[hpz]

OK well i'll rephrase my question and say, has anyone tried the phoenix with IEMs? Does it hiss? and how much of the 0 -70 or 0-99 volume do you use?

Thanks you

HPZ

 

[Currawong]

Moderate level listening with my UE TF10s is at 10/70. Would be higher on the 99-step volume setting, with more steps. Zero hiss at any volume level with the music not playing and the Ref 1 as the source, as I had expected. That's the result, from my understanding, of keeping as much of the electronics as possible not directly related to the signal amplification in a separate box.

On another note (ha!) my TF10s sound damn good, apart from their mid-bass bloat. I'd love to try JH13s with it.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

Here are some pics to chew on........this mod was a PITA but not so horrible for anyone with enough patience to see it through.



Swapped out the stock Thermax 18 awg on the V+ V- rails with 20 awg soft annealed solid silver (5 nines stuff) in Teflon tubing in both units (PSU/AMP). The rest of the wring is the Mundorf silver/gold stuff (24 awg). It took all 8 ft (Mundorf) and around 2 ft of solid silver to complete this job



Here you can see a good way to access the ACSS/XLR and remaining RCA inputs. As Les said last week a hex wrench allows the Data header pcb to be removed out of the way to get at the DC line jacks while giving just enough room to work with WRT to the ACSS/RCA/XLR jack. The side panels, rear pillars have to be removed....kinda self explanatory since room to maneuver is at a premium. It can be done by removing the XLR inputs and setting those aside until you have the bottom row wired up.



Just another shot of the tight spaces and how close the relays come to the rear pads.

One important note about the silk screening of the pads. The ACSS pads have the + - pads reversed. Pin 2 for both channels (ACSS + signal) goes to the - pad between gnd and +. Pin 3 is then soldered to the pcb + pad. Found that one out earlier this evening when I tested the amp...both channels were 180 degrees out of phase (it did sound pretty cool for a few minutes though). I knew it right away and quickly remedied the minor fault..

Anyway if any of you guys are thinking of a similar mod, keep this info in mind. The rest of pads for the inputs are correctly marked. The output pads area bit strange so just copy down the pin assignments for those before taking the stock wiring off otherwise you'll have a real hard time figuring out what goes where. Simply copy those outputs (and the inputs assignments for good measure) on a sheet of paper....then you are good to go

Another shot of the work as it progresses...





Just about done........the final step here is to align and dress the wiring before putting the Data board back into place..



Here is the nearly completed reassembly of the amp.......now the fun starts, evaluation

Stay tuned for some impressions to come. I found this project very well worth all the effort and somewhat minimal expense. It certainly has improved all three pieces of gear I've modified.

The last step for this amp is to replace the stock wiring to the head amp jacks and make up some custom ACSS and DC cables. That will have to wait until I have the $$ to tackle that job.

I almost forgot, before I completed this mod today I had a really good listen to the head amp output over the last weekend. The differences from stock are even more magnified using cans, wow ! A definite improvement. I wonder what's in store using some decent wire here in place of the stock Thermax ? I look forward to that day (typical DIY junkie I am) when I can find that out for myself !

This sucker took me about 3.5 days to complete (not including the time spent with the DOA board for the RE1) but that entails work on the CD7/RE1 and Phoenix. I'd say the Phoenix mod took the lion's share of that time (2 days for sure). It's a pretty simple mod from a technical standpoint which is why I was able to tackle it

Time to spin some discs !

Peete.

 

[laevi]

Has any Phoenix owner experienced the following:

I left my Phoenix on today for 8-9 hours without playing anything. When I finally played something through it, no sound came out of it. Neither singled ended or balanced via the XLR 4-pin amp outputs. The LED display works. The remote works.

I tried turning it off and back on several times. I hit the debug button several times and cycle through the memory/volume settings. I press the Preamp button on/off several times. I usually only have XLR Input 2 connected to a source, but I tried connecting a source to RCA Input 1. Still no sound. I tried turning the volume to 00 and back to my normal setting.

I check the XLR outputs of my DAC, and that works. I check the cable connections, and nothing is loose/disconnected. Ambient temperature around the Phoenix has been around 72 degrees all day with it on.

