What you did is you violated Juli@ with those big red and black cylinders !
Just joking !
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My caps are rather radical, yes
I understand you are asking about wood-modding some electrolytic caps for you? - I can surely do that. I can also put them all in a single chunk of wood as well, to make the arrangement more compact:
8000uF is a completely fantastic figure for my hand-made VNP/VNM Caps though, if that's what you meant - they would come out about the size of a small cupboard at this kind of capacitance!
Anyway, send me a private message if you are interested, as this is off this thread's topic.
I understand you are asking about wood-modding some electrolytic caps for you? - I can surely do that. I can also put them all in a single chunk of wood as well, to make the arrangement more compact:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
8000uF is a completely fantastic figure for my hand-made VNP/VNM Caps though, if that's what you meant - they would come out about the size of a small cupboard at this kind of capacitance!
Anyway, send me a private message if you are interested, as this is off this thread's topic.
My caps are rather radical, yes
I understand you are asking about wood-modding some electrolytic caps for you? - I can surely do that. I can also put them all in a single chunk of wood as well, to make the arrangement more compact:
Pardon my ignorance, what does wood-modding do to electrolytic caps ? What's to gain by putting them in a block of wood ?
Fireworks, see the link I posted above:
Wooden Capacitor Mod Guide
The benefits are increased physicall stability, superior damping, extended life (because the cap is sealed and no electrolyte loss is possible), and greatly improved sound. And better looks and nice smell The only potential downside I can see, is the slightly increased risk of violent failure on reverse polarity - although the wax will probably melt and vent the cap before the internal pressure builds up to dangerous levels.
Wooden Capacitor Mod Guide
The benefits are increased physicall stability, superior damping, extended life (because the cap is sealed and no electrolyte loss is possible), and greatly improved sound. And better looks and nice smell
The only potential downside I can see, is the slightly increased risk of violent failure on reverse polarity - although the wax will probably melt and vent the cap before the internal pressure builds up to dangerous levels.SATA Music Library Correction
I want to make a quick correction to my comment about connecting the music library drive with an external powered drive enclosure and SATA connection. Clearly this is not galvanic isolation with the cable (it uses wires) and I don’t think there’s any likelihood that the port is isolated. This is still a better sounding solution than a USB connection and the external power is probably an advantage too. I expect the most important factor is not having the music files share the same connection to the processor and memory as other USB devices. The SATA cable may also have better noise suppression and the port may have better grounding. At $1k/terabyte for SSD, getting close to it for $100 is a good deal.
I want to make a quick correction to my comment about connecting the music library drive with an external powered drive enclosure and SATA connection. Clearly this is not galvanic isolation with the cable (it uses wires) and I don’t think there’s any likelihood that the port is isolated. This is still a better sounding solution than a USB connection and the external power is probably an advantage too. I expect the most important factor is not having the music files share the same connection to the processor and memory as other USB devices. The SATA cable may also have better noise suppression and the port may have better grounding. At $1k/terabyte for SSD, getting close to it for $100 is a good deal.
More Capacitor mods
In case you have not tried some of the new surface mount caps, I want to biring
to your attention a couple of SMT choices that are well worth trying particularily around digital power sources. We all know that every mm counts when it comes to decoupling and I2S signal paths. EDesigns has done some great work with smt devices. I am using 8u organic polymer caps soldered right on the pins of Peter Daniels pcm2706, the clock power, and all the decoupling around the tda1541a. IMHO a real step up from axial BG or OSCONS. Here is a pic from ECDesign's DAC. His thread is http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...e-nos-dac-using-tda1541a-401.html#post2793472
Greg, if you ever go back to the 1541a, be sure to try SMT caps and DEM reclocking. It is a totally different beast.
I use the organic polymer from Cornel. My pic less neat than ECD but sonically pretty good. Inductor and large caps are DEM reclocking befor I discovered organic polymer.
In case you have not tried some of the new surface mount caps, I want to biring
to your attention a couple of SMT choices that are well worth trying particularily around digital power sources. We all know that every mm counts when it comes to decoupling and I2S signal paths. EDesigns has done some great work with smt devices. I am using 8u organic polymer caps soldered right on the pins of Peter Daniels pcm2706, the clock power, and all the decoupling around the tda1541a. IMHO a real step up from axial BG or OSCONS. Here is a pic from ECDesign's DAC. His thread is http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...e-nos-dac-using-tda1541a-401.html#post2793472
Greg, if you ever go back to the 1541a, be sure to try SMT caps and DEM reclocking. It is a totally different beast.
