[harkamus]

The same guy that is making my custom PPA says that the op amps on soundcards suck, so he's willing to swap the op amps from my Audigy 2 ZS with some ADA8610s.

Was just curious if this is common practice or not.

 

[xtreme4099]

ad8620's ... i started a thread a while back on swapping opamps on the m audio revo ... you might want to talk to glassman about that ... he might of done it with the audigy cards by now too.

 

[dariusf]

you mean like overclocking

 

[xtreme4099]

heh you its too bad you cant simply overclock your soundcard to get better sound ....**** dood i got 24bit 192khz dvd-audio sacd just cause i put a heatsink on the opamps and overclocked it by 292mhz !!! i wonder what would happen if we watercooled....

 

[Glassman]

I have already modded Audigy2 with AD8620 for one of my friends.. it became a soundcard finaly

 

[jim]

I read somewhere about replacing sound card caps with black gates a while back. I think it was for a m-audio sonica or something like that.

overclocking eh? If you increase your system bus, I wonder if the sound quality decreases... wouldn't you be more likely to introduce corruption?

 

[xtreme4099]

i was joking there...

 

[badmonkey]

Quote:

Originally posted by xtreme4099 ad8620's ... i started a thread a while back on swapping opamps on the m audio revo ... you might want to talk to glassman about that ... he might of done it with the audigy cards by now too.

Hey I have an M-Audio Revo... xtreme4099 did you mod yours? Can you give me the link to that thread... and/or what are the advantages of swapping the opamps (how does the sound change)?

 

[asdfeproiu9]

I had my Audigy 2 modded as well, with AD8620 op-amps and various other changes. It sounds much better than before; much better than stock M-Audio Revo! However, I've 'moved on' to an integrated Sony receiver / player. [plug] Anyway, the modded Audigy 2 for sale right now if anybody is interested. [/plug]

 

[tortie]

Can't you just bypass the opamp of the soundcard since the soundcard will just go straight to the headphone amp? Will this work? And if so, will it sound better?

 

[fewtch]

Any card using NE5532, btw... despite all the claims of this op-amp sounding "crappy," be aware that you don't get much sonic signature from it (to my ears anyway) when the card is properly amped.

I'm really hearing nothing people claim the 5532 sounds like with card amped by a Headsave Ultra (AD8620), but am definitely hearing an AD8620 signature sound. Probably because the amp is driving the cans and handling the full resistive/capacitive load, not the card.

Fwiw, YMMV and all the usual disclaimers... (but it may be yet another reason why amping a soundcard is almost always a better idea than plugging a pair of headphones into the card).