Lastly, I hit the Preamp button ON, and turn on my speaker amps fed by the Phoenix. Sound comes out of it. I press the Preamp button OFF, and check my headphones again. Now, finally, sound is heard out of my headphones.

What happened? I definitely don't want to go through that experience again, but I am now beginning to worry about the Phoenix holding up over the long run.

 

[laevi]

What the heck? The Phoenix just stopped working again while in the middle of being used! This time, its failure extends to its Preamp abilities for my speakers too.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by laevi /img/forum/go_quote.gif What the heck? The Phoenix just stopped working again while in the middle of being used! This time, its failure extends to its Preamp abilities for my speakers too.

Does the preamp LED turn on and off with the button?

 

[lmswjm]

I've had some similar weird stuff happen with the Phoenix in the past. For the most part, it functioned normally. When there was no sound, I suspected the data cable, but never could find any thing conclusive.

Then one day the preamp indicator LED went out. Kingwa sent me a new one, and I soldered it in. Luckily I haven't had an issue since.

Could be a short of some kind. Yikes and Les may have some ideas. Kingwa was helpful, but as we know, problems that come and go are hard to diagnose. Though an internal inspection would probably be fruitless, this would be the first place to start.

.

 

[scootermafia]

Swapped out the BNC wiring in my Ref1. It sure is a bitch to desolder stuff from the top. Any secret to it that you boardwork pros have? Are you removing the boards completely and desoldering from the underside of the board? I'm a big noob when it comes to working with circuit boards.

 

[laevi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by les_garten /img/forum/go_quote.gif Does the preamp LED turn on and off with the button?

I hadn't noticed, but now that you've mentioned it, the preamp LED does not turn on and off with the button. It's always on.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by laevi /img/forum/go_quote.gif I hadn't noticed, but now that you've mentioned it, the preamp LED does not turn on and off with the button. It's always on.

There are some caps in the protection/delay circuit that may have gone bad. It's fixable. Contact Kingwa for the fix.

 

[laevi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by les_garten /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are some caps in the protection/delay circuit that may have gone bad. It's fixable. Contact Kingwa for the fix.

Do you if this will become a recurring problem? I don't have the electrical handiness that many here have, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by laevi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Do you if this will become a recurring problem? I don't have the electrical handiness that many here have, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage. Thanks for all your help.

He got some bad caps that are having premature failures. He realized this and quit using them. I don't know when he stopped and how many are effected. Contact him and he will take care of it for you, no worries.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scootermafia /img/forum/go_quote.gif Swapped out the BNC wiring in my Ref1. It sure is a bitch to desolder stuff from the top. Any secret to it that you boardwork pros have? Are you removing the boards completely and desoldering from the underside of the board? I'm a big noob when it comes to working with circuit boards.

I solder from the top but I rarely add solder to the pads I'm working on since a very small amount is all you need. When the stock wiring is removed (by carefully heating the wire and the solder pad equally using a very light touch and a narrow solder head) there is enough material left behind to use with the new wire (90% of the time). Of course if you want to add some more solder do so, but don't add very much. As far as technique for soldering from the top side it takes a little practice to get right but it's fairly easy to learn what works and what doesn't. Use a scrap board to hack around on until your skill is up to snuff. I don't remove the pcb's since doing so involves a lot of extra work for Kingwa's gear (the V regs all bolted to the bottom plate are a fiddly PITA to deal with but even that additional work is easy to deal with using the right tools). The factory wiring is installed from the top side so doing it this way is perfectly fine as long as you are careful (no soldering bridging between pads,lifted or burnt pads from poor use of the iron, IE too much force).

My main rule for soldering irons both cheap and expensive is the same....let the heat of the iron do it's job and never hold it on any pad/component for longer than is necessary (which entails knowing what sections need higher temps/ power rating,vs areas that require less of each). In a nutshell 2 or 3 seconds with a iron on the average spot is an eternity. The one caveat to the 2-3 second rule is pads attached to a large ground plane or a device that is attached to a large heat sink (like a V reg). I use a 45 watt iron exclusively for that work and the rest of the time a 15-25W pencil iron does the trick nicely.

Hope that helps a bit Scooter

Quote:

Originally Posted by les_garten /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are some caps in the protection/delay circuit that may have gone bad. It's fixable. Contact Kingwa for the fix.

