Report: AES-Audiotuning upgrade for the VRDS 25
Just wanted to throw in a "satisfied customer" report.
I purchased a "transport upgrade kit" for my VRDS 25 from AES-Audiotuning in Germany (www.audiotuning.de). I asked a lot of questions before buying and got patient answers with many colour photos in reply. Very good customer relations.
The kit consisted of Black Gate caps for the power supply, an XO Clock 3 and XO Clock 3 power supply, and a digital output board with XLR (AES-EBU) and BNC (SPDIF) output connectors (RCA-BNC and XLR-RCA combinations also available).
The parts were well packaged and made it from Germany to Canada in about seven business days for only US$15.00.
I had a local technician install the parts.
Distinct improvement in clarity and detail but at the same time "smoother." Better localization of instruments and voices.
Currently used with a stock Benchmark DAC1. Will soon be trying out a Lavry Black DA10, so I'd be grateful for any comments of listmembers who have compared these two DACs.
Regards,
Joel.
Just wanted to throw in a "satisfied customer" report.
I purchased a "transport upgrade kit" for my VRDS 25 from AES-Audiotuning in Germany (www.audiotuning.de). I asked a lot of questions before buying and got patient answers with many colour photos in reply. Very good customer relations.
The kit consisted of Black Gate caps for the power supply, an XO Clock 3 and XO Clock 3 power supply, and a digital output board with XLR (AES-EBU) and BNC (SPDIF) output connectors (RCA-BNC and XLR-RCA combinations also available).
The parts were well packaged and made it from Germany to Canada in about seven business days for only US$15.00.
I had a local technician install the parts.
Distinct improvement in clarity and detail but at the same time "smoother." Better localization of instruments and voices.
Currently used with a stock Benchmark DAC1. Will soon be trying out a Lavry Black DA10, so I'd be grateful for any comments of listmembers who have compared these two DACs.
Regards,
Joel.
Re: Re: Servo mods!
Cannot think of anything one may do apart from upgrading the servo power supply with the usual arsenal .i.e better regulators (LT series) or discrete Jung type a la ALW, better caps/bypassed etc.Otherwise you get into the realm of tinkering with the servo ic´s etc which would be way beyond even some gurus here.
Cobra2 said:
Hi!
Do you have any news to share?
Arne K
Cannot think of anything one may do apart from upgrading the servo power supply with the usual arsenal .i.e better regulators (LT series) or discrete Jung type a la ALW, better caps/bypassed etc.Otherwise you get into the realm of tinkering with the servo ic´s etc which would be way beyond even some gurus here.
Telstar,
Updates? Well, I'm still using the VRDS-25 modified as a transport with parts from AES-Audiotuning; still using it with a Benchmark DAC1; still satisfied with the performance. As a matter of fact, it's not far off in performance from my Teac/Esoteric P-70 transport. The crucial difference is that the P-70 has a word-clock input so that it can be slaved to a DAC that has a word-clock output.
In addition, I recently purchased a VRDS-25X. This time I may mod the entire unit and not use an external DAC. We'll see.
Regards,
Joel.
Updates? Well, I'm still using the VRDS-25 modified as a transport with parts from AES-Audiotuning; still using it with a Benchmark DAC1; still satisfied with the performance. As a matter of fact, it's not far off in performance from my Teac/Esoteric P-70 transport. The crucial difference is that the P-70 has a word-clock input so that it can be slaved to a DAC that has a word-clock output.
In addition, I recently purchased a VRDS-25X. This time I may mod the entire unit and not use an external DAC. We'll see.
Regards,
Joel.
dubkarma said:
My DAC is the TwinDAC+ and I think it is similar to the latest version of the benchmark, but has only one digital rca input and one usb (perfect for me).
I'm considering purchasing a sacd transport but I'm afraid that with vrds mechanic there is only the expensive esoteric models.
I'm considering the DV50s (I know it doesnt have a vrds mechanic) to mod in the clock/fuse parts.
For redbook playback I'm going with computer-based playback, so my interest for cd-spinner would be only SACD and DVD-A.
I remember that some Wadia sacd players or transports have teac vrds mechanic but I cannot find which ones.
Here is a pic of the Tentlabs XO3 and XO supply mounted under the main digital decoder board (board to go on top) is is the best position for it as all leads are kept to a minimum.
I have done close to ten now Vrds-T1 Vrds-10 Vrds10se and Vrds-25's
The difference in sound is very noticable with all models, more extension top and bottom more grunt to the bottom end, yet tighter, top end is more extened and floats out from the speakers, instead of being squeezed out of the tweeter, overhaul a more relaxed presentation yet more dynamic.
Cheers George
I have done close to ten now Vrds-T1 Vrds-10 Vrds10se and Vrds-25's
The difference in sound is very noticable with all models, more extension top and bottom more grunt to the bottom end, yet tighter, top end is more extened and floats out from the speakers, instead of being squeezed out of the tweeter, overhaul a more relaxed presentation yet more dynamic.
Cheers George
Attachments
georgehifi said:
Thanks, I'll use for sure XO3 and XO supply, but i was thinking also to upgrade the digital outputs since the main use of the 10SE that I'm buying is as transport.
Any more useful mods? I have about 400€ budget, covering also labour.
Besides, I wrote to Guido Tent and I'll buy the components from him
Telstar said:
Tentlabs power supply has very good galvanic isolation because he uses chokes in it as well, stick to it.
(galvanic isolation ) the noise of the xtal itself isn't fed back through the power supply into the rest of the system. I think this is what Guido said to me one day.
Bernhard said:
I think for memory they all use the Sony CDX2500AQ
No but someone once told me they use either a vrds one or a copy of one.
Cheers George