Pink Triangle Anniversary
John, a little back on this forum I wrote about the fact that you designed the Anniversary
power supply too. Maybe you missed the post.
I asked what is the battery for, and, now that it's old, if it has to be replaced and
if it's possible to find one or replace it with something else.
thanx
Loris
PS since you're going to modify my Dacapo, If you want to put a MICRO-DC inside it, feel free to do it
John, a little back on this forum I wrote about the fact that you designed the Anniversary
power supply too. Maybe you missed the post.
I asked what is the battery for, and, now that it's old, if it has to be replaced and
if it's possible to find one or replace it with something else.
thanx
Loris
PS since you're going to modify my Dacapo, If you want to put a MICRO-DC inside it, feel free to do it
Dacapo still not working!
Hi John W,
Well, i have just received my Dacapo back after sending it to a company in the u.k to fix and change the caps. Can you believe that after several weeks and a few hundred pounds later the exact same problem still exists!!!! The engineer assures me that before removing even one capacitor that he did a full check on the board and found it to function correctly(voltages etc). After replacing the caps and doing minor repairs, he did another check(although not extended listening) as far as he was concerned there was no problem. Imagine then, that after fitting the board back into it's case and warming everything up for a day or so after it's return, how extremely dissapointed i was to have the same problem occur. Half an hour of listening and suddenly inteference started coming from the right hand speaker. Audio still continued to play(of sorts) but gradually the inteference got worse. Powering down and starting up again(several different times) resulted in either, no sound from the right speaker, sound with inteference or working fine for a few minutes and then inteference again. I have checked and double checked all other equipment, cables etc, but it still comes back to the Dacapo. I have used it with and without DC, with my Ordinal's input card and changed from input 1 to 4 to see if it would make a difference. but none, only when selecting via input 4 it played fine for a while, so i left it and came back after a couple of hours to find the inteference there again. It almost seems as if something stops working or loses contact as the unit becomes warmer? The engineer in the u.k is perplexed and quite frankly i quietly going insane with the whole thing. Does any of the above suggest to you what the problem may be or in which area i should be looking? I am left to sort the problem out myself, as it is not possible for me to send to the u.k again. Any help, advice on what to check next would be great.
Regards, Steven
Hi John W,
Well, i have just received my Dacapo back after sending it to a company in the u.k to fix and change the caps. Can you believe that after several weeks and a few hundred pounds later the exact same problem still exists!!!! The engineer assures me that before removing even one capacitor that he did a full check on the board and found it to function correctly(voltages etc). After replacing the caps and doing minor repairs, he did another check(although not extended listening) as far as he was concerned there was no problem. Imagine then, that after fitting the board back into it's case and warming everything up for a day or so after it's return, how extremely dissapointed i was to have the same problem occur. Half an hour of listening and suddenly inteference started coming from the right hand speaker. Audio still continued to play(of sorts) but gradually the inteference got worse. Powering down and starting up again(several different times) resulted in either, no sound from the right speaker, sound with inteference or working fine for a few minutes and then inteference again. I have checked and double checked all other equipment, cables etc, but it still comes back to the Dacapo. I have used it with and without DC, with my Ordinal's input card and changed from input 1 to 4 to see if it would make a difference. but none, only when selecting via input 4 it played fine for a while, so i left it and came back after a couple of hours to find the inteference there again. It almost seems as if something stops working or loses contact as the unit becomes warmer? The engineer in the u.k is perplexed and quite frankly i quietly going insane with the whole thing. Does any of the above suggest to you what the problem may be or in which area i should be looking? I am left to sort the problem out myself, as it is not possible for me to send to the u.k again. Any help, advice on what to check next would be great.
Regards, Steven
Hi John W, if you need some photography of the new DAC for press and your website, please feel free to contact me, i used to do lots of technical photography of various designer furniture for brochures and adverts, and at the moment have access to a studio which i dont have to pay for the upkeep of, I can do the shots for free, as a good will gesture towards all the people you help with their ageing Dacapos. Im in based in the UK, you can email at jon@muzphoto.com
Hi Loris P.
OK, I will lookout for the Clock Lock DIC and filter and Email you once I have them.
For the Anniversary power supply, any 12V sealed lead acid battery that will fit within the case will be OK - you could try visiting a local Alarm company - these type of Batteries are commonly used as the Alarms Backup power supply.
MicroDC - no space, but maybe I can improve the Dacapo's internal PSU.
