[Earwax]

I have a Griffin dock for Sansa Fuse. I'm really not happy with the sound. Especially in lower range it is more muddy than just taking audio from the headphone out jack of the Fuse. So I decided to take a look at what's what inside the dock.

Next to the USB port, C3 and C4, I think, are power supply bypass caps. I don't think there's any reason to change those?

R4 controls brightness of the overly bright D1. I'm either going to put a larger value resistor in there or mechanically block some light from entering the little light pipe.

On the headphone jack side there's series caps C1 and C2 and 100K resistors R2 and R3 after the caps to ground. There's not a lot of room inside the dock to replace caps. I was thinking of just trying to tack on some sort of bypass cap with what's already there. I have some Russion PIOs, the smaller values might fit in there. Or I probably have some MKTs laying around. I was hoping to try some Aerovox but the ones I have appear to be to big.

If I take the existing caps out, the only thing I have on hand to replace them would be a panasonic FM and there might still be enough room for some small film bypass cap.

I don't want to destroy the board with repeated soldering installing different combinations, so I'm open for suggestions.

I did look at some of the ipod dock threads, but they all seem to use huge expensive caps. Think low budget.

 

[pdupiano]

check for some cheap blackgates approx 5 each. Check percy audio and sonic craft. Unfortunately shipping will be another 6 bucks so order some other diy stuff while you're there.

 

[average_joe]

@Earwax - how did your dock turn out?

I just got a griffin dock and there are more issues with this dock than just the capacitors. Personally I think it sounds worse than the HP out.

I did solder new caps/resistors to the board, which helped a great deal, but the treble was tinny. I thought it was the copper on the etch board (not a PCB), but think it is due to the aluminum ribbon cable.

So the best thing to do is to bypass the ribbon cable and board all together, just soldering to the breakout board and jack. When you bypass the copper board/ribbon cable you should cut the connection to audio ground somewhere in the path. I cut this connection at the ribbon cable/etch board solder joint.

Oh, and I used Nichicon KZ series resistors, as I personally think they sound better than Black Gates.

 

[Earwax]

I haven't done anything with the dock yet. I basicly haven't done any DIY over the summer.

 

[average_joe]

OK, cool. Maybe if you can do a before and after comparison, or even a before comparison vs. the HP out. I am very interested to see what others hear and if it matches my experience.