Quote:
Originally Posted by rumatt
I followed up saying that I don't want to make things "harsh", and he said...
So now I don't know whether to upgrade. Does anyone else have thoughts on the effects of the TCXO? And once you upgrade, you can't go back because you have to cut out those little yellow thingies (whatever they are). Maybe I need a second citypulse to compare.
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I found that the TCXO made the treble much finer, not harsh. Many units shipped the the oscillator socketed, so there is no cutting of anything, just unplug the existing oscillator and plug the TCXO in. So you can check by taking the cover off (which is actually harder than replacing the socketed oscillator).
To open case - start by pulling volume knob off, 4 front screws, front panel, unplug 2 connectors, then two right underneath screws, then middle rear and right rear screws, then slide right side of case forward)
With the TCXO and considerable burn-in of the whole unit, the frequency response evens out considerably.
The mods I recommend are:
*Ceramic fuse and heat shrink around fuse chassis
*Use proper 75ohm BNC instead of RCA digital connector
*Replace analog RCAs with gold/copper RCAs (at least some vampires)
*High guage power cord with ground wire (chassis is connected to IEC ground and benefits from a power cable with ground)
*TCXO upgrade
*LOTS of vibration control - herbies or sorbothane feet, teflon tape or bluetac on caps and TCXO (tapping the chassis even lightly seems to get amplified by the structure and makes the components on the PCB shake considerably especially the vibration sensitive oscillator and large caps)
*Contact enhancement (I use Quicksilver Gold) on all internal connections (DONT do this unless you really know what you are doing and have done this successfully before)
Mods that didnt help:
*ERS cloth (negligable difference)
*Rectifying diodes (fast shottkys made it sound worse - reverted to stock ones whihc sound better)
After all of this my only complaint is that some parts of the high frequencies occasionaly sound a little metallic. Its pretty rare but its sometimes noticeable on some high hats on some tracks. Ive talked to Eddie about this and he LOVES this crispness and reverted back to the Nichicon caps to get this sound back. Others have changed the caps to smooth this out - which is my next step.