I use the organic polymer from Cornel. My pic less neat than ECD but sonically pretty good. Inductor and large caps are DEM reclocking befor I discovered organic polymer.
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Deep Digital & Digital-Analog Circuit Bypassing...
Wlowes, very much thanks for posting this. I'd been poking around in the ECDesigns TDA1541 thread a few days ago, but missed this as it was after I spent time on the thread.
I don't know if you saw it, but I'm spending some time trying to further improve the Juli@ digital section and have posted about it on the Audio Asylum here:
Audio Asylum Thread Printer (and I'll repost the results of my inquiry here once I get a bit farther).
The latest test upgrade I did to my main test Juli@ was to add 100uf ceramic bypass capacitors across many of the 'BCxxx' bypass capacitors already on the Juli@. ESI thoughtfully provided those at each power feed to each chip.. actually a very nice execution feature of the Juli@. This type of upgrade has most recently been championed by 'Coris' on DIYAudio on these threads:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/196474-ess9018-try-new-try-more.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-based/197116-xonar-st-stx-mods.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...rading-modding-new-oppos-bdp-93-bdp-95-a.html
But I was not happy with the sound at first... it was improved in many ways, but I heard what I associate with the sonic signature of ceramic caps. Very curious as these are all deep-digital processing chips... the controlling CPU, the PCI/Audio controller, and some helper chips. Looking at a lot of the commercial, even high-end commercial DACs & digital playback units (SACD/DVD/CD/SD players, etc.) out there, they generally had some number of ceramic caps as PS bypasses. And the Juli@ already has all of those ceramic 'BCxxx' caps. So I ran the card in for a couple of weeks... and while it's improved, I'm still not thrilled by it. There's still a bit of 'confusion' to it and a very slight sense of 'harshness' in the highs on some recordings.
Darned... it makes a LOT of sense to me to use very low-inductance caps mounted in a way to keep that inductance low around these deep-digital processing chips. Yup, I'd planned to use something other than ceramics from the analog side of DACs and beyond... but they seemed appropriate there.
Then I went looking for situations where people used caps other than ceramics for digital chip bypasses... and found these:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...c-kit-cs8416-ak4393-5532-a-5.html#post2622112 ("PPS film (again if you can get them) bypassing on the digital electrolytic's and those massive power filter caps")
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...4576.html?highlight=pps+capacitor#post2594576 (for putting non-SMD PPS caps on the regulator outputs on their SD Card Player)
And looking closer at the AckoDAC & the RAKKDAC, I now suspect they both also use some SMD poly caps around their digital circuits, at least on the digital side of the DAC.
Of course, a number of them also use some tantalum caps there too (as does the Jul@ around the AK4114 digital input-output transceiver and the ADC & DAC & output stages on the analog card). I'm not ready to go there yet, but I don't have a problem with PPS SMD caps.
And then you keyed me onto the latest posts on the ECDesigns thread where he talks about using PPS caps as local power supply bypasses on several of the digital chips on his Mk8 (which looks WAY KEWL in many other ways!).
I'd already planned to make up another test Juli@ digital section using organic polymers (Oscons or equivalent) across the 'BCxxx' caps. Now I'll also take the one with the ceramics, pull them off, and put on 1uf PPS caps (which I just happen to have a small supply of here).
I also found some people who swear by using BG NX caps as local bypasses, at least around DACs. I agree that's a good bet, but most people won't be able to duplicate that, so I'm not planning to try my limited supply of those no-unobtainable caps on my Juli@ digital section.
A quick question... were the Cornell-Dubilier SMD poly caps you used the PEN, PPS, or acrylic film caps?
BTW, the other upgrades were very good with no noticable drawbacks... Oscons mounted for low-inductance instead of BGs with long leads at the power inputs, moving the 5v regulator onto the Juli@ instead of 9" remote, and powering both the 3.3v & 5v regulators from the main supply for the Juli@ digital instead of cascading them. I also have some indication that under-volting the 3.3v rail may have some benefits too... I need to test that more first.
I still owe some replies on this thread to Uncle Leon on his latest capacitor work,to fork on a number of things, and a general linear supply for your computer primer. I hope to get to them this week.
Later!
Greg in Mississippi
P.S. Another interesting poly cap trick is discussed in this thread: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/196474-ess9018-try-new-try-more-3.html where Bunpei replaces the exotic TP shunt regulators for the Buffalo-II's AVCC with simpler & more pedestrian LT1763s (Actually a Toshiba TAR5SB which is a near equivalent) & a 100uf/800 polyprop cap from CDE on the output & likes it a LOT in comparison!