Steven,
I was very much afraid that something like this may happen - have you tried to change the digital filter (do you have a second filter on your Ordinal you could try and swap with)?
It sounds like a timing related issue (which could also be caused by a collapsing PSU rail) - are you using the 24Bit filter?
There’s unfortunately many issues that could cause the symptoms you describe – if you can change the filter first - this will help narrow the options.
I can see that your very devoted to your PT Dacapo - the Mephisto PCB has been issued, and we should have first pilot run units within the month - I could try and get you a unit - only casework may not be 100%. The Mephisto is far superior to the Dacapo.
Hi Jon,
Thanks for your very kind offer. Many years ago, when Dacapo was first launch a Gentleman was so impressed with his unit that he sent me professionally taken pictures. Unfortunately I never wrote back to thank him - its one of those moments in my life that I still remember and with deep regret about my rudeness. (I seem to recall the Dacapo was situated with a blue background). So to whoever it was - Pls. kindly accept my apologies for not thanking you for your kind efforts and for your beautifully taken pictures - (Sorry some 15 years late).
John
OK, I will lookout for the Clock Lock DIC and filter and Email you once I have them.
For the Anniversary power supply, any 12V sealed lead acid battery that will fit within the case will be OK - you could try visiting a local Alarm company - these type of Batteries are commonly used as the Alarms Backup power supply.
MicroDC - no space, but maybe I can improve the Dacapo's internal PSU.
Steven,
I was very much afraid that something like this may happen - have you tried to change the digital filter (do you have a second filter on your Ordinal you could try and swap with)?
It sounds like a timing related issue (which could also be caused by a collapsing PSU rail) - are you using the 24Bit filter?
There’s unfortunately many issues that could cause the symptoms you describe – if you can change the filter first - this will help narrow the options.
I can see that your very devoted to your PT Dacapo - the Mephisto PCB has been issued, and we should have first pilot run units within the month - I could try and get you a unit - only casework may not be 100%. The Mephisto is far superior to the Dacapo.
Hi Jon,
Thanks for your very kind offer. Many years ago, when Dacapo was first launch a Gentleman was so impressed with his unit that he sent me professionally taken pictures. Unfortunately I never wrote back to thank him - its one of those moments in my life that I still remember and with deep regret about my rudeness. (I seem to recall the Dacapo was situated with a blue background). So to whoever it was - Pls. kindly accept my apologies for not thanking you for your kind efforts and for your beautifully taken pictures - (Sorry some 15 years late).
John
RE: Dacapo still not working!
Hi John W,
This afternoon i removed the HDCD filter from Dacapo and put the 18bit filter from my Ordinal in. I was listening to music for a couple of hours and there seemed to be no problem, even though i was questioning the clarity of the presentation continually, this was probably because i am so used to hearing what the HDCD filter can do.
This evening after powering down and swapping back to the HDCD, i tried playing several cd's only to have no audio at all!
What do you think this means??
You are right in saying that i am "devoted" to the Dacapo( i sent you an email recently explaining why i am still persisting in trying to keep it alive, don't know if you received it or not?). In the throw away age that we live in, i have great difficulty in discarding a landmark product, which as far as i know can be repaired and continue to give extreme pleasure , without trying my best to fix it (call me old fashoined and i'm only 37,..... yesterday in fact!) . I would absolutely love to get my hands on your new designs and i believe you , when you say they are far superior . Your offer to get the "Mephisto" to me is very thoughtful and greatly appreciated. As soon as i can reconcile spending the £300 on the failed repair(although there are lovely shiney new caps!) and finally having tracked down and bought new batteries for the DC (Power Sonic no longer make that size in the Volt/amp.Hr) which cost another £120, and you can tell me that there is no hope for my Dacapo working again, i will beg you to please send me whatever you have. Any ideas on what i should check next?
Kind regards,
Steven.
Hi John W,
This afternoon i removed the HDCD filter from Dacapo and put the 18bit filter from my Ordinal in. I was listening to music for a couple of hours and there seemed to be no problem, even though i was questioning the clarity of the presentation continually, this was probably because i am so used to hearing what the HDCD filter can do.
This evening after powering down and swapping back to the HDCD, i tried playing several cd's only to have no audio at all!
What do you think this means??
