Finally, an affordable CD Transport: the Shigaclone story

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iTiberius

iTiberius

Member
Joined 2005
Shiga project status update

Another update.

We have received the trafos from factory.
These are ultra low-noise with magnetic shield.
PCB board have been sent from factory and we expect to receive them today.
The good news is that remote PCB boards will be received also today.
LCD displays arrived in Bucharest and we wait for customs clearance.

Regards,
Tibi
 

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S

Sean Henderson

Member
Joined 2004
Shiga project status

Tibi,

Sounds like things are coming together nicely!

When you are farther along with the design and build cost for the proposed handheld Remote Control and also the CD Clamp, let us all know the details on possibly purchasing those from you.

I know you had mentioned possibly doing a DAC at some point and that also would be something folks would be interested in.

I do not have a stand alone DAC and have been considering what to do. I considered a used Oppo BDP-95, which has the Sabra 32 Bit DAC's, but other than a USB Input, there are no Digital Optical or Digital Coaxial Inputs to feed a digital signal from an outboard CD Transport to the the Oppo's DAC section.

So...I am still looking for a state of the art DAC, and just as importantly, one that has a state of the art line level analog output stage to feed to my preamp.
 
iTiberius

iTiberius

Member
Joined 2005
Hi Sean,
Hi all,

The boards arrived yesterday ! :)

We have also a puck concept and also a prototype. It is a very simple one.
Tomorrow I´ll post remote price as well.

About our dac. This is called Spartan and make use of 4 x CS4398 in parallel. Output is passive and use transformers.
This is a commercial product and was initially designed to be used in conjunction with a PC trough USB. We have customised a Linux distro to only 8MB . The goal was to reduce jitter and provide a constant data flow to USB.
Same dac will be interfaced with a spdif receiver. Pictures tomorrow. :)

Regards,
Tibi
 

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iTiberius

iTiberius

Member
Joined 2005
And here is a remote mounted.
Pcb was intentionally made single side, with no holes.
This allow you to make a box very easy.

Regards,
Tibi

PS. Last picture is with prototype of Spartan usb DAC I was talking abount few posts above.
 

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iTiberius

iTiberius

Member
Joined 2005
Infrared Remote options and prices

Shiga Infrared Remote options and prices are:

1. PCB + SC7461-103 10euro.
All needed components are listed in BOM
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuQF0EAtUutedEhBYW9hSklhOEVmSERodi1xSldyUUE#gid=0

2. ready mounted and tested 29euro.


All interested please let me know which option you prefer, by sending a mail to sales at vicol-audio * ro , and I´ll send you an additional invoice.
No extra shipping will be added, only 3.4% paypal fee.

Regards,
Tibi
 
uncle_leon

uncle_leon

Member
Joined 2007
studiozey.com/
dimkasta said:
Check the link above

Unfortunately as per Bobken's sayings, this dac is very difficult and very component dependent (page 9).

I wish Peter had his kits still available :(
Click to expand...
Can we please take the DAC related matters to Peter's thread mentioned above? There, if not Peter, then Bobken or I will do my best to help. Just to clarify: while I agree that Peter's DAC is very component-dependent, this is true for any audio device really. Also, there exist reasonable substitutes for most of Peter's parts choices.


Now, getting back to the Shigaclone, I am happy to share what is probably the craziest mod I have done so far (and boy, have I done some crazy mods ;)):

I mentioned a while back, that I felt that with some sticky coating on the CD platform, Shiga should be able to operate with very lightweight, non-magnetic puck. As I find natural materials sound better than artificial, I was only looking for natural substances.

At first, I thought of natural latex rubber. You can buy this stuff in liquid form (it is used for advanced make up, creating artificial scars etc.), which should work for coating the CD platform. Indeed, I will probably try it at some point.

But then, a thought occurred to me - so crazy, I initially dismissed it, and only came back to it in a "what the hell, might as well try" moment: spider silk. It is very fine and lightweight, so will not upset the mechanism balance; it is tacky, but does not glue permanently. Seemed perfect, just kind of difficult to collect and let's face it - wacky.

So I went to the garden with a bent piece of some plastic frame and spent a very sticky half an hour collecting spider webs. I tried my best to avoid debris, but still, the end result looked anything but appetizing:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Thankfully, the CD platter is small enough that I managed to find a suitable, reasonably clean section of the "super web":

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


I first stuck the entire web on the platter and then I cut a large circle around it. The web collapsed and shrunk as soon as it lost tension, wrapping itself nicely around the platform edges. Here it is with a CD on:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


The web seemed pretty sticky, so I decided to try it with no puck whatsoever. I just pressed the CD firmly, reset the player and...

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


...it worked! I was really thrilled :) The CD takes noticeably less time to accelerate on start-up, and the motor clearly has an easier time spinning it.

But the most important question is, of course: how it sounds?
The stock puck has a bit harsh and kind of edgy sound, I think everyone agrees on that. The few makeshift non-magnetic pucks I tried all had smoother sound, but I felt they were introducing their own colourations. The "spider puck" on the other hand, has smooth sound with no apparent colourations at all. What's more, the sound got very refined in a subtle sort of way. It got airier, with more definition and depth. It is a very subtle difference, but of the kind you instinctively feel is right. I never had the chance to try a really well made puck (such as the ebony ones Fran made a while back), so I can't say which is better... Spider puck is really good though.

I have only done this mod today, and obviously I am unable to comment on its long-term reliability (which is probably poor, to be honest). Certainly it's not convenient for swapping CDs - the web is very tacky and the CD has to be carefully peeled off the platform every time (otherwise, the web would tear). I don't really mind though.

All in all, it is a mod as crazy as it is successful, and while I do not expect a massive crowd of followers, I thought it would make an interesting read at the very least ;)
 
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