Da-capo issue (John W?)

[rlim]

John:

I've just return a Dacapo I repaired for a forum user (after having it on an extended “repair period” – sorry about that Paul). However it did gave my design team and I a chance to have extended listening seasons - and compare against a dual TI DSD1792 based Hi-End DAC, I was genuinely expecting the TI design to be superior to the Dacapo (I designed the Dacapo in 1991) - well to cut a long story short - the Dacapo completely floored the TI based DAC – much to the surprise of all including myself. Without hesitation, the HDCD filter was superior to all filter modules, including the later 24Bit filter (designed after I left PT).

Can you verify if the audition was with the DSD1792 internal filter set to slow-rolloff? Some circles claim that the slow-rolloff setting is far superior as far as sonics are concerned.

Thanks.

[mr-mac]

John,

Just a quick question... Do you have a list of all capacitor sizes for Cardinal, Da-capo or DC? Just wondered as it would save me opening them up and listing them all....

When replacing what capcitors would you recommend, is best bet just Black Gate for everything or do you have a diffrent recommendation?

I only ask as it would be to expensive to send all 3 units to you for repair (plus as you are in the middle of releasing new products etc. probs not convenient anyway)....

Currently I am running Cardinal, Da-capo (with HDCD) & DC battery PSU.... I have opened them and inspected the circuit boards and can see no sign of leaking from the caps so far (not sure if thats down to the units running nearly all the time). So hopefully a pre-emptive change will keep them going for many years to come....

If only all CD sounded this good.

Thanks Again

John

[JohnW]

Hi John,

Thanks for your kind words - in fact I've just bought (weird) a Dacapo, DC, Cardinal combination from EBay - never had to buy one of my own designs before!

For sure, the HDCD filter is by far the best - 24Bit sounds Ok, until you listen to a track with Heavy "Phasey" Bass - (dare I say such as Fat Boy Slim)...

I'm currently in China, and don't have any units to hand - however from fading memory, the caps are 16V and 25V 2200uF, 12.5mm Dia, 25mm / 40mm tall.

I can't say which are the best caps, depends on circuit position - I favour organic caps such as OSCONs...

John

[Puffin]

John W. I posted on the other thread recently (JW Products info) asking what the position was with the new products you were working on at the end of last year, Dac ,Digital Amp etc. I am interested because I have a Dacmagic, Isomagic and a Discmagic. Is there another thread that I have missed, because it seemed to suggest that there were some pictures out there somewhere of the PP items.

[mr-mac]

Thanks John (probs won't be doing this in next few weeks so if you happen to change your own ones, only if you have time, maybe a little list would be a great help to more users than just myself)....

Just a quick thought if the Components were tuned to work with these capacitors maybe the best brand to replace them with would be which ever company that the ones in the da-capo were copied off, if stories are true the Rubicon ones ZA or ZL????

Anyone else had them changed? any thoughts.... Shame we can't call on Ken Ishiwata to put the correct caps in the correct place.

I could be wrong but I don't think anyone else in the world knows more about the best cap in the best place to elicit the required results....

If the lottery numbers come up I'll give him a call.

John

[mr-mac]

Sorry just another small question.

In the Da-capo Digital Input card with the clock lock and digital connections. What standard does the clock lock use?

I was wondering if it is in the same spec as the clock lock used in professional equipment or is it bespoke and only compatible with the cardinal?

Just wondered as I was wanting to get a computer sound card with digtal out and thought it would be of use if I could find one that would utilise the clock lock....

Cheers

John

[JohnW]

Hi John,

The Clock lock system used on my designs uses a 128Fs clock between the DAC to Transport.

For CD, Fs = 44.1KHz

44100 x 128 = 5.6448MHz.

5.6448MHz is easliy derived from 384Fs (/3) or 256Fs (/2) MLCKs.

John

[mr-mac]

Are there any other transports that will work with da-capo clock lock, off the shelf as it were???

[mr-mac]

Ok sorry for being really annoying but just thought of another question...

Will the da-capo only accept 16bit digital at 44,100 or will it accept diffrent bit rates and/or sampling rate?

Thanks

John

[mr-mac]

Well, thats me just recived the DC through the post....

Even on a cheap £15 set of headphones (about 15yr old out of dixons) I can blindly pick the diffrence between Mains and Battery 10 times out of 10....

Oh my god how much diffrerence does this make over a std internal psu and the fact there is still more available on battery.....

The Da-capo sounds better on it's own than most anything else ever made and it gets so much better....

John W you are gonna have to go some to ever build a better CD replay system than this.....

We are certainly not worthy, you should get a damn knighthood for this