[Allanmarcus]

Question about the vu meters. First off, how cool is it we have them?
 
Real questions: does it mean anything if they bounce into the red? In the old days, that meant channel saturation and indicated "turn it down". Since the view meters only bounce relative to the input, not the output, I find some songs that are mastered too loud (loudness wars strike), thus causing the needles to bounce mostly in the red. Is this just cosmetic, of would the SQ benefit from less source volume?

 

[Middy]

More a lava lamp than a calibrated VU meter. The hardcore types did comparisons measurements. Not that accurate to a pair of mcintosh VU's but works and looks nice.

 

[Middy]

All,
I spent 5 hours yesterday as I stripped off the 2 transformers in the oppo and removed all thier female crimps from the plastic holders.

Each wire is mechanically crimped on.
There is a little tension spring thatpushes against the corresponding pin in the board.

I IPAed each one to remove the deoxit.
2000 grit sanded inside...Fluxes on the wire/crimp and silver soldered each one.

Now the wires are silver solder bonded to the female crimps..wire brush and IPA bath each one...Blow off and tiny deoxit gold inside..

14 leads later in this experimental extravaganza.. Oh my what a difference a day makes....
The deoxit before was magic. I even 2000 grit sanded the male pins for even flatness very lightly...

The power leads soldered..fitted back in plastic clips and pushed back on..

More detail and wider more Holographic sound. This is a different beast to what I had before..fantastic...

Did the hard earth and tab washer re tinned that as well.
A massive pain in the butt...worth the effort. This must be the same in other amps dacs....

Good luck all

I may be mad doing this... but the sound...

Dave

 

[manpowre]

All,
I spent 5 hours yesterday as I stripped off the 2 transformers in the oppo and removed all thier female crimps from the plastic holders.

Each wire is mechanically crimped on.
There is a little tension spring thatpushes against the corresponding pin in the board.

I IPAed each one to remove the deoxit.
2000 grit sanded inside...Fluxes on the wire/crimp and silver soldered each one.

Now the wires are silver solder bonded to the female crimps..wire brush and IPA bath each one...Blow off and tiny deoxit gold inside..

14 leads later in this experimental extravaganza.. Oh my what a difference a day makes....
The deoxit before was magic. I even 2000 grit sanded the male pins for even flatness very lightly...

The power leads soldered..fitted back in plastic clips and pushed back on..

More detail and wider more Holographic sound. This is a different beast to what I had before..fantastic...

Did the hard earth and tab washer re tinned that as well.
A massive pain in the butt...worth the effort. This must be the same in other amps dacs....

Good luck all

I may be mad doing this... but the sound...

Dave

Sounds like an awesome DIY project hehe.. but it breaks warranty, so for most people its not something they will do until after many years.. and by then they most probably bought another and better Amp.

 

[Middy]

I wouldn't have tried it if it was... still scary even though mine is second hand so no warranty.
I have to hear a more TOTL headphone amp now. To compare because this is more than double the SQ to what my OPPO produced before.

The soldering is extreme but it worked.. Silver contact grease will be the last experiment.
My job gave me soldering skills..

It's like having a mistress.. I now keep making excuses to run up stairs and play with her...like having new HD versions of my music on new headphones....

The INTONA/ IFIP2 combo as well...The joy of magic music pixie dust in my ears.
My thoughts are:
Clean earth path inside to wall socket.
Clean 5V..from IFI reclocker
CLEAN 3V from intona Galvanic clocking
Cleaner path for power to the DAC and analogue stages.
Deoxit cleaned all other non soldered connectors to reduce contact resistance.

A new power cable hand made shielded and uber cleaned, power strip uber cleaned. Cleaned usb cables and headphone connectors

A lot of messing some not much change.. like the power cable. Huge change like the internal deoxiting .
Now extending that sound stage clarity with soldering and the INTONA...

Blind test me from before too now.. I'd swear it wasn't my rig or music or headpones.
Maybe I am lucky.. mine had more room to get it back to best.
I am sure other brands, amps dacs whatever would benefit from some of these maintainace tweaks...

But it's hard work trying, so I am just going to enjoy what I have now...


Keep smiling
Dave

 

[manpowre]

Yea, I also learned with the Intona the HA-1 can improve. Also the fact that it definetely needs warmup time.
 
Yesterday I finished all measurements on my HA-1 with rightmark6 without Intona. I hope to finish the measurements with Intona tonight.
 
Then tomorrow I hope to get enough time to go through all data and look for comparisons.
 
I wish I had a reclock unit to put in between Intona and the HA-1 so I could include that in my measurements.
 
But my HD25 and a Yggi DAC (someone in my city) is my next measurement project with and without the Intona :=)

 

[Middy]

Can't wait to see what you come up with. This is the best I can do with my limited skills and knowledge. Always nice to learn more,can't wait to hear the conclusions and your opinions.
Cheer mate
Dave

 

[T Bone]

I spent 5 hours yesterday as I stripped off the 2 transformers in the oppo and removed all thier female crimps from the plastic holders.

Dave - you need to post some pix next time you're tinkering inside your Oppo.  Before/After photos are always interesting.

 

[manpowre]

My Rightmark 6 software is not starting correctly anymore on my win 10, got to find a solution !
So I have no solid conclusion, but the spectrogram software works fine in win 10. Atleast this is up for discussion.
 
Here are some pics with and without Intona. My setup: Measuring comp - normal 40 dollar shielded USB cable - WITH/WITHOUT INTONA - HA-1 - PRE-out - Nordost Heimdall XLR - Tascam UH-7000 - Same type USB cable  - Measuring computer. 
 
