[/\w+/]

Using LT1364s in the two buffer positions adds a gain in transparency and dynamics compared to the OPA2604s IMO.

 

[fwojciec]

I recently replaced the opas in Zhaolu with OPA2107s and I'm thoroughly enjoying the difference it made. 3xOPA2107 sounds to me quite a lot better than DY2000+2xOPA2604 which already sounded good. OPA2107 seems to improve the bass response - more bass, but it's still tight and controlled. Overall with OPA2107s the sound is more smooth and it sounds more natural, the balance between the frequencies seems to be improved. I've also tried switching the central opa between OPA2107 and DY2000 - I definitely prefer the sound of OPA2107.

 

[eVITAERC]

Okay guys, I've recently got my Zhaolu as well, and of course being the die-hard IDY advocate that I am, I immediately opened it up after just a few minutes of listening. To me it sounded muddy and distorted, like there is too many caps in the signal, without modding.

So I started down the standard list of modding. First of all is to disconnect the headphone amp. That is easily enough, so quickly I went to the next thing: remove the coupling caps.

It never occured to me really how desparate the coupling cap situation is. I got the modified version byb Eddie, and supposedly he de-coupled the electrolytics on the signal path with some other cap that should be better. In my recollection , the people that recieved Eddie's blackgate upgrades benefited the most strongly from this procedure. Naturally I am already suspicious of what Eddie did, so imagine the brevity of it when it say, "it is worse than I thought".

I thought it would just be a situation with a crap electrolytic in the signal path. But I opened the case and found 47uF Elna Cerafines in that position, which should be fine. There could be a little HR loss, but all is not that bad. Imagine my surprise when I flipped over the board to fine thet Eddie had de-coupled the Elna caps with four more Elna Cerafines. That is right. Eddie used four 1uF Elna non-polar Cerafines to "de-couple" the original four cerafines. Now that is just rediculous, so I'll put it in bold:

Not only did he used electrolytics to de-couple electrolytics, he used fairly close capacitance values

Usually to de-couple elecrolytic caps you would use something like 0.01uF polypropylene caps. Not only should it absolutely be some kind of film capacitor (or else what's the point), it should be at least a 3 orders of magnitude difference in capacitance. This is just nuts. Not only will high-frequency not get decoupled, it will actually be further completely destroyed by phase distortions and ringing induced by how close the values of the 2 caps were. No wonder people are seeing such huge improvements after removing this disasterous pair. Please people, if you don't have a solder, at least snip off the 4 caps Eddie added to the underside of the board.

I'll note, however, that Eddie is a very pleasent fellow to deal with, and seem like a sane person. Why he sould do something like that is beyond me, as his other capacitor upgrade choices are quite sane (although he did use the 2 most expensive blackgates in the headphone power supply, something most people will not use anyways, so it will be wasted.) Mind you, this is the guy who took out the OPA2604 and put in crap opamps, but even that antic is not enough to explain this crazy move. Perhaps he doesn't like airyness

 

[zdogg]

Hilarious! Eddie does seem a very reasonable guy, but I do wonder about his hearing acuity sometimes

It seems that the bottom line is: get rid of these caps any way you can. I just soldered the legs of the Eddie-installed caps together, hopefully shorting and bypassing the top caps as well. It's made a huge improvement in sound and, coupled with putting the 2604's back in, took the 2.0 from crap to wow very quickly.

Caveat: on my system with the caps off, I measured a DC offset of 2mV in one channel and 17mV in the other today. My equiptment seems to tolerate this fine, but as always, mod at your own risk...

 

[skysaxon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eVITAERC Please people, if you don't have a solder, at least snip off the 4 caps Eddie added to the underside of the board.

Could someone please point out what the caps look like for us non-techies?

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eVITAERC Okay guys, I've recently got my Zhaolu as well, and of course being the die-hard IDY advocate that I am, I immediately opened it up after just a few minutes of listening.

If you are experienced, don't bother trusting other people's ears

Whatever choices the other person did is based on their ears (I hope). Eddie's choices would've not been my choice either.

 

[educator]

I am buying a zhaolu from Eddie and asked him regarding the caps. I know almost nothing about electronics and soldering- just want best sound. I would like to share his reply (which isn't in perfect English) and hear what everyone thinks.


"I 100% agree with the sound will be better without the DC BLOCK OUT CAPS.
BUT !
I 200% agree with the DC BLOCK OUT CAPS ,100% can maintance less than 2mv at out put stage as MOSTLY DAC , PRE-AMP AND POWER AMP. safety requirement.
I 200% agree that with DC BLOCK OUT CAPS 98% CAN HAVING BOTH CHANNEL WITH EQUAL OFFSET (SAME MV OF DC REMAIN).
I 200% gurantnee that if some body place OPA in wrong direction or OPA suddenly worn out WILL DAMAGE THE DA CHIP RIGHT THE WAY and need to replace and send back to fix.
I 200% for sure it is dangerous to have DC remains and let the power amp. ampifie the DC to a higher value .(if higher enough will burn out the voice coil of speaker)
People having little smart and is good thing and business is business !
I will follow your choice !
I can not offer waranaty of one year in without DC block caps .
I just get some 47uf Bi-polar caps for that stage and no need to parallel with similar structure caps, for polar electrolytic caps is only for power supply using and no good at high."

 

[yo2tup2]

wow, that's like 900%

sold

 

[Ori]

Quote:

Originally Posted by educator "I 100% agree with the sound will be better without the DC BLOCK OUT CAPS. BUT ! I 200% gurantnee that if some body place OPA in wrong direction or OPA suddenly worn out WILL DAMAGE THE DA CHIP RIGHT THE WAY and need to replace and send back to fix."

I 100% agree with all the above.
BUT!
If I wanted something safe that sounds like crap then I'd buy a $19.99 DVD player. I can 200% guaranty you that if a comet hits Earth we'll all die, so why bother with good sound.

 

[calvinmcl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ori I 100% agree with all the above. BUT! If I wanted something safe that sounds like crap then I'd buy a $19.99 DVD player. I can 200% guaranty you that if a comet hits Earth we'll all die, so why bother with good sound.

LOL!!!!

 

[theexec]

I don't quite understand eddie's reply. Would he change the blocking caps to something better? like non-electrolytics or something? that way the warranty doesn't need to be voided, and sound quality can be improved?

 

[Zenja]

When Eddie does the free opamp upgrades for these first 100 purchases, does he still include the old opamps or do those not get shipped?

 

[vmajor]

You get the original opamps too.

 

[manchau]

BTW... Whats the default Zhaolu D2 opamp setup is ? I got mine with as below.

2 X LT1057 at DAC. (Left Right)
1 X DY2000 at DAC (center)
2 X JRC 4562DD at amp.

I got 3 X OPA2604AP loose with optical cables packing.

The setup above sounded crap to me. slight better to direct sound card outs.

Now I have following setup and it's very impressive in all aspects.

2 X LT1057 at DAC. (Left Right)
1 X DY2000 at DAC (center)
2 X OPA2604AP at amp.

After listening this setup I have the feeling that external DAC is must for everyone.

 

[Hi-Finthen]

.....Drop On The Floor Mod.....