[Random Murderer]

yes it does.

 

[Super_Guy]

Ok, Thanks for answers. appreciate it much.

i wonder one thing to, will a cheapy panasonic capacitor work better then the orginal on x-fi? will it performe much weaker compare to Blackgates ones in that case?

Specs:
Application:Audio; Capacitance:1000µF; Tolerance, capacitance:±20%; Series:AM; Voltage, rating:16V dc; Capacitor dielectric type:Aluminium Electrolytic; Case style:Radial; Pitch, lead:5mm; Tempera;

 

[fierce_freak]

I'm probably going to finally mod my X-Fi. Are the instructions laid out in the first post still considered the best mods to do, or has that evolved in the past 185 pages?

 

[Apocalypsee]

Guys, I wanted to ask, is it worth to upgrade from X-Fi XtremeMusic to Elite Pro? Because I can get Elite Pro for very cheap price, don't recommend any other card please. I want people who actually test both cards

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super_Guy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ok, Thanks for answers. appreciate it much. i wonder one thing to, will a cheapy panasonic capacitor work better then the orginal on x-fi? will it performe much weaker compare to Blackgates ones in that case? Specs: Application:Audio; Capacitance:1000µF; Tolerance, capacitance:±20%; Series:AM; Voltage, rating:16V dc; Capacitor dielectric type:Aluminium Electrolytic; Case style:Radial; Pitch, lead:5mm; Tempera;

I guess it will be an upgrade from stock caps

Quote:

Originally Posted by fierce_freak /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm probably going to finally mod my X-Fi. Are the instructions laid out in the first post still considered the best mods to do, or has that evolved in the past 185 pages?

There are lots of other mod you can do, but the front page is the mod that brings the best audible sound difference

 

[Random Murderer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Super_Guy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ok, Thanks for answers. appreciate it much. i wonder one thing to, will a cheapy panasonic capacitor work better then the orginal on x-fi? will it performe much weaker compare to Blackgates ones in that case? Specs: Application:Audio; Capacitance:1000µF; Tolerance, capacitance:±20%; Series:AM; Voltage, rating:16V dc; Capacitor dielectric type:Aluminium Electrolytic; Case style:Radial; Pitch, lead:5mm; Tempera;

in the case of the power filter cap, your best bet is to NOT get an audio cap. see if you can find a solid polymer cap instead, it will reduce ripple the most and last the longest.

 

[fierce_freak]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apocalypsee /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are lots of other mod you can do, but the front page is the mod that brings the best audible sound difference

Cool, thanks Apocalypsee. Could you give me a brief description of any other mods if you have time? Thanks in advance if you can

 

[Apocalypsee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fierce_freak /img/forum/go_quote.gif Cool, thanks Apocalypsee. Could you give me a brief description of any other mods if you have time? Thanks in advance if you can

Other mods that I know (and some tested)
- bypass muting transistor
- recap the whole card
- remove unneeded caps

Look at trodas thread here for the mods I mentioned. Maybe other more mods you can do, but I'll add here if I remember/found them

 

[Salvador]

To summarize:

- got it modded by some guy locally (LTFransky)

- replaced all opamps with LM4562MA and LME49860MA opamps.

- upgraded cap

- all channels work fine except for center/sub. There's a loud sound that I can best describe as someone blowing to a mic. If you play something you can still hear what's playing although it's faint.

- Also i was using with just the two front channels, it would play fine but it would randomly just lose sound and sometimes crash the pc. After a reboot it's ok again.

 

[Salvador]

anybody?

 

[sgrossklass]

Sounds like the opamp for center/sub is oscillating. Soldering should be double-checked. Ditto for buffer caps on voltages affecting the X-Fi chip.

 

[robert.e]

Hi everyone,

This thread has been a very interesting read

Salvador, I think your problem with the card dying randomly could be caused by the large capacitor by the DSP. I know someone in this forum said that there is no benefit increasing the capacitance to over about 470uF, since that part of the circuit only powers the DSP and therefore shouldn't influence the analogue sound of the card.