These spectrograms were snapshot'ed with a 40 minute warm HA-1, the volume knob at 3/4'th up = my hegel DAC volume, also Rightmark told me to use this setting when Rightmark worked:
 
The blue line is the actual measure, the red is the average top, 10 seconds delayed.
The artifacts you see after the tone itself is coming from HA-1, as my Hegel HD25 dac has different artifacts(less in fact) and 20khz buildup.
 
 
Noise floor:

 
Sending a Sin tone 20 hz to the HA-1 DAC:

 
100 HZ SIN tone to HA-1:

 
 
8khz SIN tone sent to HA-1 DAC:

 
 
I also found whats happening with my volume knob!! too bad I deleted those spectrograms as I thought initially it was my measuring unit that was cold, but it wasnt, it was once I moved volume knob, the bad bad spectrograms with alot alot of noise disappeared! If I see the volume knob issue again Ill record those spectrograms too.
 
Taking a snapshot is one thing, but seeing the spectrogram running in the quickest mode, it seems like once Intona device is plugged in, the buildup of the tone on both sides are more calm than without the Intona. Especially through mid-range.
 
 
Warm cold unit? 
Here is the 8khz tone again cold/warm. Look specifically where the 8khz tone builds up at cold.. its very inaccurate. thats why you have to let the HA-1 unit warm up.

 
I am not concluding anything in this post. just showing you guys this as I wanted it up for discussion.
 
 
 
 
Also I modified my Tascam UH-7000 as it has some noise in 21khz++, and I managed to more or less remove it.
You can read about that on my blog if it interests you:
 
http://heavycorner.com/tascam-uh-7000-fixing-issue-noise/

 

[Middy]

That's no problem I did a couple but had trouble posting. I thought sending them to my the phone messages would shrink them down to upload....
Inside all breakable connections.
IPA CLEAN then red deoxit.
A week repeat but gold Deoxit.
As an experiment I did silver solder on the Transformer female crimps.
I literally just got mapleshade Cilclear silver contact grease.

Quick clean to remove the old deoxit. Quickly I put some on the power cable plug and Oppo IEC . And my minis and XLR on my ETHERS. So far I'd say positive result...
I will do the rest.. more cables and inside the OPPO. This stuff needs to be used carefully as it can cause shorts.
All a bit crazy but I thought go for it and see how far I can go. The internal deoxit did it for me and turned it into a different rig... I can't explain how good it is from before. I just wanted others to get this boost. Especially at a small cost...The cilclear is a big jar...*** it's about an amount of a small sweet melted. But goes a long way they say... £30...8^/ deoxit and IPA
£15.

All this will be a wiki eventually....

Wish me luck..

 

[Middy]

My Rightmark 6 software is not starting correctly anymore on my win 10, got to find a solution !
So I have no solid conclusion, but the spectrogram software works fine in win 10.? Run it as admin and in a different windows compatability mode?


Hey mate, thanks for posting, you will have to translate for me.. Any conclusions would be great...

The volume issue I think maybe fixed by rotating back and forward all the way a few times. I have started doing this since I heard of the fix...

I have nearly finished my tweak experiments, the INTONA makes a big difference and the IFIP2.

Free, cheap is always nice... IPA deoxit...

Cheers gents

Keep smiling

Dave..

 

[Tipton]

Greetings everyone!
 
I'm a new member, and have enjoyed reading through this thread over the last three days or so.  I have had my eye on the Oppo HA-1 for a long time but haven't pulled the trigger for various reasons.  I currently have a Marantz NA8005 network player connected to a Marantz PM8005 integrated amp. This setup is in my office and I use it for playing my digital music collection, and for gaming with headphones. 
 
I have been rolling around ways to introduce the HA-1 into this setup without it feeling redundant. The NA8005 already has a pretty decent DAC, so yeah.......redundancy comes to mind.  I was thinking I could use the Marantz network player strictly for streaming my favorite online stations, and using it for Airplay, and then switching over to the HA-1 for headphone use.  I was also thinking I could use the HA-1 as a preamp because my Marantz PM8005 can be switched over and used strictly as a power amp.  But again, it seems redundant.......like complicating an already simple functioning system and gaining nothing. 
 
I was also thinking maybe setting up just a separate headphone listening station somewhere else in the house.  I guess I just have some money finally burning a hole in my pocket and I'm looking for an excuse to buy this beautiful HA-1 finally.  What I really need is to buy new crushed gravel to top dress my driveway......but that's no fun.
 
What would you guys do? 

 

[goldendarko]

Buy the amp. Duh.

 

[Middy]

I can only speak about my OPPO ha1.
Buy a second hand one and a decent pressure washer.. or to clean the gravel. Get a second hand cement mixer or rent it for a weekend. Spade in the old gravel lots of water and a bit of washing powder. 10 mins repeat for the drive. No lugging giant bags about...

I did it small scale with a bucket.
Hard work but cheaper than fresh gravel. Mix in a few bags of new if you have patches..

Jobs a good Un. ...

 

[goldendarko]

Yeah picking up an HA-1 used is the way to go. I got mine for only $800. In all seriousness this amp is an excellent value and really does it all. The fervor may have cooled down on it since its been out a while now too and head-fi moves on to the next big thing but that just means you can probably score a better deal on one.

Although you ARE asking this on an HA-1 thread which is sort of the equivalent of walking into a car dealership and asking them if you really need a new car. Of course you do!!