that the tubes are running with a correct and not to high anode current.
 
i found the HRT Microstreamer sound quality somewhat related to the quality of the USB power of the computer the HRT microstreamer is connected to (i assume this), for example in my office definetely better sounding with my battery driven Dell Netbook than with my Dell PC, so also an USB power filter board is on my queue list of components to build for my modded amp.

 

[GermanGuy]

  Hey GG,
I can't get enough of the sound of the Meridian Director DAC. I think their 'apodising filter' is the best way to listen to CD quality music. It's also very strong with 96/24 material.
I'm running my AK120 (mini optical out)  through it and the sound is fantastic. I know it's not balanced, but I thought you might appreciate the input. It works for around 3-4 hours with a Morphie Juice Pack for USB power. 
At the moment I'm running it through an RSA SR-71B, which is a nice balanced solid state portable amp. I ordered a balanced cable for the HD800's and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Better sounding than the ak120 directly connected to the amp? That's amazing!

 

[Sam Edwards]

Re GG/Meridian Director
I'll take this combo to the SoCal Headfi meetup in March and see what the others think. For me it's a clear win. I liked it so much that I didn't spend much time A/B-ing.

 

[GermanGuy]

it's really quiet here at the moment (really hoping the thread will not be that dead forever)!
 
spent a lot of time reading everything about power supply and voltage regulator design, impedance, LC-networks and - filters.
 
in the meantime i got a lot of parts for my highend-mod-version of the tu-05:
 

 
lots of capacitors (Mundorf supreme silver.öl foil capacitors, mundorf m-lytic, elna silmic II, nichicon muse electrolyte capacitors, wima mkp4 and mkp10), lots of inductances for the LC-power-filters, high precision 0.1% resistors, small silver mica capacitors to block RF interferences, power transformers and filters, ultrafast soft-recovery 8ns (nano seconds) rectifier diodes, lots of small aluminium and iron boxes to shield the different parts of the amp, copper foil for the same purpose and shielding all the signal wires, and much more not shown here (all the xlr jacks and connectors to modify my headphones and to make some adaptors for example).
 
as the mundorf supreme silver.öl capacitors were only available with 100nF and 220nF but not 150nF, i called Mundorf and was more than happy that i managed to get four custom made mundorf silver.öl foil capacitors with 150nF in addition!
 
and i found and bought something very special i never had dreamed of that i could affort this:
 

 
the capacitors shown in the picture above are mica capacitors (sic!) 100nF 500v. if you search the internet for new ones you have to pay up to about 150 Euros per piece, i got these East German NOS ones for just 8,90 Euros each!
 
i measured the capacitance and they are all 100nF within 2% tolerance!
 
i will definetly test them with a mica coupling capacitors only version.

 

[GermanGuy]

@Sam Edwards - did not forget your USB charger device, constantly looking for and thinking about a good solution, but up to now i am not satisfied with the energy efficency.
 
btw, i think i will buy a meridian director, it is a really nice device and easy to integrate into my high-end tu-05 mod and it has its own power connector so i can provide a much better than USB power (additonal) internal 5v voltage that can also be used to charge my colorfly c4.

 

[AnakChan]

Sorry all I've been wanting to splinter off GG's posts of his mods into a separate thread in the DIY section and keep this thread as the Analog Squared Paper thread but I still haven't gotten around to do so as I've been kinda lazy. Will get around to it some time.
 
Meanwhile, I'm finding the NEC 1T4SF's I got to be quite noisy on the TUR-06. I'm using rather sensitive IEMs but I can hear distortion and what sounds like the caps charging up. It settles for awhile but then comes back again when the source inputs back into the amp. Will try switching back to the Sylvanias or try the Telefunkens. Sadly I'm still on a single Fujitsu Ten 1T4SF and can't find a matching pair.

 

[mtthefirst]

My TUR-06 is still equipped with standard sylvania from Shikada san. Try to switch to those Brimar with stamp for quite a few hours and then switch back. Those Brimars are very sensitive to vibration and interference.

 

[GermanGuy]

@AnakChan - could be that this tube is sensitiv to induced or self RF oscillation - had this problem with my own build. sounds like some distortion even with low volume level, an added sizzling or crackling, or the amp started to produce a sound like pffft .. pfffft ... pfffft ... .

you could solder two small capacitors of just 10 to 100 pF from left and right input to input ground, which greatly improved the input rf supression when i did. i used two mica 10 pF capacitors.

 

[AnakChan]

@AnakChan - could be that this tube is sensitiv to induced or self RF oscillation - had this problem with my own build. sounds like some distortion even with low volume level, an added sizzling or crackling, or the amp started to produce a sound like pffft .. pfffft ... pfffft ... .

you could solder two small capacitors of just 10 to 100 pF from left and right input to input ground, which greatly improved the input rf supression when i did. i used two mica 10 pF capacitors.

 
Cheers that could be a good tip!! I'll try switching tubes first and will also ask Shikada-san on the caps on the input this weekend.