RenEh
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2017
- Posts
- 179
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- 120
Well I’m glad you’re excitedThank you! So you were able to mount the laser collection pot inside the case.. Nice! Can you share a picture of how it looks now? Did you remove the relay that's in the way? Is it Bypassed? Relocated?
Sorry for all the questions... I think your solution is the one to go for. I was heavily thinking of getting a 64 step relay based volume control board and mount it upside down so it wouldn't interfere with anything on the main board. But looking carefully at the board design, If the board is mounted that way... most of the board would be outside the case, and I could not enclose it. Other boards I looked at have taller capacitors that would get in the way as well and the boards are bigger. I also looked at a small chip based board using a MUSES chip.. looks nice, but it's expensive and again... it also has tall SMDs and they would all need an external 5v or 12v power source for those boards to run. In the end, I think the juice is not worth the squeeze.
So I decided to follow up on your solution. It's the simplest and just going by your experience, it also seems to be working as intended and it's an actual improvement over the original part performance wise. I feel this could be a great mod for others to follow and extend the life of this amp. For me, this would be IT while I can save to get a higher end amp after first getting a higher end pair of headphones. So thank you for your contribution
I ended up removing the relay. It turns out that it is for muting the circuit when you insert things single ended. Hypothetically I could replace it, but I haven’t gotten around to it, maybe next Digi-Key order.I did end up adding 6800uf 16v caps where the empty caps are and had no issues with in rush current with my Jameco linear regulated power supply. This should hypothetically reduce ripple current by over a factor of 2. Finally I added two metal film By-pass capacitors near the op amp. 0.1uf and 1uf.
Sadly this doesn’t do much for this amp headphone wise in the sound department. For BA iem though… frick it stages like a tube amp, a really good tube amp. This was always a good amp for BA iem’s but now it’s next level. It was a fun and fairly cheap exercise, but I’m probably done with this thing.
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