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Originally Posted by davidastoria /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Is there a rough estimate of how much these mods cost: HDAM, LT1364, LM4562, OPA-Earth, OPA-Sun. <~Not that I fully understand what these mods are, but they seem to be popular and discussed a lot, and something I'll probably get into later.
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Don't worry, I had no idea either before I started reading this thread what it all meant!
Basically, the Zero has two functions - it can be a straight DAC, which sits between a CD player, computer or similar device and an amp. It's second function involves pressing a single button on the front of the unit that turns it into a pre-amp or headphone amp, depending on whether anything is plugged into its headphone socket or not.
Inside the unit one can see that the DAC section and AMP section are on separate boards. The AMP section has the volume control and headphone socket. On that board are two small ICs (integrated circuits) which are in removable sockets. The DAC section has one of this ICs. These ICs are known as "opamps".
Opamps, rather like valves, can be "rolled" - in other words, switched with other models that affect the sound differently. The stock opamps are ok, but not fantastic. Penchum, through trial and error figured out the best combination, which is now available as the "head-fi special" from Lawrence. After that was figured out, I forgot who, but someone tried instead of putting opamps in, they could put in a small mounted circuit board called a HDAM unit. This HDAM unit uses high quality transitors to amplify the signal. The result was a significant, if slightly expensive improvement (considering that the Zero is a very cheap unit for what it does).
The latest news are HDAM units called the Earth and Sun respectively. There's hope that they'll give a significant improvement in sound. Since they are a little cheaper than the HDAMs that are currently available, there's hope that they'll provide the best bang-for-your-buck available.
As well as the opamp upgrades, the default volume "pot" isn't very high quality, resulting in hiss or uneven left/right balance for some people. One of the most respected manufacturers in Japan, Alps, are well known for making high quality volume pots. There's a specific model that can be used instead in the amp section of Zero instead of the default cheap one which fixes these issues.
The resulting head-fi special is a Zero with 2x OPA627 opamps on a special adaptor for the DAC section, and 2x LT1364 opamps in the AMP section and the better quality volume pot.
I hope that answers your question. I'm sorry I'm not up on the exact price for the units.