I have a Havana and it doesn't like files that suffer from clipping. I can open the files in Audacity, choose Show Clipping, and the peaks and valleys that "max out" are shown in red. When I use bit-perfect software to play these back, they cause trouble with the Havana and it pretty much...

Turns out it was a digital issue. One of the contacts on my spdif cable came loose. Soldered it back on plugged in and green light is back!

For some reason my Havana is giving me the red light and blue light at power up and won't go beyond that. It has been fine in the past. Can anyone tell me what the red indicates? Digital signal or electrical issue?

I was thinking of the 2.2uf for C33 and C35. They are 40mm X 40mm X 26mm.

Thanks for the Schottky info. Will those Rikes fit into the Havana? They look huge!

I am doing some more upgrades on my Havana and I am ordering some Schottky diodes from PartsConnexion. I have read through this thread several times but can't seem to nail down the exact type to order. They have several types to choose from:   1A 600V 4A 600V 5A 1200V 6A 600V 10A 600V 10A...

MHDT has this on for $379 on their listing page. I guess they are having trouble getting rid of them. Great price, but I wonder how it sounds?

Quote:   I would love to see a review of this. I have not seen a review anywhere. I wonder how it sounds?

They say it is an NOS dac, yet the specs say the AK4396 is a 128 X oversampling chip. I'm not smart enough to know by reading the specs whether the oversampling can be turned off.   I would be very interested in this. I have a Havana and I only listen to hi-res material. I would love to be...

Just a follow-up to my Yulong U18 experience. I had posted earlier that I got a U18 to convert USB output to SPDIF for my DAC and take advantage of different sampling rates since my existing unit could only do 44 and 96 kHz. The Yulong does 44, 48, 88, 96, 176, 192. My DAC is an NOS Havana which...

No luck so far. Kind of like the Alberta weather.;) Hope your Christmas has been good.   I tried the Audio GD driver just to see if it would install with the Yulong plugged in since they use the same chip, but it would not do it. I also tried to get ASIO4ALL to play with the Yulong but they...

Quote: Thanks for that and the info about the crystals. I did try the U18 with another laptop running Win 7 and it worked fine with JPlay and on another machine running XP and Foobar2000 it also worked fine. Problem is, I don't use those players. I have built my system around cPlay over the...

I got my U18 yesterday. I have not been able to get it to run with my player. I use cPlay on an XP machine. When I try to load a track I get the following error:   ASIO Driver starting... Output  1 [ YULONG_ASIO_Out_0 (L) ] Active (1) type (NOT SUPPORTED, type=16) > Left Channel Output...

Does anyone know if the U18 has two separate crystals in it for 44/88/176 clocking and 48/96/192 clocking?

I don't have one... yet. I just ordered one off eBay. I am currently using a cheaper HLLY type with the Tenor 7022 chip in it, but it won't do 88 kHz or 192 kHz. It does do 44, 48 and 96.   The HLLY also has a separate power supply like the Yulong and I find that makes quite a difference. I...

Parts Connexion has some Vampire bnc pcb connectors. Are these the kind you used? My usb to spdif unit has both bnc and rca outputs and I was thinking I might switch over to bnc. I was reading that a straight coax cable connection is the best for spdif transmission. 

Thanks for the clarification Robert. Hopefully Niamex can post his findings so we can determine if that mod is worth pursuing.   While I'm at it, thanks as well for all the great information you have posted to this thread. It has been very valuable for me and many other people, I'm sure. 

Quote:   I hope you will get an answer to this question. There have been many posts here saying how bad the Havana opamp approach is. It would be nice to see how to bypass it in pictures and also get someone's listening impressions of the difference before and after.

Thanks for the explanation, Joel. I guess what has confused me is that this DAC is listed for sale on a couple sites as a "high resolution digital" dac, but I don't see how it could be. What I need from MHDT is a DAC that uses all the bit depths and sample rates available (and doesn't discard...

Quote: I'm finding this thread quite confusing. The CS8416 is a digital audio receiver chip which allows the send and receive of digital audio data up to 192 khz. I don't think it does any "rendering" of audio. That job would be up to the DAC chip which in this case is the old PCM56P...

I don't know much about the details of digital, but I would have thought the PCM56P chip would only do 16 bit/44.1 kHz. This DAC says it uses the same chip yet does 24 bit/192 kHz. Can someone explain how this works?

I will still be looking for a pair. I don't know if the ones they have at Mouser Electronics (PCM56P-K) are the correct ones or not. I have also seen the list of old cd players that use this chip but those older machines seem to be just a tough to locate.   Anyway, I will keep looking. I...

Where can I get a couple K grade chips? I managed to find a couple J grade very cheap and replaced the stock L grade ones. Even that was a very nice upgrade. Tightened everything up, more solid image, quite noticeable. I would assume the J grade would bring it along a little more.   Love...

Quote: Sibilance issues with Eva Cassidy are pretty well documented. For example, this from a Hagerman DAC review: For the next few tests, I used the most sibilant CD (now FLAC) that I own, Eva Cassidy's Songbird.

Quote: You get them right from Jico here. They are extremely busy right now since everyone seems to want one, but they usually ship within a couple weeks. I bought one and already bought another for when this one wears out in a couple years. :)