[Whitigir]

Having my Sony ZX2 for a while now, and I love many things from it. But there is a common problems that every Zx2 owner may find it troublesome.

_Weak Power output_

So I have thought about this for a while now, instead of spending a crazy amount of money, and losing a lot to sell a used Zx2 unit and upgrade ? How about some modifications to improve it ?

Please, everybody with honest opinions, serious knowledges chime in onto this thread, as it may potentially help many others, which include other countries who can only afford Zx2 used.

Open up the leather back cover and the copper shield, there will be the plastic shield, and all the capacitors are exposed. Easily remove and upgrade, probably tight-spaces, but nothing is impossible with the right equipment.



3 OS-CON caps for pre-amp and second main tuning to the other 7 film condensers
. It is rated at 47mf and 6 VDc.
4 OS-CON caps for Amplification and is rated at 100mf 6 VDC

The next step up from these would be 82mf for preamp, and 220mf for Amp



So, if we upgrade the OS-CON capacitors, what would we have ? And what else can be net as an improvements ? Please everybody chime in.

Thank you

 

[corius]

I'm sorry, but I think you are confused.
 
Capacitors aren't like batteries, a higher capacitance doesn't mean, better, or louder, or more expensive. They are just one component in a design which consists of ICs, resistors, diodes, transistors, inductors etc etc.
 
Tinker at your peril!

 

[Whitigir]

I'm sorry, but I think you are confused.

Capacitors aren't like batteries, a higher capacitance doesn't mean, better, or louder, or more expensive. They are just one component in a design which consists of ICs, resistors, diodes, transistors, inductors etc etc.

Tinker at your peril!

I am confused, yes. What do you think we can do to increase power output on it ?

 

[corius]

Well, I think you would need the circuit schematics and a competent electronics design engineer, although even then I don't think it would be possible as it is likely that much of the functionality is determined by SW and ICs.
 
You may be able to increase the volume, but that would probably affect the frequency response, so it would be louder but not sound nice. We already know (from your previous experiments with volume) that the SW plays a critical part.
 
It's an interesting topic, sounds like fun, and would be a great learning experience, but it sounds very difficult and could easily destroy the ZX2.
 
In particular, desoldering and resoldering components would put extreme stress on what is likely to be a multi-layer PCB, so there's a real risk of damaging the PCB and other components
 
I look forward to seeing how this develops! Good luck!

 

[Whitigir]

Thanks to tokyoskies for this disassembles from a Chinese forum on Zx2

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techbang.com%2Fposts%2F22462-the-pursuit-of-perfection-no-elections-flagship-digital-walkman-sony-nw-zx2%3Fpage%3D2&edit-text=

 

[tokyoskies]

I agree, we do have to remember that there is SW involved and plays a major part. Its a good point to raise and one I actually complete forgot to think about. Luckily its Android, so we would be able to alter whatever we have to alter, if we know what exactly needs to be changed.
 
Before I wanted to attempt any HW mod, I wanted to try and see if I can update the software to Marshmallow, which would give additional benefits. I just did that successfully with my Nvidia Shield and improved the SW experience and performance with some new features (the most notable would be that system storage and SD Card are now merged into 1 storage, making for easier library handling.) Given the very specific purpose of the ZX2, it is not as straight forward task as the Shield and I will have to see.
 
I talked to the Sound Engineer here at my company. He also confirmed what you said. As I am working in Engineering myself, I can see that from a HW perspective, swapping parts will always result in more or less signal quality / strength. However, when this signal is an audio signal, this all takes on a whole new dimension. I have built power circuits and storage applications, but audio is new to me. I agree that changing the parts, even in a controlled and logical way may increase the signal strength but completely ruin the sound signature.
 
I have done some research on some amps where capacitance and resistance where changed for the benefit of sound quality and frequency response. But with these amps, no SW was involved. 
 
I think I will try to get a junk ZX2, possibly from Japan, to play around with before I work on my own. I hope I can find one someone dropped and broke the screen or something trivial like that.
 
Btw, there was the Mezzo mod, but from what I read it did not really improve the sound quality. At least not to the liking of some.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/742609/sony-nw-zx2-hi-end-dap/5235#post_11599828

 

[Whitigir]

TRRS is the biggest improvement and the most quality technology on Zx2, so to kill TRRS is to degrade the sound. Zx2 with TRRS and Poweramp alpha take it to another level of listening experiences. It is great that there is a possibility of changing these capacitors to changes the sounds, and a bit "but".....even though, after careful planing and calculating, the sound may change and not for the better...but worse. Let us pray that tokyoskies can find a bad unit and play around with it

 

[FallenAngel]

OSCON are already great caps and most likely those are all for power supply. I see no reason to change them.
 
