[DaddioJ]

  DaddioJ
 
The Z906 can benefit from a mod like any gear without audograde caps, still I would not like to working on it just to see how risky to remove the black stuff spilled over the SMD, and the tight spaces for the new capacitors is not inspiring either. In my eyes the whole system is a creation of money saving because the design aim the opposite direction what is necessary for good audio. Switching power supply, plenty SMD on the PCB is not on the wishlist of the audiophiles. The class-D amplifiers evolved in the recent years, still a good question how much compared to the old existing parts in a good setup. The Nichicons in the PSU probably from the PW series and OK for music, with the TEAPOs the Logitech is close touch with the bottom of reliability. If you decide to mod this system some parts may not like the 1:1 swap to audiograde caps, and better to discover what is belong to the controlling electronic and analog section first.
 
EdgeSRB
 
I do not have the images you need, I only worked on 2 new pods, and I had an old amplifier board here a while back.

well there was on OP AMP which was the same old OP AMP from the Z5500 R4580I series. I changed that. i am not sure which it controls. but all is good as far as sound. now there are A/D converters  3 for center/sub /RL RR/ and FR FL.    whats there now is 
 
http://www.akm.com/akm/en/file/datasheet/AK5386VT.pdf  are these of good quality? i was looking at these maybe for replacement.
 
http://www.mouser.com/Semiconductors/Audio-ICs/Audio-A-D-Converter-ICs/_/N-4gxil?P=1z0yr4yZ1yx6n13
 
also do you think replacing the caps with audio grade would be a good idea?  i am assuming the caps on the opposite side of the power board are all in the signal path?

 

[EdgeSRB]

@Ramachandra Ok.Thanks!
@ scatje Awesome work!!!  Can you please tell me what did you solder to fix humming?

 

[ramachandra]

scratje
 
Your solution to hold the capacitors is genuine and congratulation to the complete mod.

This is the first working mod on the older Z we know about!
"In what way is the length of the wires to the capacitors of influence to sound and distortion?"  Because this are the main filters you can expect increasing hum as the wire length increase. Some noise can be generated in the surrounding wires if they are running to close to them. Just give the time for the capacitors to burn-in.
 
gelo
 
You do not need to bother with the component on the analog input in the Pod. The rest is for both connections and OpAmps do a great improvement for clarity and put the bass to the right track. At least change what you have in the Sub if you want to go for the best part.
 
DaddioJ
 
Not as easy to swap the ADCs as the OpAmps because Pin compatibility is an issue. The AK5357, AK5358, AK5359, AK5381 and AK5386 is belong to the same family and just judging according the numbering no point to turn back.
I do not know the Z906 enough about to pictures to encourage you to do this or that. I have no doubt for a second it can benefit from the better components, but I also remember it took me many hours to understand the Z5500 before I have done anything with it.

 

[DaddioJ]

  scratje
 
Your solution to hold the capacitors is genuine and congratulation to the complete mod.

This is the first working mod on the older Z we know about!
"In what way is the length of the wires to the capacitors of influence to sound and distortion?"  Because this are the main filters you can expect increasing hum as the wire length increase. Some noise can be generated in the surrounding wires if they are running to close to them. Just give the time for the capacitors to burn-in.
 
gelo
 
You do not need to bother with the component on the analog input in the Pod. The rest is for both connections and OpAmps do a great improvement for clarity and put the bass to the right track. At least change what you have in the Sub if you want to go for the best part.
 
DaddioJ
 
Not as easy to swap the ADCs as the OpAmps because Pin compatibility is an issue. The AK5357, AK5358, AK5359, AK5381 and AK5386 is belong to the same family and just judging according the numbering no point to turn back.
I do not know the Z906 enough about to pictures to encourage you to do this or that. I have no doubt for a second it can benefit from the better components, but I also remember it took me many hours to understand the Z5500 before I have done anything with it.

 
you dont think any of these would work?
 
http://www.mouser.com/Semiconductors/Audio-ICs/Audio-A-D-Converter-ICs/_/N-4gxil?P=1z0yr4yZ1yx6n13
 
i think i might be will to try a cap swap.  according to the pdf the ADC's are tssop 16 but i am not understanding much else.
 
but i think i get what your saying now as far as compatibility . theres also a D2audio D2-71583-LR. i would love to find alternatives 

 

[scratje]

DaddioJ, Ramachandra, EdgeSRB.............. thanks guys for your compliments!! 

 
Never knew i was the first one to complete this mod on the older system so now we know how to do it.
 
