[Wood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by glt /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wood, Do you mean speaker crossover caps? That's interesting. .

Yes indeed, the plasticine prevents the caps vibrating, and interfering with their natural oscillation as they charge and discharge to the music frequency.

But why was this not a problem before I used the latest driver? Anybody?

 

[Wood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordearl /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wood - the power mod sounds easy enough for us DIY morons out there, do you have some pics?

Will do lordearl, once I pull out the finger.

 

[Wood]

Powered Usb hub mod

 

[Wood]

Used panasonic fm 16v 47uf

 

[Wood]

The order for the mod,

first lift power input from the attached usb cord, you can see which is the power one from the bottom of the board, it goes to the positive rail.

Second, Led should be off now when plugged into usb, but come on only when the SMPS is plugged into the hub. Congrats, youve ridden yourself of the dirty pc power input.

Third, replace caps, this cleans and provides decent energy reserve to the power supply, check led status again should be on.

Fourth, lift led leg, this lets all the power be used for the Musiland, and away you go.

Can be used for any USB powered device, so useful first project, not much cost if it gets screwed up.

 

[lordearl]

yes - looks like it is worth a shot!

Thanks for the added detail Wood

 

[Wood]

What I didn't mention is that I tried a 1000uf cap as well when I was modding this powered USB, but found that the 3 47uf had the same effect.

I might try in the future using a higher current SMPS (the stock one that comes with the hub is 2A) or batteries. But I suspect because I couldn’t tell the difference between the Current modded version of the USB hub, and my direct supply from current regulated DC30-W dac PSU, that it might not do much.

Another option is to direct wire on the bottom of the USB hub, the power input to the USB out that you are using, thus bypassing the copper track on the board.

 

[mmerrill99]

Yep, Wood, that's the way I do it too, through an external USB board that came out of a defunct USB device.
I will try powering the clock from the on-board 3.3V today, if I get a chance - as there's a Ireland Vs South Africa rugby match on today & some drinks will be taken

Now my on-board 3.3V only powers the Cypress & Xilinx chips & provides the input for the 1.2V regulator that also powers the Xilinx chip. I haven't done careful listening but as far as I can tell, it now makes no difference if I power it directly from USB or from external USB power.

These on-board AMS117 regulators are noisy so using a cleaner PS should improve matters but maybe not when it's just powering the above digital chips? I haven't looked at the Toslink on my board but I think it's powered from the dc-dc switching circuit that the 3063 chip is at the centre of (thanks to glt for identifying this). This will be the next area I look at when all my other experiments are finished and again the PS would be the first & maybe only improvement possible.

 

[K&K Audio]

I just got a 01 US and can't get any of the drivers available as links here or the 1.0.5 on the supplied disc to produce a positive result after installation on my Dell NetBook running XP Home. I've tried palying using Foobar or MicroSoft MediaPlayer 10. Nada. The Monitor is shown in the applications list, but doesn't do anything when an attempt to open it is made. Help!?

 

[mmerrill99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K&K Audio /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just got a 01 US and can't get any of the drivers available as links here or the 1.0.5 on the supplied disc to produce a positive result after installation on my Dell NetBook running XP Home. I've tried palying using Foobar or MicroSoft MediaPlayer 10. Nada. The Monitor is shown in the applications list, but doesn't do anything when an attempt to open it is made. Help!?

You need to set the output in Foobar preferences to Musiland ASIO - have you done this? Don't know about MS Media Player.

 

[K&K Audio]

Thanks, but I would if I could find a place to do so in the preference menu. No such place is obvious...

Kevin

 

[lordearl]

preferences - playback - output device, then you can choose the musiland ; )

 

[K&K Audio]

It turned out that I had a USB cable issue, so once that was replaced, all was well. Dohhh! Thanks for your help!

Kevin

 

[Wood]

jkenny, what replacement coupling caps values did you settle for? I'm using 10uf, but I'm going to try 47uf, because I think I'm losing out on the bass and the high end is a little to bright.

For the dac ouptut on your Musiland 02 have you tried film caps? I get good results with my Valab using film caps.

 

[mmerrill99]

Wood, I mostly used Oscons that I have a bunch of - not high values - I think 22uF from memory. I used these on everything that is digital i.e all except the PCM1793 DAC analogue stage. But I've since gopne to I2S so don't use the PCM DAC now, I'm using I2S to a Sabre 2 channel Vout DAC (ES9022) with great results through a transfiormer.

I'm about to try some high value film caps instead of the transformer - the only ones I have are motor start caps so we'll see how they sound. One issue I have to adress with the Tripath Ta2020 amp (which is what I'm using at the moment) is the turn on thump when using caps - there is a nulling circuit to prevent this DC on the outputs which is the cause of the thump.