[MartinWT]

Are those LP weight stabilizers resting on top of your components? If so, can you point me in the direction of where you picked them up?

No, they're German Schramm door stops. Nicely made, heavy, inexpensive. You can get them from Amazon or eBay.

 

[milkdudd]

No, they're German Schramm door stops. Nicely made, heavy, inexpensive. You can get them from Amazon or eBay.

Got to appreciate your honesty Martin. You could have told us they're made of cryogenically treated aerospace grade Inconel alloy that's been embargoed by the world trade organization and we'd be none the wiser

 

[OhHeyItsLou]

No, they're German Schramm door stops. Nicely made, heavy, inexpensive. You can get them from Amazon or eBay.

Much appreciated!

 

[MartinWT]

Amazon UK link:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Approx-10x...er/dp/B00UFWMWCC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=9R28J04ONQLH

 

[jgwtriode]

Damn Martin those look quite nice!. I use old transformers from old amp preamp projects and I have a couple of heavy cast metal shielding cans I put them in. But those do look almost expensive. Here is a tip for all you folk who do contact enhancer, especially GCE!. Have you taken apart your power cables. I have 4 pair of ones that were built and it dawned on me. " I have done the blades on plugs and equipment and the IEC females with the small tools that come with GCE! But GCE makes a difference on every removeable make and break connection. So i took them all apart and GCE every screw clamp connection internally on evey male and female plug. quite a noticeable difference in noise floor, black background, musical flow and even a bit more detail. Sounds more analog, definitely improves tone and harmonics. Bass a bit fuller, slightly better texture, highs are slightly airy but less hard and bright particularly on brighter recordings that tend to get just a bit hard, almost like I got another 1.5db of gain at the same volume settings. Uncanny!

Okay yanked all the computer power plugs. I have a modular EVGA 650 Platinum I barely utilize. So fans never come on. I have cheap silernt power supply as a result. I just GCED all the plugs into the supply and all the plugs to the board...pin by pin on the blocks.

Just fired it up again. Holy smokes. Just as big or bigger difference all over again. I may have to yank the cpu and memory sticks at some point. The heat sink makes memory access impossible. But can u imagine what might happen if you GCEd the CPU chip. That could be ground breaking! If you run a computer you should do this. GCE everything. You will hear it!

Happy listening,

jgwtriode

 

[MartinWT]

Damn Martin those look quite nice!.

I have 20 of them now!

 

[ray12345]

I think until further notice my resets will be just the U18 and A22

Wise choice, I never reboot my C18 clock, keep it on all the time. If starting from cold, it needs at least 24-48 hours to sound better, to reach top form it needs a week..... of course that depends on the room temperature. It takes shorter in summer, longer in winter to reach its peak.

However, even after rebooting U18, I find the C18 clock sometimes doesn't sync well after long play time, what I do is if I hear anything strange, I switch the clock to U18 internal and then external again, that apparently resets the sync.

 

[OhHeyItsLou]

I have 20 of them now!

 

[jgwtriode]

Hey Lou is that an LHY OCK 1 or 2. So how does it sound, what improvements have you noticed? Are you running the R26 from the clock on the LHY or slaving it through the U18?

Very curious.

Thanks,

jgwtriode

 

[piguetpolo]

My experience was the opposite. When I first installed the OCK-2 clock, the square wave sounded better going into the U18. Sine wave clocking didn't sound as tight and focused.

When the clock and cables are at 1000 hours, I will do another a/b to see if this observation still holds true.

Now at 1000 hours and to followup, I quickly did a test of the Sine vs. Square wave output. For background, I'm using a 75Ω Audience Cable which isn't the technically the correct characteristic impedance for the U18, so the Sine wave should sound better as it is more tolerant of mismatched impedances.

The envelope please… The award for best wave output goes to …



Square wave!!! Still tight and right.

The Sine wave saw the stereo image phase wandering, unglued, and vague. Maybe opening up the unit and flicking the switch to 75Ω on the OCK-2 would help since I am using a 75Ω cable, but as the square wave is working well, I'm not interested fixing a half measure with another half measure.

I have a proper 50Ω LMR400 BNC cable arriving in the next couple of weeks and am looking forward to seeing if this $15USD cable (with whom everybody is having amazing experiences) will unseat an amazing sounding $600USD cable with improper impedance. Stay tuned.

 

[milkdudd]

I've been using sine wave between the C18 and U18 and I'm considering trying the square wave. With all the talk of never shutting the power off to the C18 can I switch that cable while it's powered up without damaging anything? My plan would be to power down the U18 only when I change it

 

[MartinWT]

can I switch that cable while it's powered up without damaging anything?

I have with my AD clocks and it's never done any harm.

 

[OhHeyItsLou]

Hey Lou is that an LHY OCK 1 or 2. So how does it sound, what improvements have you noticed? Are you running the R26 from the clock on the LHY or slaving it through the U18?

Very curious.

Thanks,

jgwtriode

Improved timbre, micro & macro-details, tonal texture (especially with stringed & wind instruments) slight increase in overall bass definition. I run both the R26 & u18 into the OCK-2 however with i2S from the U18 I think it’s redundant to include the R26 however I still have it set to ext clock.

 

[jgwtriode]

Thanks Lou!

jgwtriode

 

[Estratica]

A helping hand please!
I bought a Gustard U-18 from a friend and the sound on the I2s output is harsh and the coaxial and optical outputs don't work.
The use would be powered by an Android with the USB Audio Player PRo, but even after connecting to the PC the problem continues.
I don't believe it's a hardware problem because when it was recognized by the PC the optical light blinked a few times.

Thanks in advance for the help.