Trends Audio TA-10: Modding Potential?

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#462
Here's a picture.

open2.jpg
 
#464
You won't get accurate readings with the resistors in circuit.
Those resistors look like 5 banders so the top ones left to right
brown black black yellow brown = 1m 1%
brown black black red brown = 10k 1%
brown black black yellow brown = 1m 1%
brown black black red brown = 10k 1%

the ones underneath look to be all 20k, tbh I'd only replace these ones as they are for setting the gain etc and are in the signal path (input and feedback)

It also looks like your board is covered in that yellowish flux, it may be worth keeping an eye on component legs to make sure theres no corrosion
 
#465
Thanks, I got lazy and didn't want to unsolder all the parts then resolder them after measuring. It looks like I will only replace those four on the bottom and the two on the output. Hopefully the Caddock will show some improvements, as they are a bit on the pricey side.
 
#466
No problem Dweekie🙂 you may be the first to change these resistors in the Trends, the Caddocks are nice !
We'll look forward to reading your results, I'd have thought you'll hear quite a difference especially with the feedback resistors, the MK132's are far superior to the standard magnetic standard metal films
 
#467
Bypassed Sonicaps

Hi Everyone,

I received my Sonicaps today and just had to get them installed ASAP!! :smash: As you'll see from the pics, they are a lot fatter than the Bennics, but the same overall length. A bit of lead dressing and we were in business. The other problem was how to fit the 0.1uF polyprop bypass caps and keep the lead lengths reasonable short. I decided to place the larger caps on top of the smaller ones - my logic being that the bypasses had the shorter lead lengths and I maintained as much lead length for the Sonicaps as I could, just in case I wanted to swap them out later. You'll see the Pana FMs in the forst pic, too, but the bypass caps on these hare underneath the board to make a little more room. Overall first impressions are good, with plenty of midrange detail and decent, controlled bass. The tops are a tiny bit harsh at the moment, but these caps have only a couple of hours on them. I didn't want to wait for them to go on the cap rack for a few days, when they could go straight into the Trends! 😀
 

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#468
More Pics

Here we have a WIP shot. :smash: You can also make out the repair to the tank cap to bypass in the top of the pic. While we are discussing the RF caps, it's worth mentioning that I replaced the stock polyprops with the same value in styrene (thanks t.!!). Overall, this little amp is sounding very pleasant, and gets better with every mod (to my ears). Now I have my load resistors, I'll be having a look at the Skynet 8080 SMPS module I have. I started a thread here and hopefully we'll be able to pool some ideas for this neat power supply.

Cheers

Jon 😀
 

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#469
Hmm, I have some Wima FKP2 Polypropelene caps coming to replace the unknown brand in the input. I figured it would be worth a try since it is really cheap, and I don't know the quality of the original cap. I found some Siemens Polystyrene for purchase, but I'm not sure if I should replaced the well known Wima FKP2.
 
#470
Re: Bypassed Sonicaps

jonclancy said:
Hi Everyone,

I received my Sonicaps today and just had to get them installed ASAP!! :smash: As you'll see from the pics, they are a lot fatter than the Bennics, but the same overall length. A bit of lead dressing and we were in business. The other problem was how to fit the 0.1uF polyprop bypass caps and keep the lead lengths reasonable short. I decided to place the larger caps on top of the smaller ones - my logic being that the bypasses had the shorter lead lengths and I maintained as much lead length for the Sonicaps as I could, just in case I wanted to swap them out later. You'll see the Pana FMs in the forst pic, too, but the bypass caps on these hare underneath the board to make a little more room. Overall first impressions are good, with plenty of midrange detail and decent, controlled bass. The tops are a tiny bit harsh at the moment, but these caps have only a couple of hours on them. I didn't want to wait for them to go on the cap rack for a few days, when they could go straight into the Trends! 😀
Click to expand...

Well done that man!
Hopefully some hours will sort the highs out, I guess the Platinum bypasses won't fit in there too😀
 
#473
the RFI caps at the input are there only to meet up with the european rules for making every piece of electronic equipment less senitive to all kinds of RFI like cellphones, wifi equipement, microwaves etc etc. In most cases you don't need them at all, the amp is not transmitting any RFI itself at this point, and they could as well be soldered out. Try this first before replacing them, it's free and very easy to do.
 
#475
Sjef said:
the RFI caps at the input are there only to meet up with the european rules for making every piece of electronic equipment less senitive to all kinds of RFI like cellphones, wifi equipement, microwaves etc etc. In most cases you don't need them at all, the amp is not transmitting any RFI itself at this point, and they could as well be soldered out. Try this first before replacing them, it's free and very easy to do.
Click to expand...

