Using cables with hypex UcD 180

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Hello

I have a hypex UcD 180 amp.After 13 years of listening to tubes amps,i have now crossed over to the dark side..I could not be more happier with the sound.

It is paired up with a Bruce Moore Companion III preamplifier and the Eastsound E-5 cd player. I have been trying out different interconnects recently and found 1 that has extreme Transparentsy .The Silver Audio’s Hyacinth ic silver seems to do everything i like with the tight well controlled bass and extremely clean midrange.

My problem is that i seem to get to much of a good thing ----Tinglyness on the top end.It's not bad ,just enough to cause some listening Fatigue after extended play.



I have to think backwards now,because for many years owning all tube gear i have worked to brighten the top end.Now i am trying to somewhat tame it without losing the wonderful midrange and tight bass.

I really don't care to spend alot of money on tweaks ,but i have read on 1 that possibly could work-- the Shakti On-Lines.

http://www.amusicdirect.com/products/detail.asp?cat=&sku=ASHAKONLIN

I also might try a zobol network and see if that will help.
Any of you guys use this tweek?


thanks guys
 
Seems easiest to compensate for just by turning down the treble.

You could tweak your caps and as others have done. I highly recommend you start following the hotrodding thread if you haven't been.......

but pllllleeeeeeeeease........ please.... never ever mention the shakti stones 'round here again unlless it is at the butt end of a joke, please.

But if you do try it, you'll certainly have the most expensive set of pet rocks in your neighborehood. Probably what, 4X the cost of the modules themselves.....

Maybe the best thing you could really do is admitt to yourself that that's how it should have been sounding all these years and give yourself more time to become acoustumed to it, you may find that you like it more and more.

You didn't say what input op amps you were using with the 180, but the AD upgrade may help here.



Regards,
Chris
 
What it boils down to is that the interconnect is on the brite side.My other ic's sound great on the 180,but seem to lack some of the life that the Hyacinth's add.The only bass and treble would be in my home Entertainment system--not in my highend system.

As for the Shakti ,i do not own it but my friend and i have played around with the stone--it is overpriced ,but it did change the sound .

On the system we tried it on the sound was softened to much for me--i did not like it.

I purchased this amp from a guy on audiogon. He upgraded to the UcD 400 and sold off the 180.It looks to be very well put together with very high quality parts.I do not know if the amp has any kind of zobol network built in though. Would post a picture ,but this site claims it is too big--the file is only 512 k.
 
Do you have some mains filtering?

I recently build my first pair of AC filters (simple, as for my limited skills) "inspired" by Welborne labs', and they really work. One for transport, upsampler and DAC; the other for my classA amps. The highs became more "liquid" without loosing extension and detail, appart other improvements. I could not detect downside.
Price was around US$40 each, including surge protection.

Good luck.
Mauricio.
 
RogerWilco said:
What it boils down to is that the interconnect is on the brite side.My other ic's sound great on the 180,but seem to lack some of the life that the Hyacinth's add.The only bass and treble would be in my home Entertainment system--not in my highend system.

As for the Shakti ,i do not own it but my friend and i have played around with the stone--it is overpriced ,but it did change the sound .

On the system we tried it on the sound was softened to much for me--i did not like it.

I purchased this amp from a guy on audiogon. He upgraded to the UcD 400 and sold off the 180.It looks to be very well put together with very high quality parts.I do not know if the amp has any kind of zobol network built in though. Would post a picture ,but this site claims it is too big--the file is only 512 k.


A zobel network for the UcD amp should have no effect at all as the UcD takes feedback after the output LC filter, it will try to keep the frequency response the same with whatever load, a zobel network is just another load which would not change the frequency response, this is one of the beauties of the UcD, its frequency response is completely load independent. I find its highs extremely natural (on good recordings) and sure not overdone. Maybe my cables are not high end enough. I use the Goertz silver cables as interconnect (XLR).

Best regards

Gertjan
 
Yes---i was talking about zobel on the input.Don't really know the best way to install a zobol if needed.

The amp sounds great,don't get me wrong.I made some interconnects out of some goertz silver i had laying around and some other cable silver coated copper.

But still the most lively sound comes from having Silver Audio’s Hyacinth cable installed coming from the cd player.It sounds as real as i have ever heard music.But it is fatuging to listen for extended amounts of time---the midrange is so detailed--i love it--but the treble has that shimmer that stands out to much.

I was listening to sades cd--her midrange sounds so damn good that it's hard to stop listening .Of cource i will continue playing around with some cables.On my system cables seem to change the sound a great deal



I wish this site would let me post a picture of the amp.It says the file is too big--it is only 512k though.
 