EdgeSRB
 
The loud humming i was talking about was not the slight and faint humming these systems have but a very loud one.
It appeared that when removing the old capacitors, i damaged the solder holes so there was no contact between the top and the bottom of the board. Because i only soldered on the bottom pads, one of the wires had no connection to the top, where the conduction has to take place.
So pay attention to the soldering and make sure to solder on both sides!
 
With the new main capacitors, even the slight "standard" humming is gone now and the sub is dead silent.
 
 
Ramachandra
 
I will wait for a week to see if the distortion will go away.
The distortion is a high crackling (clipping) noise which i can slightly hear at high frequencies on high end recordings with female voices or harp
I can imagine that there will be noise generated to the capacitor wires so maybe it is possible to use shielded wire with connection to the ground?
At first i was afraid that when blowing up the two TDA amps, the opamps took some damage too but since the distortion is on all sattelites and the sound is awesome for the rest, i assume the opamps are ok.
 
My new Z5500 with newer mainboard will be the next one to mod and there is allready some work to do in this one because the backlight on the pod is not working. I saw a guy on youtube soldering two blue leds to the sides of the display and that worked so i will be doing that first. 
 
Happy modding to you all 

 

 

[gelo]

scratje
 
I changed the SMD led on Pod display, its easy and low cost ,you can recycle from a old mobile telephone or buy 6 new SMD leds ...the light its better.
 
ramachandra
 
What do you recommend me to change in the POD??  i dont know which are the ones that have to mod.
 
The fault on sub  was in DB15 female (POD) the wire on pin 14 unsoldered and in short circuit  cause on pod display 2 lines with full pixels and in a few seconds R22 burned 
I changed the 2 Vregs and a new R22
 
 
Thank you so much!!!

 

[ramachandra]

DaddioJ
 
"you dont think any of these would work?" I think all of them will fry. 

The Cirrus Logic get the power on different pin and the surrounding circuits need to be redesigned to make it work.
 
In relation to ADCs i have 2 story. A while back i had some interesting conversation with a musician, and he was looking for suitable ADC for his recording work, and we compared samples made with a 1000€ ADC and on few others down to a 200€ and the difference is tiny.
I bought a SB Titanium to find out what the mod do with the ADC. First i have used a jac-jack cable and i have recorded the sound of the card with itself. I have successfully done the mod included the analog input and the ADC. For sound cards the requirement of the burn-in more obvious, the bass is exhausting the mid range is off the scale and distorted etc. I was eager to compare the two and i have done another recording straight as i have finished. On my best external DAC i have done the comparison and the difference was unbelievable. Close to nothing. Even the TCXO played no role to improve clarity. Since that i do not pay much attention to the ungrateful ADCs.  They have their own plan, or i really messed up with the recordings.
 
On the datasheet of the D2audio you will find the alternatives. Beyond my experience to help you with advice on this.
http://www.datasheetarchive.com/dlmain/Datasheets-SFU4/DSASF4000-1741.pdf
 
scratje
 
Something popped up in my mind. There are flexible pipes used for plumbing and inside and out is made from plastic, between made from copper. If you cut off the plastic a bit on one end you have a surface to solder a wire and connect it to the ground and no need to change the wires you currently use. I do not know the name, but there are cables for audio where the ground wire have a shield connected only on one end of the connection, this can be the same. The first Z i have done had the same symptomless with the Cerafines, the top of the mid range had distortion most noticeably, and gone after couple of days.

 

[ramachandra]

"What do you recommend me to change in the POD??  i dont know which are the ones that have to mod." Simple. What is under the level of the jacks on both sides you do not have to touch. What is below is good for you. Start with this 3 OpAmps marked with yellowish green on the image: http://cdn.head-fi.org/4/4d/4d86461d_LogitechZ5500controllpanelOpAmps.jpeg

 

[scratje]

Ramachandra, thanks for your info about the schielding.
As for today, the distortion is less than yesterday so i will be patient.
 
Gelo, the glass surface does not come off the display board so there is very little space to desolder/solder and i wil go for 3mm blue leds 3.5V to both sides.
I can connect them to the blue power led of the pod because that's also a 3.5V.
 

 

[DaddioJ]

  DaddioJ
 
"you dont think any of these would work?" I think all of them will fry. 

The Cirrus Logic get the power on different pin and the surrounding circuits need to be redesigned to make it work.
 
