[FARfromHOME]

Sorry for not explaining myself clearly.
 
I listen without caps. Using portable recorder.
I'm trying different caps in order to make it usable with other gear.
So far my favorites are: film- Wima 22uF 5%, electrolytic (have not done much listening due to low resistor tolerance 20%)- Nichicon KZ 47uF

 

[DMinor]

  Sorry for not explaining myself clearly.
 
I listen without caps. Using portable recorder.
I'm trying different caps in order to make it usable with other gear.
So far my favorites are: film- Wima 22uF 5%, electrolytic (have not done much listening due to low resistor tolerance 20%)- Nichicon KZ 47uF

 
Interesting. Why are you not concerned about the dc offsets from ipod LOD to your portable recorder? Have you ever measured the dc offsets from ipod's LOD using the direct-out mod without caps? Can you post a pic showing how the ipod is connected to your portable recorder?  Thanks.

 

[FARfromHOME]

I connect lod to "line in" in recorder. I have not measured dc offset. Suspect it to be pretty high. When using the recored with microphones the input levels have to be around 8 (max: 10). With imod around 2. 

 

[DMinor]

How does it sound on your recorder (without caps) compared to LOD to your other amp's (with caps)?
 
Actually my amp maker told me the amp has no problem receiving a few volts of dc offsets, although the highest dc offset I have measured so far was around 1.2 volts. I was also told the amp (I have) will cancel the dc offsets immediately before the audio output to the iem's.
 
What's interesting is these high-capacitance caps never keep constant dc offsets and they fluctuate all the time. It really doesn't bother me as long as there are no harms to my gears or I don't hear any distortions to the sound.

 

[FARfromHOME]

Love it without caps! Probably closest to the original recording? The problem (imo) with film caps is loosing bass.22uF does not cut off as much as 47uF. 
I briefly tried Nichicon KZ 47uF 25V and was surprised. It does not seem to cut bass at all? But tolerance is 20% witch makes it inferior to film caps. 

 

[DMinor]

If you ears tell you those Nichicon caps sound better why bother with the 20% tolerance?
 
One thing I thought about the mod is to go a little bit further and try to disable and/or remove the junks from the PCB and just leave things barely needed for LOD. Even tho the internal amp is bypassed with the direct-out mod, at the same time the headphone line out is still sending audio. We don't know how and/or if this thing affects the SQ, well at least we know it draws power from battery. So I would like to disable/remove the unnecessary things, hopefully without killing the PCB.

 

[FARfromHOME]

Nichicon's are only better in bass. Film caps are overall winners.
Do you know signal route on pcb?

 

[DMinor]

I don't know about the signal route. But I think one can throw away the phone jack cable (unless you need that hold switch). Also even with the wires directly from the dac to the lod pins, we can still remove those unnecessary caps and/or resistors used by the internal amp.

 

[FARfromHOME]

Let us know how much you'll be able to remove/disable.

 

[DMinor]

Now on LOD, I have some good news about mixing the wires again and here is my favorite LOD up to this point of all the LOD's I have tried.
 
R Channel: Toxic Silver Poison
L Channel:  Qables Silver/Gold
Ground 1: Plussound 26 AWG 7N Pure UP-OCC Cryo Copper Litz Custom Wire
Ground 2: Homegrown Pure Copper
 
My take is the mixed R and L wires make the primary difference, and I feel the silver/gold wire must be one of them.
 
Try guys and you don't have to try exactly what I did. In fact, your gears may be different from mine and my results may not be yours.

 

[FARfromHOME]

Got some big ones today:
 

 


These are Metallized Polypropylene. 
I recently made a mistake getting .47 instead of 4.7uF... Should not order online when tired...

 

[thegrobe]

Got some big ones today:








These are Metallized Polypropylene. 
I recently made a mistake getting .47 instead of 4.7uF... Should not order online when tired...

I used very similar polypropylene caps in my mod- except mkp10. 3.3uf/250/10. Put them in an altoids tin attached to the back of the iPod. Nice sound but big! A little improvement over polyester film caps, and big improvement over any electrolytics.

 

[beacon1993]

Hi is it possible to reupp the frist page ?

 

[Rebkos]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bsjfcx34cguw42h/first%20page%20diymod.rar
 
there you go

 

[DR650SE]

I'm so pumped right now. Just got the notification email that my iMod has been shipped from Red Wine Audio. Had my 5.5G iMod sent in since I can't do it here as I'm deployed overseas. Should be shipping with the ALO LOD. Can't wait to hear it. Should be here in two weeks. Going to be pairing it with my Fiio E17 and DT 880 250ohm cans

I had also modded the iMod with the CF adaptor, 128GB SD card, new battery, (highest capacity I could find) and a clear front faceplate.

Should definitely be a unique iPod/setup. That email just made my day.

Sent from XT912 / CM10.2