Haha, I'm taking my time as I've not had the player apart in months and needed to re-familiarise myself with things.
C210 and C214 are coming out as they're unused decoupling for the standard output stage. They'll clear a bit more room for one of the big new caps.
R201 and R202 (12R resistors) are coming out / being shorted as they filter psu noise/ripple and with just one big smoother per rail it will be better without them.
I may place wire under LK3 and LK7 to reduce ground impedance a tiny bit on those links.
I toyed with the idea of feeding the +-5V regs directly from the raw supplies rather than from the +-15V regs as Arcam did it but I think I'll leave that alone for now and gauge the improvement from the new caps and resistor shorting.
C210 and C214 are coming out as they're unused decoupling for the standard output stage. They'll clear a bit more room for one of the big new caps.
R201 and R202 (12R resistors) are coming out / being shorted as they filter psu noise/ripple and with just one big smoother per rail it will be better without them.
I may place wire under LK3 and LK7 to reduce ground impedance a tiny bit on those links.
I toyed with the idea of feeding the +-5V regs directly from the raw supplies rather than from the +-15V regs as Arcam did it but I think I'll leave that alone for now and gauge the improvement from the new caps and resistor shorting.
Oh wow guys, this is amazing. I've rarely (if ever) heard such an improvement from top to bottom on every sonic aspect a reviewer could dream up!
I did do the ground and resistor jumpers, which probably was a part of it. Clearly, though, these caps are wonderful as smoothers in this position.
I've only listened to Jennifer Warnes so far and it's so smooth, detailed & open with deeper and more tuneful, detailed bass. The top end is more controlled and the whole soundscape has opened out.
I did do the ground and resistor jumpers, which probably was a part of it. Clearly, though, these caps are wonderful as smoothers in this position.
I've only listened to Jennifer Warnes so far and it's so smooth, detailed & open with deeper and more tuneful, detailed bass. The top end is more controlled and the whole soundscape has opened out.
Why clear the deck?
The reason I cleared the output stage is actually not for the space.
All the components are still in the circuit even if they are not in the signal path. I know it sounds strange, but all aspects of sound quality improved by getting these parts off board even though they were bypassed.
The reason I cleared the output stage is actually not for the space.
All the components are still in the circuit even if they are not in the signal path. I know it sounds strange, but all aspects of sound quality improved by getting these parts off board even though they were bypassed.
To me the valve stage is awesome. Very natural, 3D deep soundstage. Powerful from top to bottom. I use 6n2p tubes.
It has inspired me to build a set of OTL monoblock amps based on 6np2, 6np6 and 6C33C... but that is another story.
VERY and oh yes! I put more of the same caps in my pre-amp and that too gave good results, but not as dramatic as in the Alpha. The resistor shorting was probably important too! Never mind the extra filtering, it clearly hurts the sound.
Cor - that's it then - I'm off downstairs to rip it all open again - sh.. the wife will kill me - I've already lost two hours doing something else to it today - pah !!!
I've no room at all inside the box so I'm going to have to bolt the caps to the back panel for now.
It won't hurt doing that - and you just proved it - how glad am I ? 😀
Pics already printed off........bye...........
I've no room at all inside the box so I'm going to have to bolt the caps to the back panel for now.
It won't hurt doing that - and you just proved it - how glad am I ? 😀
Pics already printed off........bye...........
I've not decided exactly, I just felt like doing it to use up some caps which are just old pulls. I might use it for smoothing my digital filter power supply, or the decoder, everything else has decent modern caps or is in the player where space is limited. This will be going off-board. Should only be about 9400uF, but the impedance will be pretty low with it being 20 caps in parallel.
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Well, after all the excitement of the big caps job you did I dashed off to do my version, albeit with 2 half decent 6800 uf caps - they will fit perfectly where the 6 x 1000's were.
Stripped it down, did the links as you described and found I didn't have enough solder to finish it off !! 😡
I can't use the exact words here - but you can probably guess.
So, tomorrow it is then 🙄
Stripped it down, did the links as you described and found I didn't have enough solder to finish it off !! 😡
I can't use the exact words here - but you can probably guess.
So, tomorrow it is then 🙄
So that's the benefit of lots of small caps - low impedance, thanks.
Fancy having 20 Silmics as ' old pulls ' !!
Outrageous 😀
Fancy having 20 Silmics as ' old pulls ' !!
Outrageous 😀
Haha, if only. They are old pulls but I bought them in a big bag from Ebay. I've modded a few CD players but not THAT many.
Fancy running out of solder at that exact moment! I also ran out of my normal solder this evening - super solder. Very annoying.
Fancy running out of solder at that exact moment! I also ran out of my normal solder this evening - super solder. Very annoying.
Gees, not much leaded solder left on Ebay. I don't know where we're going to get it from in the future, lead-free is not an option for DIY.
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