You are right in saying that i am "devoted" to the Dacapo( i sent you an email recently explaining why i am still persisting in trying to keep it alive, don't know if you received it or not?). In the throw away age that we live in, i have great difficulty in discarding a landmark product, which as far as i know can be repaired and continue to give extreme pleasure , without trying my best to fix it (call me old fashoined and i'm only 37,..... yesterday in fact!) . I would absolutely love to get my hands on your new designs and i believe you , when you say they are far superior . Your offer to get the "Mephisto" to me is very thoughtful and greatly appreciated. As soon as i can reconcile spending the £300 on the failed repair(although there are lovely shiney new caps!) and finally having tracked down and bought new batteries for the DC (Power Sonic no longer make that size in the Volt/amp.Hr) which cost another £120, and you can tell me that there is no hope for my Dacapo working again, i will beg you to please send me whatever you have. Any ideas on what i should check next?
Kind regards,
Steven.
£300 for some caps to be fitted!!! Were they black Gates? Really, I think you've been swindled. If you'd sent that to us it's have been on for a few days listening before sending it back. And frankly, no fix no fee. Plopping in a few caps and checking the voltages does not take more than perhaps 1/2 hour. It does not sound like you sent it to a proper audio man. Recently a relative of mine took back his Sony DVD player to the small high street store he purchased it from. They kept it for a week then said it was dead, charged him £30 for assessing it and then talked him into paying another £200 (!!) for a new one (that doesn't play divX, etc!). He brought it to me, I took it to my colleague, who had it working perfectly within 3 hours. He was sure the cover had never been removed. There were literally piles of thick dust in the cogs jamming them. He thoroughly cleaned and re-lubed it and then played DVD's with it for a couple of days. My relative was evidently also swindled.
£120 for a small battery!!!
Won't any suitable sized 12volt battery do?
Here are some sealed lead acid ones from Maplin for between £13 and £30:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=1&DOY=search&ModuleNo=19363&criteria=
£120 for a small battery!!!
Won't any suitable sized 12volt battery do?
Here are some sealed lead acid ones from Maplin for between £13 and £30:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=1&DOY=search&ModuleNo=19363&criteria=
Hi John,
Can you say why?
Can you say what?
For £30 I purchased a DACMagic2 a year or so ago. Quite pleased with it for the price. I previously thought they were painful to listen to, but that was joined to a Philips or Marantz CD player. One was the HiFi news modified thing. Brash and glaring. BUT..... when I connected one to the 'pute via the Edirol USB to Optical converter, well, a different story. I also tried the Audiolab 8000 DAC on the 'pute but it seemed very dry and unmusical. Was a lot clearer with good vocal and stereo placement but couldn't listen to it. The DACMagic2 (to which I'd previously fitted a 6mm2 mains lead for it's previous owner) had the better tonal balance. Mostly I use an unmodified Yamaha E800 as mostly the HiFi is used for home theatre these days. The Yamaha has better bass then the DACMagic. I expect that would change if I reconstructed the DACMagic2's 1305's with a 'proper' power supply and output stage components with no copper tracks in the supply or signal path but I don't seem to have the time or motivation at the moment. A few years ago I did do a very substantial upgrade for someone to a CD player that used a pair of 1305's and the result was pretty good. It gave his full spec LP12 some competition using his audio research pre, some custom made mono blocks and Sonus Faber Guarneris.
It always has to everything I've mod'ed so far. Even just a 10mm2 T&E mains lead usually does the business. Even fitting a 10mm2 to a 'putes switched mode PSU the improvements through the loudspeakers were evident. Even different mains leads could be listened to on the 'pute PSU. We prefered the 10mm2 compared to some well known thin woven multicored stuff or to any ordinary main lead. In my experience 10mm2 T&E is much better that 6mm2 T&E on Amplifiers.
My old CD player, a Philips 960, was altered to use a 7350 DAC chip fed by 5 TO220 +5V regulators decoupled by black gates, cascaded off the +15V rail which was it's self decoupled by black gates and OsCons fed by discrete reg.s as used in the Philips/Marantz players, preceded by a pair of 4700u @ 35V Black Gates paralleled with 40,000u of Nichicon KZ caps. This also fed the analogue stages Vishays, black gates, nice OpAmps and no copper track. Getting rid of the few of inches of copper track was a well worthwhile improvement.
I tried a bunch of Transformers into that PSU and variations of it and they all sounded very different from each other. I'd had made, for some amplifiers I was making, 500VA and 1000VA Tx's which had extra secondaries of 12-0-12 so I tried these. Wow. No going back from that. I decided to just completely forget about using any small Tx. Each was very different, even though the total current was only about 100mA and the PSU very well decoupled. A pal brought over a Tx with 100VA on a 300VA core that a customer of his had had made for a mod to a Meridian 207 PSU and that had a superbly sweet treble but an overblown bloomy bass. The 1000VA had the better balance but coarse treble. The 500VA was best overall. I had a 1000VA feeding my players digital PSU and a 500VA for the DAC / analogue stage PSU.
