Da-capo issue (John W?)

[mr-mac]

Hi John,

Glad to hear you are happy with the desisions you have made re. the move of premises etc.

I have my fingers crossed and hope you see the success you deserve.

Know you are busy but any chance you got my email?

Thanks

John

[loris.p]

Originally posted by loris.p


Originally posted by JohnW
Hi Loris P.

OK, I will lookout for the Clock Lock DIC and filter and Email you once I have them.




Just wandering if you get the stuff I sent?
loris

[mr-mac]

John,

I was just wondering - Previously you mentioned sometimes the Cardinal has issues trying to read the CD's that had maximum number of songs squeezed on them... Due to a change in the spec to allow the larger storage size.

This doesn't seem to be an issue on all cardinals and was wondering exactly what the issue was? Is it a case that it wasn't designed to spin at the correct speed for the inside rings or calibration of laser on this bit of the disk?

Is there any DIY tweak that could be done to improve it's reading of these disks?

Also did Sanyo ever make a laser head that was a drop in replacement that is better suited to CD-R's?

Just wondered - mine seems ok on the newer CD's and seems to read most CD-R's but sometimes start to get the odd very slight ticking coming through on CD-R's and I know some can't read them at all.

Anyway it was just on the offchance (esspecially now you have a cardinal) there may be some tweak that could be done to improve it's performance in this respect.

John

[rasp]

hello, any advice would be much much appreciated.

i have a much cherished da capo and would like to prolong its life. reading this forum has left me a little confused, though, as i am not the most technically minded.

is anyone able to tell me

1. exactly what needs to be replaced in my dac and where these are situated,

2. where or who the replacement components can be acquired from and

3. who may be able to carry out the work required.

i do so much want my dac to live as long as possible. i have had it for nearly 10 years now and heard nothing then or even now that comes close to the sublime sound that it makes.

thanks in advance!

frank

[mr-mac]

All the capacitors...

The cylindrical looking components about 3cm-ish tall. every single one needs changed.

John

[sq225917]

frank if you don't want to do the work yourself , it might be worth asking Tony at Coherent systems if he'd do the modification work.

http://www.coherent-systems.co.uk/repairs.asp

[rasp]

thanks for the info guys, much apreciated!

frank

[audiojoy]

Hi all, I played it safe and changed all the electrolytic caps within my Da capo board. Bought mine from E bay for £300 couple of months ago. Shocked by the quality, compared to my audio note signature 4.1 it sounded far more natural and realistic. It had also matched my all time favourite reference cd player REVOX B225 (not 226), which has overhauled power supplies, and discrete i/v converters and valve output.

I changed the caps to either black gate standards or cerafines. The capacitance went up to 4700uf via the black gate and probably overkill with the 15000uf on the cerafines, but that's all i had at home at the time.

Without any burn-in, within 10 seconds of switching on, I was immediately struck by the increased timbrel details to instruments, a cleaner more refined sound and there was a strange airy quality with the musicians seemingly floating around my head in a realistic three dimensional set up! Took me by surprise. (Please note my descriptions are only via the superb ultrasone 750 headphones and darkvoice tube headamp, which i believe are as accurate as my stacked quad 57 set ups) I think I understand this 3d effect as being due to the fact that the extra details were giving me clues as to the relationship between the musicians and their surrounding environment. The wonderful tonal palate also added to the realism. That is after a few minutes of switching on! The black gates are notoriously described as taking many many hours to burn in so i wonder if the cerafines were more likely at work here. Don't know, but do know from repeated experiments that such electrolytic upgrades more often than not only make subtle changes. These sound changes were not subtle. What potential is there in this dac? Mine came with the 1307 so what the better filters can do god only knows.


BUT I also noticed that the red indicator lights on front of the DACAPO were much much brighter, so bright I thought they were getting too much voltage. This then perhaps indicates why this DAC sounds so much better than before - the original electrolytics must have been on their last legs and so I never did hear its full potential.

We now need to compare the DAC with new black gates/cerafines versus new cheaper electrolytics. See if i can find time to do this.

[sq225917]

John, given the way that high end audio via dvd/blu is going, ie better than anything on a cd, would you ever consider the inclusion of an HDMI plug on the back of one of the DACS so we could use them with 24/96 and beyond source material.

i think for a lot of listeners their cd transport is just that, pure CD, and those of us stuck in two channel world are therefore unable to do anything with the audio digital out from most DVDA/blu-ray players...

[mr-mac]

Even if you could put an input on the back it would still only be 16bit at the DAC.

Though when John was looking at new filter he did design a double width input card that could handle the newer formats...

If SACD really took off maybe we could get him to resserect the input card on it's own.

John