iMod Vcap dock & PORTABLE Vcap Dock - Info and Talk Soup

[brospin]

Thanks Ken for the quick answer. Auricaps have soft wires on both sides, so redirecting all connections to one side of the case should be easier. In addition they are much smaller than the V-Caps (not much more than 1 x 1 inch for 200V up to 5 uF). I really look foward to seeing an Auricap based small-sized dock adpater case on your website soon!!

 

[penger]

Wait... so does this mean you will be making a portable auricap 'dock' as well? Or are you still just tinkering with the original vcap design?

 

[KB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by penger /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wait... so does this mean you will be making a portable auricap 'dock' as well? Or are you still just tinkering with the original vcap design?

I decided to stay with the Vcap caps but might explore a Auricap version some time down the road. Right now I am making the Vcap ones. I might adjust the placement of the outputs, thats all.

Thx

Ken

 

[penger]

Ahhh I see. Thanks for the clarification Ken.

 

[WindowsX]

Ken, this won't make anything much better. iPod's lineout is a bit too weak for large caps especially in classic. If you want to make it sounds real better, give a dedicated power supply source and you'll know what's the difference between home CD player and portable batteried power player.

 

[KB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WindowsX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ken, this won't make anything much better. iPod's lineout is a bit too weak for large caps especially in classic. If you want to make it sounds real better, give a dedicated power supply source and you'll know what's the difference between home CD player and portable batteried power player.

WindowsX,

The caps are not for a regular iPod or a 6G, this is for use with a 5.5G iMod only.

Thx

Ken

 

[WindowsX]

Even in iPod g5.5, it still lacks power to drive through those large caps. I'm just giving my suggestions because my friend already made ones for me and it completely turns out to be a big step up rather than just putting big caps.

 

[stevenkelby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WindowsX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Even in iPod g5.5, it still lacks power to drive through those large caps. I'm just giving my suggestions because my friend already made ones for me and it completely turns out to be a big step up rather than just putting big caps.

Could you explain how? What do you mean exactly?

I put 3.3uF V-caps in my imod lead and sounds way better than the "stock" blackgates, imod obviously has no trouble with big caps, why would it?

 

[WindowsX]

Have you ever heard music from so called $1500 CD Player? Doing that will explain it to you by yourself.

 

[manaox2]

Why does my portable vCap dock work so well for me then?

These capacitors all have the same microfarad(uF) rating for the most part, between 2 and 5 microfarads or .2 to .5 joules on average. I think they are also all rated for up to 150 or 250 volts, which I doubt we are outputting that much from an iPod. We REALLY don't want the full amount of amperage pouring into our amps or headphones causing serious damage to the equipment or even you. So we charge a capacitor and have it regulate the flow of signal out.

I believe all the capacitor is doing is regulating the amperage and smoothing out the signal. As long as we don't have to fill a can sized capacitor with charge, the iMod puts out enough amperage to possibly damage an amp or headphones on its own. It may use a bit more power charging the capacitor, but not enough to be concerned about. Maybe about 15 minutes playtime is what I might estimate, but I am still a novice to all this as I don't experiment much with this stuff out side of a breadboard, I'm probably wrong.

EDIT: do people still not understand that this has little to do with a stock iPod? The classic has nothing to do with this entire thread so far. Only an iMod can take advantage of these capacitors. Of course the classic wouldn't benefit from this, your right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KB /img/forum/go_quote.gif WindowsX, The caps are not for a regular iPod or a 6G, this is for use with a 5.5G iMod only. Thx Ken

Quoted for Truth

 

[Vinnie R.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WindowsX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ken, this won't make anything much better. iPod's lineout is a bit too weak for large caps especially in classic. If you want to make it sounds real better, give a dedicated power supply source and you'll know what's the difference between home CD player and portable batteried power player.

Hi WindowsX,

The fact that the iPod runs on a small Li-Ion battery does not mean that the line-out stage "lacks power" compared to if you plug it into a power supply. Obviously, a larger battery will allow you to play longer between charges, and an external power supply allows you not to have to be concerned with charging, but the battery in the iPod can provide more than enough power to feed the dac chip. The dac chip only draws a few milliamps, so you don't need much power. Compared to the hard drive, LCD, and other ICs, the dac and output stage draws practically no power. The voltage to the dac is regulated and no matter if you use the internal battery or an external power adapter, that voltage is not going to change and the amount of current that the dac draws will also not change.

The caps on the output stage are only used the block dc. The audio signal flows past them just fine. So when you say the output is too weak for large caps, this is incorrect. There are no power issues... trust me

The only "power issue" with the battery is that you will at some point need to recharge it.

Best regards,

Vinnie

 

[WindowsX]

Dear, KB and Vinnie. I tried both trick and found the best ones. It's not neccessary to concern about my opinions but I just want to share good things I found. If you think that's the best of yours, keep it.

But for me, no matter how hard you try with battery powered output, it will NEVER beat any so called $1500 digital CD player, none of them.

 

[brospin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie R. /img/forum/go_quote.gif The caps on the output stage are only used the block dc. Best regards, Vinnie

Vinnie,

Why does a DAC always generate a DC offset?
Thanks

 

[manaox2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WindowsX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Dear, KB and Vinnie. I tried both trick and found the best ones. It's not neccessary to concern about my opinions but I just want to share good things I found. If you think that's the best of yours, keep it. But for me, no matter how hard you try with battery powered output, it will NEVER beat any so called $1500 digital CD player, none of them.

I think the many best audio devices ARE battery powered. I like off the grid solutions for clean audio.

I know that as little as I want this argument to continue though, I don't really believe you have tried "both trick". You do not have a 5.5g iMod and official vCap dock, the only way you could have tried is to have opened up your 4g iMod and hooked up vCap capacitors yourself. I'll take your opinion, but I believe its based in ignorance as you won't and/or can't compare the iMod with vCap dock to all of the $1500 cd players. I should make a cd player and sell it to you for 1500 if thats as far as your opinion of quality goes.

 

[WindowsX]

Well..... vCap isn't "very rare" item for us to get some. It's not "godly heaven" capacitor but indeed too much analytic for home hi-fi system DIYer's opinions (way too distracted from being musical caps). Without having high voltage like 20-30v, I'm not sure if that will make vCap really shine because it works pretty well in our experiments but we found it works a lot better with making mini pre/power amplifier to increase signal's strength from logical board's output. Give it a try, man. Batteries are meant for "gadgets" while the real hi-end systems only have "power supply" that can make system really shine with good power cords and power system (plugs, outlet, ground, etc.). I'm not saying that adding pre/power after lineout from iPod will make it sounds better like CD player level. However, it's indeed better than just vCaps.