I had a smallish transformer for the players servo stage. The original for the display and another small one for some other things.
The two mains transformers had no mains cable, just a 13A plug on each's primary wires going straight into my 100A mains supply termination. The mains cables I'd had on there were having a bad effect.
Each change to each PSU sounded very obvious from the loudspeakers. It all helped.
So now for upgrades to peoples equipment the first thing we do is a big mains cable followed by some or the rest of the PSU. CD player, DAC, Pre or Amp it always is efficacious. I don't even use fuses any more as they really do just ruin it. I've now evolved to only one of 30A rating just after the service Meter before the HiFi mains spur which is 100A cable (50mm2 per conductor) into a 100A terminal box distributing to 40A cable or more right onto the Tx's. It's so much better that there's no point in having anything less. I know this is a bit impractical for most people but the nearer to this the better. As far as switching equipment off, it varies. Sometimes there is an IEC socket to yank out. The Tx primaries being soldered to the IEC chassis plug pins. Others some kind of switching is retained at the equipment. Or a larger round pin mains plug.
I do none of it for show or feel good factor. I'm pragmatic and have reached this point after many years or testing and improvement.
People usually doubt that this mains supply thing can be true. I just did the mains cable on a Sony CDP AX5ES. Totally transformed the sound. Then I lobbed the tiddly little coils and mains switch and took the (only 6mm2) wire direct to the two TX's. Another transformation. We could scarcely believe the scale of improvement. People spend £thousands in upgrades and get less improvement. Needless to say, the customer was overjoyed. It cost him about £30
I know that commercially there must be a tight budget with the Gen 2 Dacapo and the mini DAC but the importance to the final sound of PSU can't be over stated. I would want to immediately try a 10mm2 mains cable direct to the Tx(s), bypassing any restrictions on the normal route to it/them and get rid of copper tracks in the signal path where possible.
I expect that you've chosen to not place any capacitors in series with the analogue path but if there were, I'd want to out those straight away too. I just did this on a pals X-Meridian 'pute sound card which replaced the DACMagic and Audiolab DAC. Needless to say, it was needed. Clarity ensued
JohnW said:
Can you say why?
Can you say what?
For £30 I purchased a DACMagic2 a year or so ago. Quite pleased with it for the price. I previously thought they were painful to listen to, but that was joined to a Philips or Marantz CD player. One was the HiFi news modified thing. Brash and glaring. BUT..... when I connected one to the 'pute via the Edirol USB to Optical converter, well, a different story. I also tried the Audiolab 8000 DAC on the 'pute but it seemed very dry and unmusical. Was a lot clearer with good vocal and stereo placement but couldn't listen to it. The DACMagic2 (to which I'd previously fitted a 6mm2 mains lead for it's previous owner) had the better tonal balance. Mostly I use an unmodified Yamaha E800 as mostly the HiFi is used for home theatre these days. The Yamaha has better bass then the DACMagic. I expect that would change if I reconstructed the DACMagic2's 1305's with a 'proper' power supply and output stage components with no copper tracks in the supply or signal path but I don't seem to have the time or motivation at the moment. A few years ago I did do a very substantial upgrade for someone to a CD player that used a pair of 1305's and the result was pretty good. It gave his full spec LP12 some competition using his audio research pre, some custom made mono blocks and Sonus Faber Guarneris.
It always has to everything I've mod'ed so far. Even just a 10mm2 T&E mains lead usually does the business. Even fitting a 10mm2 to a 'putes switched mode PSU the improvements through the loudspeakers were evident. Even different mains leads could be listened to on the 'pute PSU. We prefered the 10mm2 compared to some well known thin woven multicored stuff or to any ordinary main lead. In my experience 10mm2 T&E is much better that 6mm2 T&E on Amplifiers.
My old CD player, a Philips 960, was altered to use a 7350 DAC chip fed by 5 TO220 +5V regulators decoupled by black gates, cascaded off the +15V rail which was it's self decoupled by black gates and OsCons fed by discrete reg.s as used in the Philips/Marantz players, preceded by a pair of 4700u @ 35V Black Gates paralleled with 40,000u of Nichicon KZ caps. This also fed the analogue stages Vishays, black gates, nice OpAmps and no copper track. Getting rid of the few of inches of copper track was a well worthwhile improvement.
I tried a bunch of Transformers into that PSU and variations of it and they all sounded very different from each other. I'd had made, for some amplifiers I was making, 500VA and 1000VA Tx's which had extra secondaries of 12-0-12 so I tried these. Wow. No going back from that. I decided to just completely forget about using any small Tx. Each was very different, even though the total current was only about 100mA and the PSU very well decoupled. A pal brought over a Tx with 100VA on a 300VA core that a customer of his had had made for a mod to a Meridian 207 PSU and that had a superbly sweet treble but an overblown bloomy bass. The 1000VA had the better balance but coarse treble. The 500VA was best overall. I had a 1000VA feeding my players digital PSU and a 500VA for the DAC / analogue stage PSU.
I had a smallish transformer for the players servo stage. The original for the display and another small one for some other things.
The two mains transformers had no mains cable, just a 13A plug on each's primary wires going straight into my 100A mains supply termination. The mains cables I'd had on there were having a bad effect.
Each change to each PSU sounded very obvious from the loudspeakers. It all helped.
So now for upgrades to peoples equipment the first thing we do is a big mains cable followed by some or the rest of the PSU. CD player, DAC, Pre or Amp it always is efficacious. I don't even use fuses any more as they really do just ruin it. I've now evolved to only one of 30A rating just after the service Meter before the HiFi mains spur which is 100A cable (50mm2 per conductor) into a 100A terminal box distributing to 40A cable or more right onto the Tx's. It's so much better that there's no point in having anything less. I know this is a bit impractical for most people but the nearer to this the better. As far as switching equipment off, it varies. Sometimes there is an IEC socket to yank out. The Tx primaries being soldered to the IEC chassis plug pins. Others some kind of switching is retained at the equipment. Or a larger round pin mains plug.
I do none of it for show or feel good factor. I'm pragmatic and have reached this point after many years or testing and improvement.
People usually doubt that this mains supply thing can be true. I just did the mains cable on a Sony CDP AX5ES. Totally transformed the sound. Then I lobbed the tiddly little coils and mains switch and took the (only 6mm2) wire direct to the two TX's. Another transformation. We could scarcely believe the scale of improvement. People spend £thousands in upgrades and get less improvement. Needless to say, the customer was overjoyed. It cost him about £30
I know that commercially there must be a tight budget with the Gen 2 Dacapo and the mini DAC but the importance to the final sound of PSU can't be over stated. I would want to immediately try a 10mm2 mains cable direct to the Tx(s), bypassing any restrictions on the normal route to it/them and get rid of copper tracks in the signal path where possible.
I expect that you've chosen to not place any capacitors in series with the analogue path but if there were, I'd want to out those straight away too. I just did this on a pals X-Meridian 'pute sound card which replaced the DACMagic and Audiolab DAC. Needless to say, it was needed. Clarity ensued
The problem with the many regulated rails would be heat, I presume, from the low voltage higher current regulators. But decent sinking might get around that. Allowing me to use my big Tx / black gate supply. Of course, it may be the case that with a few cascaded regulators the PSU effects would be less and less. I've not really tried that. I have found that preceding a +5 reg with a simple series regulator comprising a transistor with a zenner, resistor and little decoupling cap makes a decent improvement to a CD players sound. With your two new DACS having so much regulation maybe it will be immune to PSU effects. But the 'pute PSU wasn't immune to the effect from a big mains cable.
John can you do some listening with large Tx / PSU caps bodged on to a Gen 2 or mini DAC to see what happens?
John can you do some listening with large Tx / PSU caps bodged on to a Gen 2 or mini DAC to see what happens?
Dacapo repair/replacement.
Hi Ian,
it is saddening that alot of services provided these days are of the 'promise everything and deliver nothing variety' and you are expected to pay through the nose for it. However, the engineer who worked on my equipment is from a company that has a respected reputation and is linked with a very fine, established audio engineering company. Before having the work carried out, i spoke several times with the engineer about his experience working on Pink products and what parts he would use to replace etc. I chose to trust in him and hoped for a successful repair. If you stop trusting people, what next?
The cost of £300 is broken down into £100 for shipping (as i am currently living in greece, the service required, coupled with adequate insurance really bumped the couriers price up) the other £200 was for minor repairs of damage to the board caused by electrolye leakage and replacement of 38 caps 25v @ 2200uf and 12 caps 35v @ 2200uf. These caps were replaced on the Dacapo and DC pcb's and the two separate card pcb's for use with Dacapo alone and with DC. Capacitors used were Panasonic FM's and Rubycon ZLH's. Individual cap removal and replacement was £3.00 plus VAT and £4.00 plus VAT respectively. Now, i know that the actual cost of the caps is a fraction of the above costs, but, as with everything , you pay for skill and knowledge don't you? aswell as the treasury getting it's cut.
The original batteries in the DC were from a company called Power Sonic based in California, but they also have an office just outside London. The DC uses 12 batteries at 6volt 2 A.H, configured into 4 banks of three. The batteries are placed around a small pcb which in turn is connected to the psu. It is not possible to fit batteries of different dimensions inside, as there is no room available. The constraints on room became a real problem as Power Sonic no loger make that spec in that size. Then the search bagan........ To cut a long story short, i managed to find the exact size and spec from a different manufacturer here in Greece. They wanted 15euro's a piece and i managed to get them down to 13euro's a piece. I believe the 156euro paid was good value, as back in 2002 Pink Triangle were asking for £350 to replace!
I suppose i could have bought larger voltage batteries equating to the same spec for less and placed them outside of the DC unit with a slight mod, but that would defeat the whole point of the excercise which is to keep the units intacted, preserved and original.
I really hope that i haven't been swindled and i am only going to find that out, if i can locate the cause for failure and prove without doubt that it was an intermitant one, thus giving credence to the engineer that the unit was fully operational.
Regards,
Steven.
Hi Ian,
it is saddening that alot of services provided these days are of the 'promise everything and deliver nothing variety' and you are expected to pay through the nose for it. However, the engineer who worked on my equipment is from a company that has a respected reputation and is linked with a very fine, established audio engineering company. Before having the work carried out, i spoke several times with the engineer about his experience working on Pink products and what parts he would use to replace etc. I chose to trust in him and hoped for a successful repair. If you stop trusting people, what next?
The cost of £300 is broken down into £100 for shipping (as i am currently living in greece, the service required, coupled with adequate insurance really bumped the couriers price up) the other £200 was for minor repairs of damage to the board caused by electrolye leakage and replacement of 38 caps 25v @ 2200uf and 12 caps 35v @ 2200uf. These caps were replaced on the Dacapo and DC pcb's and the two separate card pcb's for use with Dacapo alone and with DC. Capacitors used were Panasonic FM's and Rubycon ZLH's. Individual cap removal and replacement was £3.00 plus VAT and £4.00 plus VAT respectively. Now, i know that the actual cost of the caps is a fraction of the above costs, but, as with everything , you pay for skill and knowledge don't you? aswell as the treasury getting it's cut.
The original batteries in the DC were from a company called Power Sonic based in California, but they also have an office just outside London. The DC uses 12 batteries at 6volt 2 A.H, configured into 4 banks of three. The batteries are placed around a small pcb which in turn is connected to the psu. It is not possible to fit batteries of different dimensions inside, as there is no room available. The constraints on room became a real problem as Power Sonic no loger make that spec in that size. Then the search bagan........ To cut a long story short, i managed to find the exact size and spec from a different manufacturer here in Greece. They wanted 15euro's a piece and i managed to get them down to 13euro's a piece. I believe the 156euro paid was good value, as back in 2002 Pink Triangle were asking for £350 to replace!
I suppose i could have bought larger voltage batteries equating to the same spec for less and placed them outside of the DC unit with a slight mod, but that would defeat the whole point of the excercise which is to keep the units intacted, preserved and original.
I really hope that i haven't been swindled and i am only going to find that out, if i can locate the cause for failure and prove without doubt that it was an intermitant one, thus giving credence to the engineer that the unit was fully operational.
Regards,
Steven.
RE: Dacapo still not working!
Hi JohnW,
Just a quick update. Dacapo refuses to play audio with the HDCD filter fitted and after swapping to the 18bit(and it playing ok) it is now suffering the same inteference problem. Also, when repositioning the BNC card to either inputs 2 or 3 it refuses to select and defaults to 1 or 4 depending on which one was the last to be pushed. I hope this is starting to point in a certain direction, where the fault may lie?
Regards,
Steven.
Hi JohnW,
Just a quick update. Dacapo refuses to play audio with the HDCD filter fitted and after swapping to the 18bit(and it playing ok) it is now suffering the same inteference problem. Also, when repositioning the BNC card to either inputs 2 or 3 it refuses to select and defaults to 1 or 4 depending on which one was the last to be pushed. I hope this is starting to point in a certain direction, where the fault may lie?
Regards,
Steven.
Quote: Did you go back to the company
Hi John,
As soon as i had checked all that could be checked to make absolutely sure that the fault still existed and wasn't something else, i telephoned the company to inform them, there answer was " Well it's a bit tricky isn't it".... now i have to say that my initial reaction was, bloody tricky my ****, you check for the fault, find the fault and fix the fault, period.
After an hour of conversation back and forth and no offer to look at Dacapo again F.O.C, all i could feel was dissapointment. I was dissapionted in the fact that the goodwill gesture was not forthcoming and that maybe i had sent it to the wrong person in the first place. It's a difficult one, because, the PCB shows obvious signs of repair (very neat ) and all the caps have been replaced(again very nicely) and the engineer swears blind that Dacapo was fully operational before it's return. I can only assume that his "non offer " of return and repair is down to the fact that he see's it as being too difficult and that he is not skilled enough to remedy the problem. Although he said that he was not in the habit of sending equipment back to customers that was not fully operational ( and i believe him to be sincere) his final piece of advice was to track down the designer and see if he could help, to me that confirms the above. What to do???????? I am not the type of person to start being abusive or threatening action and the situation is still, that, Dacapo may well have shown itself to be fixed, which is why i need to find out where the problem lies in order to confirm that it is an intermittent one.
Jumpers are set to 1 and 2 open and 3 closed, which is the same for both the 18bit and HDCD filters.
Steven.
Hi John,
As soon as i had checked all that could be checked to make absolutely sure that the fault still existed and wasn't something else, i telephoned the company to inform them, there answer was " Well it's a bit tricky isn't it".... now i have to say that my initial reaction was, bloody tricky my ****, you check for the fault, find the fault and fix the fault, period.
After an hour of conversation back and forth and no offer to look at Dacapo again F.O.C, all i could feel was dissapointment. I was dissapionted in the fact that the goodwill gesture was not forthcoming and that maybe i had sent it to the wrong person in the first place. It's a difficult one, because, the PCB shows obvious signs of repair (very neat ) and all the caps have been replaced(again very nicely) and the engineer swears blind that Dacapo was fully operational before it's return. I can only assume that his "non offer " of return and repair is down to the fact that he see's it as being too difficult and that he is not skilled enough to remedy the problem. Although he said that he was not in the habit of sending equipment back to customers that was not fully operational ( and i believe him to be sincere) his final piece of advice was to track down the designer and see if he could help, to me that confirms the above. What to do???????? I am not the type of person to start being abusive or threatening action and the situation is still, that, Dacapo may well have shown itself to be fixed, which is why i need to find out where the problem lies in order to confirm that it is an intermittent one.
Jumpers are set to 1 and 2 open and 3 closed, which is the same for both the 18bit and HDCD filters.
Steven.
From the Repair mans point of view you paid him to replace certain parts, not fault find and repair a sometimes faulty unit.
Changing caps is pretty easy. Digital electronic engineering is a different matter. Especially if he didn't have the full circuit diagrams and the wave shapes and voltages at the test points.
One of my relatives looks after old classic cars. A customer brings one in to have a clutch changed and ends up paying a few hundred more to put right other critical problems that were there that they didn't know about. Then they're complaining about the extra cost and having spent all that money and they don't appear to have anything extra for it.
Changing caps is pretty easy. Digital electronic engineering is a different matter. Especially if he didn't have the full circuit diagrams and the wave shapes and voltages at the test points.
One of my relatives looks after old classic cars. A customer brings one in to have a clutch changed and ends up paying a few hundred more to put right other critical problems that were there that they didn't know about. Then they're complaining about the extra cost and having spent all that money and they don't appear to have anything extra for it.
Hi Ian,
the agreement with the engineer was to REPLACE and REPAIR. Which is what was thought to have been done, neither of us could have known that the fault would be intermittent.
The cost for work done is not in question here, as i was aware of the amount to be paid before hand, so i don't understand your comments. In fact, had the engineer found the problem and told me that it would be difficult and time consuming to repair, and as a result cost more, i would have probably agreed anyway. I think you have misunderstood where i am coming from. Maybe you feel that i am attacking him and need to put the record straight for all who work in your field, i can assure that is simply not the case.
I agree with you that without circuit diagrams etc, it must be difficult. I am simply dissapointed and am again back at square one.
I would really like to have Dacapo working again and if there is anyone who can help i would be eternally grateful.
Ian, as a matter of interest, have you repaired any Dacapos'?
Steven.
the agreement with the engineer was to REPLACE and REPAIR. Which is what was thought to have been done, neither of us could have known that the fault would be intermittent.
The cost for work done is not in question here, as i was aware of the amount to be paid before hand, so i don't understand your comments. In fact, had the engineer found the problem and told me that it would be difficult and time consuming to repair, and as a result cost more, i would have probably agreed anyway. I think you have misunderstood where i am coming from. Maybe you feel that i am attacking him and need to put the record straight for all who work in your field, i can assure that is simply not the case.
I agree with you that without circuit diagrams etc, it must be difficult. I am simply dissapointed and am again back at square one.
I would really like to have Dacapo working again and if there is anyone who can help i would be eternally grateful.
Ian, as a matter of interest, have you repaired any Dacapos'?
Steven.
Hi Steven,
No I didn't think you were having a go at the repair man. I was just saying that he might not have been able to tackle such a problem but didn't say so before taking it on and just expected to do a simple 'mechanical' job of component changing.
Intermittent faults are by no means rare. One has to expect that kind of trouble when taking on a piece of equipment, even for just an upgrade. As I said a few posts back, he doesn't seem to have fully tested it. He didn't run it up and leave it on for a few (eg 24) hours then play music, etc.
I just repaired a 300Watt amp and spent nearly as much time testing after as the repair took. I found it had hum that shouldn't be there but disappears after 1/2 hours music play. That was not what it was in for. But testing found it. So I told the owner it needs more work.
I feel for you having forked out quite a bit and been disappointed then frustrated.
How could he quote for repairing your DAC when he didn't know what was wrong . I was assuming that the £200 + post was just for the cap and battery change.
I would have offered to help if I could but I don't think I would be able to. I repaired some Philips / Marantz some years ago but had nice service tech info to do it. One traces through with a scope and checks the wave form against that supplied in the notes until something is different. It's not just circuit diagrams.
Mostly I do upgrades. Repairs can be a pain really. The hours it can take can quickly add up to more than the value of the item. I have a Philips 960 here now that I did a couple of repairs and found other problems that are proving difficult. It's hardly worth bothering. The un-modified 960 was not too bad but there's better now for less effort so I've rather lost interest in trying to wring the best out of CD players. For the last couple of years I use a 'pute to drive a DAC as do many of my pals.
I'm waiting for someone to make cheap but good multiple remote mono DACs to site one by each (active) loudspeaker in a home theatre setup driven by USB from the 'pute. That'll get rid of the analogue degradation from long (and short) interconnects. The problem stopping decent audio designers will be the software. The stuff that comes with Creative and Auzentech is not quite up to the job.
No I didn't think you were having a go at the repair man. I was just saying that he might not have been able to tackle such a problem but didn't say so before taking it on and just expected to do a simple 'mechanical' job of component changing.
Intermittent faults are by no means rare. One has to expect that kind of trouble when taking on a piece of equipment, even for just an upgrade. As I said a few posts back, he doesn't seem to have fully tested it. He didn't run it up and leave it on for a few (eg 24) hours then play music, etc.
I just repaired a 300Watt amp and spent nearly as much time testing after as the repair took. I found it had hum that shouldn't be there but disappears after 1/2 hours music play. That was not what it was in for. But testing found it. So I told the owner it needs more work.
I feel for you having forked out quite a bit and been disappointed then frustrated.
How could he quote for repairing your DAC when he didn't know what was wrong
. I was assuming that the £200 + post was just for the cap and battery change.I would have offered to help if I could but I don't think I would be able to. I repaired some Philips / Marantz some years ago but had nice service tech info to do it. One traces through with a scope and checks the wave form against that supplied in the notes until something is different. It's not just circuit diagrams.
Mostly I do upgrades. Repairs can be a pain really. The hours it can take can quickly add up to more than the value of the item. I have a Philips 960 here now that I did a couple of repairs and found other problems that are proving difficult. It's hardly worth bothering. The un-modified 960 was not too bad but there's better now for less effort so I've rather lost interest in trying to wring the best out of CD players. For the last couple of years I use a 'pute to drive a DAC as do many of my pals.
I'm waiting for someone to make cheap but good multiple remote mono DACs to site one by each (active) loudspeaker in a home theatre setup driven by USB from the 'pute. That'll get rid of the analogue degradation from long (and short) interconnects. The problem stopping decent audio designers will be the software. The stuff that comes with Creative and Auzentech is not quite up to the job.