A year or so ago, I was reading an article about a cheap NOS DAC on the TNT website. At the end the author Geoff Husband stated that this DAC was a good candidate for his T-System, a high performance low budget system based around a T-amp for under 400 Euros.
This got me thinking. I had been aware of Yeo's DIYPARADISE.COM products, and I thought that I could better this T-System and put it all in one case with one power lead and one on/off switch, and have some fun to boot.
I did alot of research into components (diy modules mainly) and wracked by brain about which CD/DVD player to chop up. There were so many options, and eventually I gave up and went for the ubiquitous Marantz CD63. There is plenty of back-up on several forums for this machine, and I thought that it would be simpler to improve for this reason.
So I purchased an untidy scratched unit for £25 and set off. I had read many good reports on the Monica NOS DAC so one of these kits was purchased too. At the same time I bought a Charlize amp, as it was also well regarded on this forum and others. To complete my system, I would need a volume control and/or a pre-amp. For simplicity and purity, I decided to go passive, and I splashed out on a 25K Stepped attenuator from DIY Fidelity, which uses Vishay/Dale military grade resistors. Not the cheapest solution, bit I couldn't resist.
I laid these out on a test board and used a Meanwell 3.2A 12V SMPS as a power supply. The quality of the diyparadise units was excellent and they produced an excellent sound, however the output from the Monica2 DAC was low and consequently sound levels were not high. I put my Musical Fidelity Pre in the siganl path and wow. The Charlize is certainly capable of good volume.
At this time I had been following a thread on the diyparadise forum about Rudolf Broertjes' SS I/V Gain Stage, which soon became available on Yeo's website. I thought that this should go some way to sort my problem out so I purchased on of these. Oh and a USB to SPDIF converter (as I was having a delivery from Malaysia.
Nearly there. The SS I/V stage was reported to be even better at higher voltage (18v or 24v), so I would need something with a higher voltage than the Meanwell smps to supply it. I had a KEYENCE KV-U3 24v smps with three seperate outputs already, so I put this into play. I would need to drop the voltages down to 12v for Monica, and 18v for the SS I/V stage. I was lucky enough to purchase an AUDIOCOM INVISUS super regulator
and a AUDIOCOM Q-POWER super regulator, cheaply off ebay. The
INVISUS is to supply Monica at 12v, and the Q-POWER is to supply the SS I/V stage at 18v.
Apart from a couple of selector switches and various connectors that was it.
I built a wooden housing out of five pieces of 24mm ply laminated together. This allowed me to have a one piece shell, which effectively had been carved out to accomomdate the electronics (I cut the centres of the sheets out to specific shapes prior to laminating. A bit of routering afterward and job done. The wood was stained, selaed with sanding sealer sanded again and finally polished with couloured wax polish. I had a piece of 12mm toughened glass made to act as a lid, allowing the guts to be viewed.
Here are some photos.
Hopefully this will lead to discussions on how to improve this further. This is my first project of this kind.
There are some matching speakers on their way MT-TL using Fostex FE-127e...
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This got me thinking. I had been aware of Yeo's DIYPARADISE.COM products, and I thought that I could better this T-System and put it all in one case with one power lead and one on/off switch, and have some fun to boot.
I did alot of research into components (diy modules mainly) and wracked by brain about which CD/DVD player to chop up. There were so many options, and eventually I gave up and went for the ubiquitous Marantz CD63. There is plenty of back-up on several forums for this machine, and I thought that it would be simpler to improve for this reason.
So I purchased an untidy scratched unit for £25 and set off. I had read many good reports on the Monica NOS DAC so one of these kits was purchased too. At the same time I bought a Charlize amp, as it was also well regarded on this forum and others. To complete my system, I would need a volume control and/or a pre-amp. For simplicity and purity, I decided to go passive, and I splashed out on a 25K Stepped attenuator from DIY Fidelity, which uses Vishay/Dale military grade resistors. Not the cheapest solution, bit I couldn't resist.
I laid these out on a test board and used a Meanwell 3.2A 12V SMPS as a power supply. The quality of the diyparadise units was excellent and they produced an excellent sound, however the output from the Monica2 DAC was low and consequently sound levels were not high. I put my Musical Fidelity Pre in the siganl path and wow. The Charlize is certainly capable of good volume.
At this time I had been following a thread on the diyparadise forum about Rudolf Broertjes' SS I/V Gain Stage, which soon became available on Yeo's website. I thought that this should go some way to sort my problem out so I purchased on of these. Oh and a USB to SPDIF converter (as I was having a delivery from Malaysia.
Nearly there. The SS I/V stage was reported to be even better at higher voltage (18v or 24v), so I would need something with a higher voltage than the Meanwell smps to supply it. I had a KEYENCE KV-U3 24v smps with three seperate outputs already, so I put this into play. I would need to drop the voltages down to 12v for Monica, and 18v for the SS I/V stage. I was lucky enough to purchase an AUDIOCOM INVISUS super regulator
and a AUDIOCOM Q-POWER super regulator, cheaply off ebay. The
INVISUS is to supply Monica at 12v, and the Q-POWER is to supply the SS I/V stage at 18v.
Apart from a couple of selector switches and various connectors that was it.
I built a wooden housing out of five pieces of 24mm ply laminated together. This allowed me to have a one piece shell, which effectively had been carved out to accomomdate the electronics (I cut the centres of the sheets out to specific shapes prior to laminating. A bit of routering afterward and job done. The wood was stained, selaed with sanding sealer sanded again and finally polished with couloured wax polish. I had a piece of 12mm toughened glass made to act as a lid, allowing the guts to be viewed.
Here are some photos.
Hopefully this will lead to discussions on how to improve this further. This is my first project of this kind.
There are some matching speakers on their way MT-TL using Fostex FE-127e...
