Today I took the liberty of taking apart my Precision 3S, and what I found is nothing short of astounding. As it turns out, these guys at Audio-GD not only over-engineer their stuff, they also go to great length to prevent modders from having full access to their PCB. You would think removing the top cover grants you access to whatever's inside.
W.R.O.N.G.
Here's what the amp looks like with the top cover removed:
To my great surprise, everything is hand-soldered to the PCB. The total connector count here is ZERO. To give you some context, most modern amps or dacs are modular, which means they have little faston connectors that connects the transformer to the PCB. In case anything fails, you can unplug the connector, unscrew a few screws and pull the PCB out for repair. Say, if an amp has enough years on it, the capacitors are usually the first ones to go out and that's why sometimes re-capping is the only thing needed to bring a 40-year-old amp back to life. What Audio-GD did here is totally out of the norm: everything is soldered in place, from the AC inlet that transmits power to the transformer to the wires that goes from the transformer to the PCB. Not a single connector to be spotted. And the reason is definitely NOT because they don't have repairs in mind.
Kingwa once said in the forum that he's a staunch anti-fuse guy, and he went to great length to hide the fuse from places we can reach by hand. For EI core transformers, the solution is to build the fuse inside the transformer. You heard me right, for models that have EI transformers such as the NFB1AMP or C2, you can't replace the fuse unless you saw the transformer in half. So what about models that have toroids such as the P3S and Master 10? Well, like the master of digital design he is, Kingwa again took it upon himself to make sure no one can have access to the fuse without breaking or sawing something in half. In this case, the fuse is hidden somewhere deep in the PCB board. No one knows where it is, and after unscrewing a total of 59 screws, and removing every metal plate and things that holds the amp in place, I gave up.
The same thing can be said about capacitors. I don't know Kingwa's stance regarding boutique capacitors, but this PCB is literally his way of saying EFF you, these caps are staying and you have no way of replacing them without causing some serious damage. I just happen to have some 50V 10000uF UCC high-ripple capacitors lying around, and after seeing the layout of the PCB and how everything is hand soldered to the PCB, I don't think any modders can, or will put a finger on this thing. What got me scratching my head is that this design actually makes repair that much harder as well. Say, 10 years has passed and one day a cap starts to leak or blows itself. Not finding any ways to pull the PCB out, you send the amp back to Audio-GD. What can they do? To pull the PCB out, they too have to desolder every joint and A LOT of screws before they can even move anything. If this amp doesn't use good parts or isn't built like a tank it is, there's no way Audio-GD is still in business. Repairing this amp is going to be way harder than even building one.
To sum it all up, the P3S is a nice-sounding piece of gear, and Audio-GD's philosophy of building the world's best sounding gear with the least modder friendly design definitely applies. For more details regarding why you can't mod this amp and how Kingwa went to great length to design a literally un-moddable amp, here's an 8 minutes video of me rambling about the internals of the P3S and Audio-GD's ludicrous design in general. Have fun.