Wlowes, very much thanks for posting this. I'd been poking around in the ECDesigns TDA1541 thread a few days ago, but missed this as it was after I spent time on the thread.
I don't know if you saw it, but I'm spending some time trying to further improve the Juli@ digital section and have posted about it on the Audio Asylum here:
Audio Asylum Thread Printer (and I'll repost the results of my inquiry here once I get a bit farther).
The latest test upgrade I did to my main test Juli@ was to add 100uf ceramic bypass capacitors across many of the 'BCxxx' bypass capacitors already on the Juli@. ESI thoughtfully provided those at each power feed to each chip.. actually a very nice execution feature of the Juli@. This type of upgrade has most recently been championed by 'Coris' on DIYAudio on these threads:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/196474-ess9018-try-new-try-more.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-based/197116-xonar-st-stx-mods.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...rading-modding-new-oppos-bdp-93-bdp-95-a.html
But I was not happy with the sound at first... it was improved in many ways, but I heard what I associate with the sonic signature of ceramic caps. Very curious as these are all deep-digital processing chips... the controlling CPU, the PCI/Audio controller, and some helper chips. Looking at a lot of the commercial, even high-end commercial DACs & digital playback units (SACD/DVD/CD/SD players, etc.) out there, they generally had some number of ceramic caps as PS bypasses. And the Juli@ already has all of those ceramic 'BCxxx' caps. So I ran the card in for a couple of weeks... and while it's improved, I'm still not thrilled by it. There's still a bit of 'confusion' to it and a very slight sense of 'harshness' in the highs on some recordings.
Darned... it makes a LOT of sense to me to use very low-inductance caps mounted in a way to keep that inductance low around these deep-digital processing chips. Yup, I'd planned to use something other than ceramics from the analog side of DACs and beyond... but they seemed appropriate there.
Then I went looking for situations where people used caps other than ceramics for digital chip bypasses... and found these:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...c-kit-cs8416-ak4393-5532-a-5.html#post2622112 ("PPS film (again if you can get them) bypassing on the digital electrolytic's and those massive power filter caps")
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...4576.html?highlight=pps+capacitor#post2594576 (for putting non-SMD PPS caps on the regulator outputs on their SD Card Player)
And looking closer at the AckoDAC & the RAKKDAC, I now suspect they both also use some SMD poly caps around their digital circuits, at least on the digital side of the DAC.
Of course, a number of them also use some tantalum caps there too (as does the Jul@ around the AK4114 digital input-output transceiver and the ADC & DAC & output stages on the analog card). I'm not ready to go there yet, but I don't have a problem with PPS SMD caps.
And then you keyed me onto the latest posts on the ECDesigns thread where he talks about using PPS caps as local power supply bypasses on several of the digital chips on his Mk8 (which looks WAY KEWL in many other ways!).
I'd already planned to make up another test Juli@ digital section using organic polymers (Oscons or equivalent) across the 'BCxxx' caps. Now I'll also take the one with the ceramics, pull them off, and put on 1uf PPS caps (which I just happen to have a small supply of here).
I also found some people who swear by using BG NX caps as local bypasses, at least around DACs. I agree that's a good bet, but most people won't be able to duplicate that, so I'm not planning to try my limited supply of those no-unobtainable caps on my Juli@ digital section.
A quick question... were the Cornell-Dubilier SMD poly caps you used the PEN, PPS, or acrylic film caps?
BTW, the other upgrades were very good with no noticable drawbacks... Oscons mounted for low-inductance instead of BGs with long leads at the power inputs, moving the 5v regulator onto the Juli@ instead of 9" remote, and powering both the 3.3v & 5v regulators from the main supply for the Juli@ digital instead of cascading them. I also have some indication that under-volting the 3.3v rail may have some benefits too... I need to test that more first.
I still owe some replies on this thread to Uncle Leon on his latest capacitor work,to fork on a number of things, and a general linear supply for your computer primer. I hope to get to them this week.
Later!
Greg in Mississippi
P.S. Another interesting poly cap trick is discussed in this thread: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/196474-ess9018-try-new-try-more-3.html where Bunpei replaces the exotic TP shunt regulators for the Buffalo-II's AVCC with simpler & more pedestrian LT1763s (Actually a Toshiba TAR5SB which is a near equivalent) & a 100uf/800 polyprop cap from CDE on the output & likes it a LOT in comparison!
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