Hello

I had menchined earlier that cables change the sound a great deal on my system.Well i found out what my problem was.

I ordered my eastsound e-5 player from hongkong and it came with a silver powercord made by analog research.I have not removed the powercord from the back of the cd player sense i purchased it.Tonight i changed that powercord out with one i had made.so I used the analog research cable going to my power conditioner.I put Silver Audio’s Hyacinth ic back in.

Wow--that took away the over shimmer i was getting in the top end while maintaining the transparent midrange.

It was not the interconnect afterall--just it combined with the silver powercord was too much i quess.

I really did not think the powercord would have made that much of a difference,but i was wrong.

I am going to start playing around with wire abit more.It is just amazing that wire can make the differences that it does.

Some of the wire i used was from a Nuclear power plant.It is silver coated copper with teflon over the wire then teflon on top of that rapped in wax paper with a very heavy shield.Very good wire.


As it stands i have solved my problem.;)
 
RogerWilco said:
Hello

.......

Some of the wire i used was from a Nuclear power plant.It is silver coated copper with teflon over the wire then teflon on top of that rapped in wax paper with a very heavy shield.Very good wire.


As it stands i have solved my problem.;)


Be carefull with that wire, hope it does not radiate :)

I may sound a bit blunt, forgive me if that is the case, however, as an engineer, I can hardly imagine that a power cable makes a big difference. What about all the wiring from the powerplant tens of kilometers away to your house? That is out of your control, how can the last meter from the power outlet to your amp change this? I guess some of the better sounding cords have probably mainsfilters or something built in that may make them sound better in some cases (when your mains are polluted and your equipment is sensitive to polluted mains).

Probably things like making a solid power supply with a good choice of components has a bigger impact on sound quality then that power cord.

Anyway, maybe you are right, I have never tried switching power cords, I only know that speaker cords can make a difference (if compare super cheap with something better).

Best regards

Gertjan
 
Hello

Well i hope there is no Residual radiation lurking in the cable.:whazzat:

Maybe it will help the sound while my hair falls out--lol

I really don't know why cables do what they do.But it's like having a tone controll--you can make your sound brighter or softer by switching cables.

Atleast on my system--people's mileage will vary.I have had electraglides $3000 powercords here and they do make a difference ,but highly overpriced and the owner is a friend of mine.I know how he and many other's build there cords.There is really no magic in there cable.
 
RogerWilco said:
Hello

Well i hope there is no Residual radiation lurking in the cable.:whazzat:

Maybe it will help the sound while my hair falls out--lol

I really don't know why cables do what they do.But it's like having a tone controll--you can make your sound brighter or softer by switching cables.

Atleast on my system--people's mileage will vary.I have had electraglides $3000 powercords here and they do make a difference ,but highly overpriced and the owner is a friend of mine.I know how he and many other's build there cords.There is really no magic in there cable.


So if there is no magic, why does that last meter change the sound (in case of a power cable)? I can not understand that, except as said before, when the cable does some filtering. That can be achieved by a seperate cheaper mains filter.

Anyway, if it works for you, that's great. I will not even try since I use an SMPS that does so many disastrous things in between the mains outlet and the DC that it produces that a power cord likely does not do anthing to it. The SMPS has a mains filter, likely to prevent that it pollutes the mains instead of filtering the mains.

Gertjan
 
Hi Gertjan,

sometimes I do precompliance testing for conductive EMI on our systems. Measurement is done from 9kHz to 30MHz although legal limits apply only above 150kHz. I use LISN (line interface stabilisation network) sometimes also described as artificial mains network. It is basically huge mains line filter with 50uH inductors on end. You measure voltage induced on those 50uH inductors as indication how much conductive interference your appliance produces. I don't use EMI shielded room.

You would not beleive how much garbage is induced in mains power cord through radiated EMI. You do not have to switch on appliance under test to see peaks near legal limit. So usually I use screened power cord for testing since our appliances are class I with full protectively earthed metal enclosure. With screened power cord residual EMI is almost everywhere below noise limit of spectrum analyzer. So I beleive that huge mains filter and screened power cord do make a difference.


Best regards,

Jaka Racman
 
Jaka Racman said:
Hi Gertjan,

sometimes I do precompliance testing for conductive EMI on our systems. Measurement is done from 9kHz to 30MHz although legal limits apply only above 150kHz. I use LISN (line interface stabilisation network) sometimes also described as artificial mains network. It is basically huge mains line filter with 50uH inductors on end. You measure voltage induced on those 50uH inductors as indication how much conductive interference your appliance produces. I don't use EMI shielded room.