I tried most of the mods in this forum just to find out for myself what the effect on sound is. Replacing the power cap by a 3300uF one caused my computer not to boot, a 1100uF one caused the soundcard not to be detected in windows. Another 220uF in parallel with the old one (440uF total) worked but had no discernible effect on the sound.

I built a relay circuit so that I could switch between 3 audio channels on the fly. I used it to switch between the front L/R and rear L/R output of the soundcard to the front L/R input on my amplifier. (HK AVR140, Wharfedale Diamond 9.5's, Sennheiser HD202). Set all speakers to large. Set the CMSS-3D surround to Stereo Surround with center balancing, to get the same sound going to the front and rear channels.

Firstly I bridged out the DC-decoupling caps between the DAC and the front channel opamp, but not on the other opamps. Found that I couldn't detect a difference in sound at all. (Tested listening to MP3's and Music DVD's (192Khz Stereo PCM, AC3Filter), headphones and speakers, and switching between the channels during playback for immediate comparison). This also created a DC offset of about 180mV.

I then replaced the front channel opamp (4556 - X-fi extrememusic) with a NS LME49722, which is a drop in replacement for the 4562 and compared the sound of this opamp to the remaining 4558's on the card.

I was really hoping to hear a difference, but alas, I can for the life of me, on my equipment, not hear the slightest difference. And that's not because I'm deaf either

In the end I replaced all the opamps with the LME's, just for conformity and the fact that these chips have better specs across the board than the old opamps, and the LME's have no problems driving my HD202's directly. Oh and it was fun to do

Oh and Salvador, looking at the pics you posted, it looks like the opamps and the surrounding components might have gotten more heat than they should have... don't know if there's anything you can do about it now though.

 

[sgrossklass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by robert.e /img/forum/go_quote.gif Salvador, I think your problem with the card dying randomly could be caused by the large capacitor by the DSP. I know someone in this forum said that there is no benefit increasing the capacitance to over about 470uF, since that part of the circuit only powers the DSP and therefore shouldn't influence the analogue sound of the card. I tried most of the mods in this forum just to find out for myself what the effect on sound is. Replacing the power cap by a 3300uF one caused my computer not to boot, a 1100uF one caused the soundcard not to be detected in windows. Another 220uF in parallel with the old one (440uF total) worked but had no discernible effect on the sound.

I'd guess that the series inductance and resulting bad performance at high freqs when using much bigger 'lytics wreaks havoc with DSP stability. I would recommend to either:
1. slap on a ceramic bypass cap of like 4µ7..10µ on the back of the card (even if you decide to keep the original 220µ), which should not only fix the stability issues when using pointlessly large caps but also reduce power dissipation inside the electrolytic (as the high freqs are kept off), which in turn would thank it with a longer life.
OR
2. replace that 220µ with a solid-state electrolytic (e.g. Sanyo OS-CON) if you can get hold of 'em. Lower ESR, longer life.

Solid-state 'lytics would make equally good replacements for other buffer caps but by no means should be used as coupling caps, as their high leakage current kills them for this application (Sanyo explicitly warns about this).

 

[robert.e]

Hi sgrossklass, thank you for the advice. The reason I tried those specific caps was because I had them lying around. In the beginning of this thread a lot of people seemed convinced that the bigger the cap there, the better the sound... I wasn't convinced of this and had to try it for myself

I think I'm done with the card now and I'll keep the original cap in there.

 

[Salvador]

Thanks for the advice guys. It seems like LTFranksy didn't do to well of a job soldering the opamps.

I handed of the card to someone with more experience. I'll let him know about what you guys said.

 

[Lokonsky]

I put wrong cap in X-Fi (1000uF 6.3v nichicon FG) in c74 (12 V) and strangely enough i can play movies and songs fine!!!! It's really 12 v or do i miss something?