If your issue is low power output, I assume you mean it doesn't drive all of your headphones. Why not get a portable amp?

 

[Whitigir]

OSCON are already great caps and most likely those are all for power supply. I see no reason to change them.

If your issue is low power output, I assume you mean it doesn't drive all of your headphones. Why not get a portable amp?

Portable amp will require stacking....and I don't like stacking. It is better as a 1 device solution. Not only the power output that I want, I also want to have some more energies into the lower trebles frequencies 4-8khz place.

Also, I just got a feedback from AK380 and balanced output not doing so well in sound quality due to the balanced output uses "cables" vs SE is direct soldered. What do we have in the Zx2 ? Thin-copper-OFC cables from the board to the sockets.

Regarding SE vs Balanced with the AK380.... Vinnie (RWA) explained it very well to me when he was working on the AKAMP modification. 

AK use ribbon cable inside the AKAMP to connect the balanced signal to the output socket where as the SE output is directly soldered.

The same goes in the AK380 unit they use ribbon cable to connect the balanced and SE output sockets to the PCB, I guess for this case the balanced output ends up with a higher loss of quality compared to the SE output when this type of cable is internally used.

With the full RWA setup I am using the AKAMP balanced output since the mods Vinnie have made replace all the ribbon cables throughout the full signal path from AK380 down to the balanced out from the amp.

What if we can replace these cables ? No need to go for anything crazily thick. Just replace it to solid core pure silver. Would be very hard, but possibly a huge improvement

 

[Whitigir]

from the linked above and it large image.  We can see that the OS-CON used in Zx2 is the SVPA/SVPC model which is inferior to SVPE/SVPG.  Here is a possible upgrade for the same "Capacitance and Voltage" but better and lower ESR and even better Ripple current According to Panasonic website
 
http://industrial.panasonic.com/ww/products/capacitors/polymer-capacitors/os-con
 
Who said there is no possible upgrades in sound improvements ?  New capacitors and it technology ....only that there is no capacitance and voltage rating of the same as ZX2...yet
Only larger




What if we can upgrade these inner cables ?

 

[Whitigir]

More info on pre-amp capacitors and supplied amplifying capacitors. This is from guitar amp as a general design, but it should suffice. Basically what i think I got from it is that the lower 4 capacitors can be swapped out with larger capacitor for more power supplied, the bass will be tighter, faster, more responsive arguably...?

The preamp 3 capacitors can also be swapped, but they are the main filters, both me and tokyoskies think that they are 47mf because they want high-frequency to not being filtered out too much.

So, the safest bet would be to swap out the 4 cap in the amping section

http://www.bustedgear.com/faq_Amp_recap.html



Zx100 uses the same capacitors for the amping power supplies circuit. So arguably, the one that gives Zx2 warmer sound signature is the 3 pre-amp which is 47mf each. If someone want clearer trebles they can go for something lower capacitance ? The lowest for 6vdc now is 22 Mf from Mouser

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Panasonic/6SVP22M/?qs=%2fha2pyFadug%252bPCSznY7tX8cc718%252bSIKuQ0fIGSXc3TSApO88LapH%252bA%3d%3d

However, how bright would the sound become if these pre-amp were to get changed and swapped out ? I guess it would be much safer to just swap out the power supplies first and observe....my guess is that, there won't be any need for the pre-amp to get swapped out. Because more controlled bass could mean the high may show itself better as well ?

 

[YAGIZ]

@Whitgir 
Talk to this guy. He changed his ZX1's capacitors.
 
https://www.instagram.com/a.nihilist/

 

[Whitigir]

@Whitgir 
Talk to this guy. He changed his ZX1's capacitors.

https://www.instagram.com/a.nihilist/

Hey thank you ! He is one of those crazy guy like me, but it seems his work is sloppy and ....weird, jitters and distortions happen when components are not fixed and set still on the board (basically). I would change my capacitors no problem, but I will just leave it there as both me and my engineer friends agreed on that point. However, if anyone out there is able to possibly make it better, I am following the thread

 

[YAGIZ]

Well I do not believe you can understand any sloppiness from pictures..

 

[useYbrain]

Hi. I want to know how to open sony zx2. I need tear down to look inside.