You would not beleive how much garbage is induced in mains power cord through radiated EMI. You do not have to switch on appliance under test to see peaks near legal limit. So usually I use screened power cord for testing since our appliances are class I with full protectively earthed metal enclosure. With screened power cord residual EMI is almost everywhere below noise limit of spectrum analyzer. So I beleive that huge mains filter and screened power cord do make a difference.


Best regards,

Jaka Racman


Hi Jaka,

So OK, a mains filter, I can believe it does something, a shielded power cord, OK, I believe that too. But then, what about all those mains cables in the wall? Especially if we talk about wooden or gypsum walls? I guess we should have a mains filter directly at the wall outlet and use shielded cables? Or having a mains filter at the equipment and have the equipment shielded so that the EMI from the cables in the wall can not reach our equipment?

Anyway, I think we do not need multi thousand dollar mains cables for the last meter to our equipment to get a good/better sound. A shielded mains cable and some mains filter should be possible for far under 100 dollars???

We are getting far of topic here but we need to shield both magnetic and electric fields. I guess materials like iron should be used to shield magnetic fields, so a metal/iron case maybe better than aluminum (non-magnetic) to shield magnetic fields? But I don't want iron close to my UcDs, putting a grounded layer of aluminum in between the UcD PCB and the iron/metal case will stop both electric and magnetic fields?

Any expert opinion?

Best regards

Gertjan
 
Hello

It's ok to get off the subject with cables because that was part of my original problem.

I am not an Engineer or a specialist on the subject.I don"t understand why the last so many foot of cable can make so much of a difference.It does not do this on all systems.I have had systems that i could barely hear a difference,but my system now is very Finiky.

It would make sense that a shielded power cord would ack as some sort of filter.All of my cords are shielded right now--so i don't have a unshielded cord made up to do an a-b comparison.

So i have admitted i am no Professional Engineer ,but what i will admit to is that i hear very well.I have had some very nice{HATE THIS WORD ,BUT O WELL} "audiophile" systems for many years now---

I just know what the end result sounds like.In our love of listening to music, over time we train our ears to hear everything that is going on.



On a side note--i had talked with david berning not too long ago--he told me that putting his otl circiut in an all aluminum chasey made a huge difference in sound.So i would assume that the aluminum has much better shielding qualities over metal.Again it is shielding that changes the sound.


regards
jeff
 
RogerWilco said:
Hello

It's ok to get off the subject with cables because that was part of my original problem.

I am not an Engineer or a specialist on the subject.I don"t understand why the last so many foot of cable can make so much of a difference.It does not do this on all systems.I have had systems that i could barely hear a difference,but my system now is very Finiky.

It would make sense that a shielded power cord would ack as some sort of filter.All of my cords are shielded right now--so i don't have a unshielded cord made up to do an a-b comparison.

So i have admitted i am no Professional Engineer ,but what i will admit to is that i hear very well.I have had some very nice{HATE THIS WORD ,BUT O WELL} "audiophile" systems for many years now---

I just know what the end result sounds like.In our love of listening to music, over time we train our ears to hear everything that is going on.



On a side note--i had talked with david berning not too long ago--he told me that putting his otl circiut in an all aluminum chasey made a huge difference in sound.So i would assume that the aluminum has much better shielding qualities over metal.Again it is shielding that changes the sound.


regards
jeff


Hi Jeff,

So if we cut out all the boring engineering stuff, than basically your conclusion is that the UcD180 is a hell of an amp, correct? So maybe you should give the UcD400 a try since that one seems to be even better. Actually I have both Ucd180 and 400 but have not hooked up the 400s yet (well, only for the bass, not yet for mid an high).

happy listening, I'm very happy with them, maybe not as trained a listener as you but I find the neutrality, imaging, unstrained power of these amps quite amazing. They beat my Accuphase amps easily.

Best regards

Gertjan
 
Hey Gertjan

Yes--the UcD 180 is a hell of an amp.Like i had said before--i purchased the amp from a guy on audiogon.He lost alot of money on the amp from the quality of parts he used.I purchased the amp to put on my Entertainment system.But after listening to the amp i could hear how good it was.

So i moved it to my main system and it blew me away on how good it was.

I am going to let this amp continue to play tunes for me ,but if i see a UcD 400 on audiogon for sell i may pick 1 up.

regards
jeff
 
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