Quote:

Originally Posted by les_garten /img/forum/go_quote.gif He got some bad caps that are having premature failures. He realized this and quit using them. I don't know when he stopped and how many are effected. Contact him and he will take care of it for you, no worries.

Any details on the caps that went bad (areas, make and size) Les ?

I notice he used some Teapo and Jamicon caps in some spots which are known brands that put out pure garbage from time to time. I know when I pulled the chassis lid on the Adcom GFP-750 preamp last fall I was horrified to see to Jamicon caps all over the place (which are gone now in massive rebuild of that unit). That rebuild I caught just in time as many of those caps were obviously about to go bad (bulging tops and some electrolyte material beginning to seep from the bottoms of others). The main PSU caps were high quality CDE which was a welcome sight amongst other good quality parts that were kept. Anyway that's enough about that...

Incidentally my 2 large SS amps used some mains caps that are of dubious quality and origin which are also starting to bulge on the top......I had Kingwa track me down 24 x 10K 63V NoVer's to replace them with (the original make is TTNT which I've never heard of before). Klaus at Odyssey was trying to sell me some fancy pants caps to replace the crappy ones he used (at 25US a pop per cap)....scam artist that he is (amp has a 20 year warranty).........I chose NoVer at 6.50US per cap. Kingwa saved the day on that one and it wasn't even his amp. Whoops went a little off the beaten path here.............

Peete.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

Oh if you guys can post where these trouble spots are I can develop a "how to" guide that will be easy to follow for noob and veteran alike to remedy the situation.

For those members averse to such things (anything DIY WRT to electronics) I volunteer to do that work for our N American Head Fi members.

Peete.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pricklely Peete /img/forum/go_quote.gif I solder from the top but I rarely add solder to the pads I'm working on since a very small amount is all you need. When the stock wiring is removed (by carefully heating the wire and the solder pad equally using a very light touch and a narrow solder head) there is enough material left behind to use with the new wire (90% of the time). Of course if you want to add some more solder do so, but don't add very much. As far as technique for soldering from the top side it takes a little practice to get right but it's fairly easy to learn what works and what doesn't. Use a scrap board to hack around on until your skill is up to snuff. I don't remove the pcb's since doing so involves a lot of extra work for Kingwa's gear (the V regs all bolted to the bottom plate are a fiddly PITA to deal with but even that additional work is easy to deal with using the right tools). The factory wiring is installed from the top side so doing it this way is perfectly fine as long as you are careful (no soldering bridging between pads,lifted or burnt pads from poor use of the iron, IE too much force). My main rule for soldering irons both cheap and expensive is the same....let the heat of the iron do it's job and never hold it on any pad/component for longer than is necessary (which entails knowing what sections need higher temps/ power rating,vs areas that require less of each). In a nutshell 2 or 3 seconds with a iron on the average spot is an eternity. The one caveat to the 2-3 second rule is pads attached to a large ground plane or a device that is attached to a large heat sink (like a V reg). I use a 45 watt iron exclusively for that work and the rest of the time a 15-25W pencil iron does the trick nicely. Hope that helps a bit Scooter Any details on the caps that went bad (areas, make and size) Les ? I notice he used some Teapo and Jamicon caps in some spots which are known brands that put out pure garbage from time to time. I know when I pulled the chassis lid on the Adcom GFP-750 preamp last fall I was horrified to see to Jamicon caps all over the place (which are gone now in massive rebuild of that unit). That rebuild I caught just in time as many of those caps were obviously about to go bad (bulging tops and some electrolyte material beginning to seep from the bottoms of others). The main PSU caps were high quality CDE which was a welcome sight amongst other good quality parts that were kept. Anyway that's enough about that... Incidentally my 2 large SS amps used some mains caps that are of dubious quality and origin which are also starting to bulge on the top......I had Kingwa track me down 24 x 10K 63V NoVer's to replace them with (the original make is TTNT which I've never heard of before). Klaus at Odyssey was trying to sell me some fancy pants caps to replace the crappy ones he used (at 25US a pop per cap)....scam artist that he is (amp has a 20 year warranty).........I chose NoVer at 6.50US per cap. Kingwa saved the day on that one and it wasn't even his amp. Whoops went a little off the beaten path here............. Peete.

The Cpas circled in green are the ones that go bad. You can see some jumpers I was using for troubleshooting.