I didn't take it out to get rid of it.......I just took it apart to see what all was inside. But that was around 15 years or so ago, and my memory isn't what it was. But I do remember that strange looking RX chip, and wondering why its schematic was so strange looking. Philips used the same part in the DAC-960.
Luckily, the Yamaha RX chip bacame available. Hated to do business with them, but at $9/chip vs "you don't want to know and if you have to ask you really dont want to know" attitude from Sony.
Jocko
Luckily, the Yamaha RX chip bacame available. Hated to do business with them, but at $9/chip vs "you don't want to know and if you have to ask you really dont want to know" attitude from Sony.
Jocko
Jocko Homo said:
Can't post but you can read....maybe
A Sony part with a TI logo programmed by Newmarket Semi conductors?
It's a good job that Yamaha chip came along.
"I bumped into an old mate from college who brought his old Alpha amplifier in for fixing and it turned out he was the manager of a company up the road, called Newmarket Semi Conductors and they did gate arrays which are a form of semi custom chips. A few days of feverish work later we found we could make an SPDIF receiver in a thousand gate array for 10 pounds a chip, we were first on the planet pretty much to do this. And so in 1989 we produced the Black Box D/A converter, which sounded quite a bit better than anything else because we learnt a lot from building our CDPs." http://www.avtalk.co.uk/forum/index.php?t=msg&goto=179140&rid=0&SQ=0#msg_179140
I know this is an old thread but for the lovers of the TDA1541A I can say that the arcam delta black box 1 is a crap BUT after changing all caps with blackgates and after trying a lot of USB->I2S transports I've decided to stay on a cheap philips receiver UDA1321PS and now the crappy arcam delta black box is beating dacs up to 1000eur. There is something too special about this combination, the sound just flows, the bands are playing in front of you, the speakers are gone, I've lost myself for hours listening and listening. btw... passive attenuator and B&K EX4420 poweramp.
Shoot me! but I swear I'm not lying
ps, I don't think the price should be mentioned, the tda1541a will have it's own sound forever when feeded with the right signal
Shoot me! but I swear I'm not lying
ps, I don't think the price should be mentioned, the tda1541a will have it's own sound forever when feeded with the right signal
Hi guido, can i have a copy of arcam black box service manual? My email shamin6@gmail.com Thank you.
Need help! Its late and my fried brain can't figure this out!
I have a black box 1 that I'm modding at the moment. I've removed the oversampling which I think is an improvement. Previously, I've successfully put tube output stages on the back of other tda1541a machines with good results so this is what I'm planning here.
The current problem I think is with this relay RL1 (sometimes referred to as RLA1 in manual), shown in pics below.
If I understand it right, it detects stability before switching on power to the audio power supplies? I got most of this from the user manual!
Problem is, I'm taking stealing signal from the DAC and disabling the audio circuit like this:
So I don't think the relay will be activated, and the audio PS will not work. So what, if I'm using my own output circuit? Well, the DAC needs -15V supply to operate, which is pinched from the audio PS.
So nothing's making music right now
Firstly, do you think my diagnosis is right regarrding the operation of RL1?
Can I just bypass the relay, since I don't need the audio output circuits any more??
Best wishes,
Oliver
I have a black box 1 that I'm modding at the moment. I've removed the oversampling which I think is an improvement. Previously, I've successfully put tube output stages on the back of other tda1541a machines with good results so this is what I'm planning here.
The current problem I think is with this relay RL1 (sometimes referred to as RLA1 in manual), shown in pics below.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
If I understand it right, it detects stability before switching on power to the audio power supplies? I got most of this from the user manual!
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Problem is, I'm taking stealing signal from the DAC and disabling the audio circuit like this:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
So I don't think the relay will be activated, and the audio PS will not work. So what, if I'm using my own output circuit? Well, the DAC needs -15V supply to operate, which is pinched from the audio PS.
So nothing's making music right now
Firstly, do you think my diagnosis is right regarrding the operation of RL1?
Can I just bypass the relay, since I don't need the audio output circuits any more??
Best wishes,
Oliver
Yes, I know its something not everyone agrees on. But my personal experience to date with a couple of SAA7220/TDA1541 players has been that bypassing the oversampling filter does clean up the sound a bit.
Anyway, funny thing is I just can't get this black box to impress me!
All the ingedients are there - TDA1541A, premium caps - particularly around DAC, great looking topology and regulation, twin traffos - but it's not adding up to amazing sound. It seems a bit shut in and lacking in bass, whether I use the onboard audio stage or a lampizator type tube output (which has brought some other players to life). Maybe it's the custon ARCAM chip? Or the receiver chip?
I dunno, I'll give it another listen in a few days. Anyone hung on to one of these and made it fly?
Olly
Anyway, funny thing is I just can't get this black box to impress me!
All the ingedients are there - TDA1541A, premium caps - particularly around DAC, great looking topology and regulation, twin traffos - but it's not adding up to amazing sound. It seems a bit shut in and lacking in bass, whether I use the onboard audio stage or a lampizator type tube output (which has brought some other players to life). Maybe it's the custon ARCAM chip? Or the receiver chip?
I dunno, I'll give it another listen in a few days. