How to maximize the Zhaolu DAC

[FOXYE]

I have the Zhaolu 2.5A.
I made some changes to the device.

The signal from the dac is taken directly to high-pass filter to block DC.

The resulting sound is quite detailed, wide soundstage. but lacks soundstage depth and presence in vocals. bright, little cold sound.

Does anyone have an idea how to improve the sound of the dac?

[Bill Fuss]

You have to tell us what's in it, pics or description might get you some responses.

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by FOXYE

I have the Zhaolu 2.5A.
I made some changes to the device.

The signal from the dac is taken directly to high-pass filter to block DC.

The resulting sound is quite detailed, wide soundstage. but lacks soundstage depth and presence in vocals. bright, little cold sound.

Does anyone have an idea how to improve the sound of the dac?

See this thread, the stuff most relevant to you starts here: Zhaolu DAC - a good value DAC? next page in the thread has pictures of my PCB modifications.

Note that the thread is very long and their are a lot of mods I did scattered throughout.

I posted detailed instructions on improving the audio path, power supplies and other areas of the dac. There are some fairly novel mistakes in the pcbs of this product, however all are easily fixed, and the results are more than worth it.

Might be worthwhile to read most of the thread as long as it is. Always good to do a search, everything you could possibly want to know about this dac is in that thread.

Hope this helps..

I no longer have this dac having passed it on to a friend a couple of years ago. (Built my own)

[Bill Fuss]

Thanks for the link.

If it has a CS4398 in it, replacing the entire output section with a couple high quality OP trafos is a no-brainer, and you get balanced outputs to boot.

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by Bill Fuss

Thanks for the link.

If it has a CS4398 in it, replacing the entire output section with a couple high quality OP trafos is a no-brainer, and you get balanced outputs to boot.

It's the 2.5A version which has the AD1852 dac in it, the C has the CS4398..

The power supply board in either version requires attention, and many improvements are possible to the audio board as well..