I wondered about that - my system includes lots of RFI rejection, and as far as I know the Tripath chip includes a low-pass filter to remove very high freq mush resulting from the amplification method - which would surely also remove any stray RFI.

I wish I had tried this - you guys would laugh at my soldering attempts, and as ever I always burn my hand at some stage (idiot).

Guess I might now recommend the TA 10.1 to my pals, and just cut out the ceramic caps should they show up.
 
#477
Alan Hope said:


I wondered about that - my system includes lots of RFI rejection, and as far as I know the Tripath chip includes a low-pass filter to remove very high freq mush resulting from the amplification method - which would surely also remove any stray RFI.

I wish I had tried this - you guys would laugh at my soldering attempts, and as ever I always burn my hand at some stage (idiot).

Guess I might now recommend the TA 10.1 to my pals, and just cut out the ceramic caps should they show up.
Click to expand...

Hi Alan, notice you have the IPL's too, how do you find the Trends with these speakers? I have the S3tlm ribbons and was quite surprised with how Jon Clancys Trends driven them🙂
 
#478
Sjef said:
the RFI caps at the input are there only to meet up with the european rules for making every piece of electronic equipment less senitive to all kinds of RFI like cellphones, wifi equipement, microwaves etc etc. In most cases you don't need them at all, the amp is not transmitting any RFI itself at this point, and they could as well be soldered out. Try this first before replacing them, it's free and very easy to do.
Click to expand...

I unsoldered the caps. Mine were the blue ones. I want to say the high frequencies cleared up a whole lot to my ears, but I really would like somebody else to try this as well. I have been listening to some new speakers and amp recently, so I can't directly comment other than from memory. Anyway, I'll say I hear an upper frequency improvement with less distortion, but I don't completely trust my ears at the moment. :cannotbe: It isn't additional upper frequency noise I could be hearing, is it?
 
#479
t. said:


Hi Alan, notice you have the IPL's too, how do you find the Trends with these speakers? I have the S3tlm ribbons and was quite surprised with how Jon Clancys Trends driven them🙂
Click to expand...

t,
The Trend/IPL combination is not perfect: there is a sort of sweet spot volume-wise where they work very well indeed. At lower volumes the sound starts to close-in a bit, and higher volumes the sound quickly roughens up. However, the sweet spot is where I do most of my listening anyway!

This is in contrast to my AVC EL34 valve amp where low volume listening is transparent, delicate and very pleasant, and higher volumes soft-clip pleasantly. Middle ground the Trend however displays greater control of bass, better timing, more detail, and a lack of smearing which is great on complex stuff.

Overall sound quality with the Trends/IPLs is slightly 'polite', but it is hard to say whether that is simply what was coming out of the mixing desk. I do have some Nordost speaker cable in a box here, which is quite forward, lively and slightly brittle sounding, and I will try that in place of the Ultraconductors. It is annoying - I went through a cable-phase a few years ago before settling on the JPS. Family and friends look on in pity!

So ... I find myself, yet again, on that quest for the set of hifi compromises that I can live with and is within budget!
 
#480
Alan Hope said:


t,
The Trend/IPL combination is not perfect: there is a sort of sweet spot volume-wise where they work very well indeed. At lower volumes the sound starts to close-in a bit, and higher volumes the sound quickly roughens up. However, the sweet spot is where I do most of my listening anyway!

This is in contrast to my AVC EL34 valve amp where low volume listening is transparent, delicate and very pleasant, and higher volumes soft-clip pleasantly. Middle ground the Trend however displays greater control of bass, better timing, more detail, and a lack of smearing which is great on complex stuff.

Overall sound quality with the Trends/IPLs is slightly 'polite', but it is hard to say whether that is simply what was coming out of the mixing desk. I do have some Nordost speaker cable in a box here, which is quite forward, lively and slightly brittle sounding, and I will try that in place of the Ultraconductors. It is annoying - I went through a cable-phase a few years ago before settling on the JPS. Family and friends look on in pity!

So ... I find myself, yet again, on that quest for the set of hifi compromises that I can live with and is within budget!
Click to expand...

Thanks Alan,

Yes the Trends isn't ideal for these speakers but for such a low powered unit its not bad , I've several other amps including a KT88 based valve amp, Hypex UCD, Avondale NCC200, Aksa N+ etc.
The Trends isn't as good as these other amps IMO but I still enjoyed listening to it, I still actually liked it slightly better than my Amp6, the Amp6 has more power but I was enjoying the Trends more🙂

cable is something else I need to experiment with, I first used the recommended stuff from IPL, tried a friends pair of Missing link slingshots, tried cat5 based stuff and that UBYTE but currently using just bog standard ultra cheap twisted pairs of stranded auto cable
😀
 
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