In relation to ADCs i have 2 story. A while back i had some interesting conversation with a musician, and he was looking for suitable ADC for his recording work, and we compared samples made with a 1000€ ADC and on few others down to a 200€ and the difference is tiny.
I bought a SB Titanium to find out what the mod do with the ADC. First i have used a jac-jack cable and i have recorded the sound of the card with itself. I have successfully done the mod included the analog input and the ADC. For sound cards the requirement of the burn-in more obvious, the bass is exhausting the mid range is off the scale and distorted etc. I was eager to compare the two and i have done another recording straight as i have finished. On my best external DAC i have done the comparison and the difference was unbelievable. Close to nothing. Even the TCXO played no role to improve clarity. Since that i do not pay much attention to the ungrateful ADCs.  They have their own plan, or i really messed up with the recordings.
 
On the datasheet of the D2audio you will find the alternatives. Beyond my experience to help you with advice on this.
http://www.datasheetarchive.com/dlmain/Datasheets-SFU4/DSASF4000-1741.pdf
 
scratje
 
Something popped up in my mind. There are flexible pipes used for plumbing and inside and out is made from plastic, between made from copper. If you cut off the plastic a bit on one end you have a surface to solder a wire and connect it to the ground and no need to change the wires you currently use. I do not know the name, but there are cables for audio where the ground wire have a shield connected only on one end of the connection, this can be the same. The first Z i have done had the same symptomless with the Cerafines, the top of the mid range had distortion most noticeably, and gone after couple of days.

yes i did tons of research for hours! and i learned quite a bit! pin layouts . i also learned a lot about ADC's and so on. so i completely get it now.  as far as the D2audio chip is concerned. it doesn't seem like a alternative will come easy. as the company on sells in big quantities.. i would like to get my hands on there premium ADC. as far as AKM is concerned they make some really nice premium A/D converters. i emailed them if they have any updated premium chips that are pin compatible. i will await there answer.  
 
also the tweeter mod alone is pretty amazing. so i will finish them. i will also take on the cap mod and see what happens.  also this is very subjective. but what would you recommend.  nichicon KZ series. or Silmic II  ?   and the Silmic II only goes to 470UF 50v for that size.  so i could only do one side with Silmic II and the other side  1000uf 63V would have to be Nichicon KZ

 

[gelo]

scartje
 
Make a mark on pcb and lateral of bus rubber with a permanent ballpen ( for reposition in correct side ) and remove with caution the rubber in pcb with plane screw driver may be stuck due to pressure......(sorry my poor english) put the lcd in some place and replace the new leds ...caution with polarity of them.
I hope it is useful
 
Ramachandra
 
I want to begin to recap and replace the opas in sub. Your image from sub main board is correct? one opa for rears two for subwoofer one for center+left?? (i dont understand this) and one for right
in rears are not priority for me.
 
thanks for your help!!

 

[ramachandra]

"what would you recommend.  nichicon KZ series. or Silmic II  ?" Silmic II, or Cerafine is my preference The Elnas improve the Sub-bass, the mid-range, high frequencies, the Nichicons excel in the mid-range and even ahead of the Elnas and nothing else really. On the signal path the difference is less between the two brand.
 
"Your image from sub main board is correct? one opa for rears two for subwoofer one for center+left??" The image is correct, this is how they are wired on the PCB. The Sub have two TDA7294 in bridged application and require two OpAmps to run.

 

[DaddioJ]

  "what would you recommend.  nichicon KZ series. or Silmic II  ?" Silmic II, or Cerafine is my preference The Elnas improve the Sub-bass, the mid-range, high frequencies, the Nichicons excel in the mid-range and even ahead of the Elnas and nothing else really. On the signal path the difference is less between the two brand.
 
"Your image from sub main board is correct? one opa for rears two for subwoofer one for center+left??" The image is correct, this is how they are wired on the PCB. The Sub have two TDA7294 in bridged application and require two OpAmps to run.

 
the only problem i have with Cerafine. is. i would have to source them from ebay. and then the question comes to play whether or not i am getting Genuine Caps. i might just stick to the Silmic II  unless theres a place i could get the Cerafine thats a know place

 

[ramachandra]

The look of the Elna caps depend where, when they made and often confusing people. I have bough few thousand capacitors on eBay even opened up some of them, so far so good.

 

[DaddioJ]

  The look of the Elna caps depend where, when they made and often confusing people. I have bough few thousand capacitors on eBay even opened up some of them, so far so good.

i am having a hard time finding another z5500 because people are just out of there minds on ebay. trying to sell beat up systems for Enormous amounts of money.  i almost had a brand new never used set. until someone came in with a crazy bid and outbid me of 350  there becoming scarce