The hot shot designers did do it. They were at Sony apparently and not at Aragon.
Based on the quality of the board, it was purely a financial decision, and not a sonic one.
They left meat on the bone and I’m going after it.
The photo is before I changed the parts I changed, but you can see the 12 caps all lined up. I could replace them the way you suggest but I prefer to have them properly through the board for security.
Based on the quality of the board, it was purely a financial decision, and not a sonic one.
They left meat on the bone and I’m going after it.
The photo is before I changed the parts I changed, but you can see the 12 caps all lined up. I could replace them the way you suggest but I prefer to have them properly through the board for security.
Attachments
Total waste of time imho. But there is of course no problem to have fun.🙄
The caps look perfectly fine, the orange ones were good caps, the blue seem to feed the digital section. And you have a splited power supply box maybe that deserve more a cap swap as those are the ones that suffer the most -smoothing caps after the diodes bridge-.
The only ones I would have changed in your shoes are the polarized yellow tantals on the analog board, they made efforts on a discrete output stage ! Not an easy task cause certainly chosen by the designer here for their needed bad ESR behavior (to avoid oscillation???).
The caps swap will change the sound for the better or the worse if you swap by chance a cap model & brand for an other... this game is asking some experience in the models choices.😎
The caps look perfectly fine, the orange ones were good caps, the blue seem to feed the digital section. And you have a splited power supply box maybe that deserve more a cap swap as those are the ones that suffer the most -smoothing caps after the diodes bridge-.
The only ones I would have changed in your shoes are the polarized yellow tantals on the analog board, they made efforts on a discrete output stage ! Not an easy task cause certainly chosen by the designer here for their needed bad ESR behavior (to avoid oscillation???).
The caps swap will change the sound for the better or the worse if you swap by chance a cap model & brand for an other... this game is asking some experience in the models choices.😎
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I can change the yellow ones more easily than the electrolytics. More room to work there, and less to get "collateral damage" as I wrench on it.
Would you suggest something other than tantalum there? If so, what?
Schematic attached (page 3 has the analogue board on it):
Would you suggest something other than tantalum there? If so, what?
Schematic attached (page 3 has the analogue board on it):
No idea - or at least I have but don't want you to waste your time-, cause i don't know why it was really chosen here. If really chosen for their bad ESR then tantal behavior is quite unique ! (at the opposite of a film cap or the best lythic caps with good ESR -i.e. low Z number)
And not easy cause most of the lythics caps have often more than 10/20 % capacitance value random.
Notice they are polarized and certainly few uF only. the capacitance value and voltage should be marked on the yellow drop body.
Frankly, I would leave this DAC for a more modern PCM chips of the same family that is know to be superior : the AD1862 DAC project will put your hands in an easy to do and soldering project where you monney will not be wasted by blind caps swap and triming without scope.
Maybe someone can help with the cap choice for the tantal but here w/o measurement you are inthe blind and I find the advice given before by the members make sense... better to invest your time and monney elswhere than trying to make better than the aknowledged designers by some asumptions you consider to be true but you don't really rule (being there myself, alas by modding dozen and dozen of cd players 20 years ago, uh !)
At least my modest experience, YMMV ! Broken many devices myself to learn... no free lunches...alas, a,nd peper and salt (caps) don't really change a whole design... just ad spicies -ok can be good if you know what you do to adapt to your ear but again don't change the game of a given design-
And not easy cause most of the lythics caps have often more than 10/20 % capacitance value random.
Notice they are polarized and certainly few uF only. the capacitance value and voltage should be marked on the yellow drop body.
Frankly, I would leave this DAC for a more modern PCM chips of the same family that is know to be superior : the AD1862 DAC project will put your hands in an easy to do and soldering project where you monney will not be wasted by blind caps swap and triming without scope.
Maybe someone can help with the cap choice for the tantal but here w/o measurement you are inthe blind and I find the advice given before by the members make sense... better to invest your time and monney elswhere than trying to make better than the aknowledged designers by some asumptions you consider to be true but you don't really rule (being there myself, alas by modding dozen and dozen of cd players 20 years ago, uh !)
At least my modest experience, YMMV ! Broken many devices myself to learn... no free lunches...alas, a,nd peper and salt (caps) don't really change a whole design... just ad spicies -ok can be good if you know what you do to adapt to your ear but again don't change the game of a given design-
I have a CS 4398 mounted on an adapter board on a newer DIY d/a converter.
I was thinking I could try it on the Aragon board but it's a stereo chip, not mono.
My feeling is this is a good design, certainly good when it was current, but it suffers from accountants in the front office. I guess it would make sense to run it through a SPICE simulation, and see where improvements can be made.
A nice, high quality board would be a great start; from there, no-compromises on the selected components to assemble it, and I think it would improve well enough to justify the trouble. Honestly, it's not made with "cheap" parts- Dale resistors and the Sprague capacitors are clearly visible. The external power supply will be upgraded, or outright replaced with an instrumentation power supply. That mod has been known to have a significant impact on the performance- ease overall and ability to handle fast and dynamic transients- it's like going from a single amp to monoblocks. Even when available new, there was an upgraded power supply for this unit.
As an aside, Aragon did an "upgrade" to this, the Mark II version. But, it has a completely different digital architecture, different chips, and even the analogue board was changed for some reason. And it is not an upgrade at all. The original version is the way to go, despite it's age. The original cannot be "upgraded" to Mark II, because really only the enclosure is re-used...
Yeah, strictly, this may be a waste of time. But, I know it can be better, so why not make it better?
I was thinking I could try it on the Aragon board but it's a stereo chip, not mono.
My feeling is this is a good design, certainly good when it was current, but it suffers from accountants in the front office. I guess it would make sense to run it through a SPICE simulation, and see where improvements can be made.
A nice, high quality board would be a great start; from there, no-compromises on the selected components to assemble it, and I think it would improve well enough to justify the trouble. Honestly, it's not made with "cheap" parts- Dale resistors and the Sprague capacitors are clearly visible. The external power supply will be upgraded, or outright replaced with an instrumentation power supply. That mod has been known to have a significant impact on the performance- ease overall and ability to handle fast and dynamic transients- it's like going from a single amp to monoblocks. Even when available new, there was an upgraded power supply for this unit.
As an aside, Aragon did an "upgrade" to this, the Mark II version. But, it has a completely different digital architecture, different chips, and even the analogue board was changed for some reason. And it is not an upgrade at all. The original version is the way to go, despite it's age. The original cannot be "upgraded" to Mark II, because really only the enclosure is re-used...
Yeah, strictly, this may be a waste of time. But, I know it can be better, so why not make it better?
because most of the concepts you are talking about are myths or make no sense in your context. Also because the sound quality is as well as about a front end in a dac, I assume you stream from a cd player via spidf ? It has a lot of jitter. while there is some myth to in the jitter concept and most of the PCM chips live easier with it than Delta Sigma chips.
The CS4398 is an excelent musical Delta Sigma chip you can of course NOT put on your Aragon.
a link was given above to play with new board for PCM chips.
Good luck
The CS4398 is an excelent musical Delta Sigma chip you can of course NOT put on your Aragon.
a link was given above to play with new board for PCM chips.
Good luck
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Thank you.
I can use the 4398 board and bypass the output, going instead through transformers which I already have for it. Just need a build box and I could give it a try.
(I still think there's meat on the bone with the old D2A)
I can use the 4398 board and bypass the output, going instead through transformers which I already have for it. Just need a build box and I could give it a try.
(I still think there's meat on the bone with the old D2A)