Has anyone opened up the gutys of one of these and done any upgrades? If I post apic of the iunternals would people want to help me indentify possible upgrade routes?
I would like to learn (which I know is based on years of experience which I don't have) how everyone determines what parts will lead to successful upgrades and what parts are commonly upgraded and how to identify those parts when looking at a PCB.
I am looking for a mentor and a little hand holding at indentifying sections of PCB and there functions with relation/interactions with the rest of the PCB.
I thought the Njoe Tjoeb would be a fun method to learn on and hopefully this can develop in a wiki of sorts for beginners learning to mod!
I would like to learn (which I know is based on years of experience which I don't have) how everyone determines what parts will lead to successful upgrades and what parts are commonly upgraded and how to identify those parts when looking at a PCB.
I am looking for a mentor and a little hand holding at indentifying sections of PCB and there functions with relation/interactions with the rest of the PCB.
I thought the Njoe Tjoeb would be a fun method to learn on and hopefully this can develop in a wiki of sorts for beginners learning to mod!
I will take some pictures of the PCB and post them and if someone wants to guide beginners along on a journey that would be awesome!
As I'm owning a Tjoeb myself, I don't need a closeup
I think it all depends on your likings and the rest of your system.
If you plan to get the upsampler, I would recommend different parts as without it.
With u/s the unit sounds quite a bit brighter, or better lets say extended at the frequency extremes.
But in both cases the easiest and most useful tweaks are
- changing the op-amps to BB OPA627 or AD825.There are more "modern"opamps , but they tend to oscillate sometimes, and those two work for sure.
- swapping the 4 small yellow caps for better ones. For the 1µF one can take a smaller 0,47 without problems, space is tight there...
- same with the two Wima 6.8µF output caps. Here its best to take some wire to mount the caps off the board. Then its easier to check different types, and good caps tend to be BIG! 1µF is enough in 99 percent of all cases, 2,2 always; as good caps are EXPENSIVE!(Not always...)
Note: I'm not a big fan of Mundorf caps, even though they are manufactured at my hometown and I can get there with my bicycle😉 To my ears they all sound kind of artificial.
These mods would cost around 50-100 bucks and are the most important ones.
Be careful with desoldering, as the board has quite thin copper traces and you can easily tear off a solder pad.
Ah, and of course the tubes! In my setup E288CC sound best, but only the early 60's Siemens/Halske type, which come in yellow/blue boxes! But there are many other nice tubes available, with Telefunken/Siemens being more neutral, and Philips/Mullard/Amperex more on the warm side.
have fun with your Tjoeb!
Juergen
I think it all depends on your likings and the rest of your system.
If you plan to get the upsampler, I would recommend different parts as without it.
With u/s the unit sounds quite a bit brighter, or better lets say extended at the frequency extremes.
But in both cases the easiest and most useful tweaks are
- changing the op-amps to BB OPA627 or AD825.There are more "modern"opamps , but they tend to oscillate sometimes, and those two work for sure.
- swapping the 4 small yellow caps for better ones. For the 1µF one can take a smaller 0,47 without problems, space is tight there...
- same with the two Wima 6.8µF output caps. Here its best to take some wire to mount the caps off the board. Then its easier to check different types, and good caps tend to be BIG! 1µF is enough in 99 percent of all cases, 2,2 always; as good caps are EXPENSIVE!(Not always...)
Note: I'm not a big fan of Mundorf caps, even though they are manufactured at my hometown and I can get there with my bicycle😉 To my ears they all sound kind of artificial.
These mods would cost around 50-100 bucks and are the most important ones.
Be careful with desoldering, as the board has quite thin copper traces and you can easily tear off a solder pad.
Ah, and of course the tubes! In my setup E288CC sound best, but only the early 60's Siemens/Halske type, which come in yellow/blue boxes! But there are many other nice tubes available, with Telefunken/Siemens being more neutral, and Philips/Mullard/Amperex more on the warm side.
have fun with your Tjoeb!
Juergen
Is the power supply of the Ah! pretty decent? from what I have read the first place to mod and find improvements is there! (problem is I don't understand what i am looking at! or what make a part important!)
Yes, powersupply IS decent enough; lots of capacitance, two separate trannies for analog and digital, 6 regulators...
Most rewarding changes are what I described above; and they are much easier than trying those deep surgeries in the PS.
Especially when you don't know what you are looking at
Most rewarding changes are what I described above; and they are much easier than trying those deep surgeries in the PS.
Especially when you don't know what you are looking at
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