Garbz
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- May 19, 2004
- Posts
- 3,573
- Likes
- 14
Hi all
This is copied form my headwize. I'm trying to reach a large audience.
I'm thinking of modding the M-Audio Transit. It's a beautiful little soundcard, and for $70USD it blew me away for quality. Out of curiosity I opened it up and saw 2 cheap and nasty electrolytic caps on the output. When i posted my review here we started to toss around the idea of modifications. As i don't want to run into power supply problems i've decided not to mess with the opamp. Afterall it gives outstanding line-out performance running from less than 5v.
For thoes people who are unsure what i'm talking about first a few background pics / info. This is the baby and an explicitly erotic picture too.
Basically it uses an AKM4584 audio codec which performs remarkably and is used in a few professional cards. THen it runs through an LMV722 amplifier and then into the output.
I'm not sure if this trace is correct. It appears to be running in unity gain from a single ended source, through an output cap pictured above.
The only problem might be as expressed here:
There's not a lot of lead spaceing to substitute capacitors which may limit choice. I think that film caps may not fit.
Anyway to the details. I'm tossing around the idea of replacing the caps with something a little more linear and less abusive to the audio signal. Ideally this would be non-electrolytic but like i mentioned above i'm limited by the 10uf 25v requiremnets and the size of the leads.
However I'm sure that replcement ELNA or Black Gates will fit. Since I may be ordering a case from THL Audio in a few months Black Gates, ELNAs, and other niceities are within my reach without paying for postage
Black Gates are the first that popped into my mind because of firstly reputation and secondly CD player. It's a Harman Kardon HD7500 and although it's OLD (i.e. All discreet DAC old) It sounds wonderful with the exception of slighly inacuracies in the bass (but it was free so I can't complain). Anyway the 7500 uses Panasonic caps for all power requirements and Black Gates for anything that is sitting in the audio path.
What are you ideas on the mod. What caps can I choose from. Does the move from electrolytics to non-polarised matter? There is a SMD cap already linked to ground and a few resistors around there. Will they effect the way I can impliment this?
This is copied form my headwize. I'm trying to reach a large audience.
I'm thinking of modding the M-Audio Transit. It's a beautiful little soundcard, and for $70USD it blew me away for quality. Out of curiosity I opened it up and saw 2 cheap and nasty electrolytic caps on the output. When i posted my review here we started to toss around the idea of modifications. As i don't want to run into power supply problems i've decided not to mess with the opamp. Afterall it gives outstanding line-out performance running from less than 5v.
For thoes people who are unsure what i'm talking about first a few background pics / info. This is the baby and an explicitly erotic picture too.
Basically it uses an AKM4584 audio codec which performs remarkably and is used in a few professional cards. THen it runs through an LMV722 amplifier and then into the output.
I'm not sure if this trace is correct. It appears to be running in unity gain from a single ended source, through an output cap pictured above.
The only problem might be as expressed here:
There's not a lot of lead spaceing to substitute capacitors which may limit choice. I think that film caps may not fit.
Anyway to the details. I'm tossing around the idea of replacing the caps with something a little more linear and less abusive to the audio signal. Ideally this would be non-electrolytic but like i mentioned above i'm limited by the 10uf 25v requiremnets and the size of the leads.
However I'm sure that replcement ELNA or Black Gates will fit. Since I may be ordering a case from THL Audio in a few months Black Gates, ELNAs, and other niceities are within my reach without paying for postage
Black Gates are the first that popped into my mind because of firstly reputation and secondly CD player. It's a Harman Kardon HD7500 and although it's OLD (i.e. All discreet DAC old) It sounds wonderful with the exception of slighly inacuracies in the bass (but it was free so I can't complain). Anyway the 7500 uses Panasonic caps for all power requirements and Black Gates for anything that is sitting in the audio path.
What are you ideas on the mod. What caps can I choose from. Does the move from electrolytics to non-polarised matter? There is a SMD cap already linked to ground and a few resistors around there. Will they effect the way I can impliment this?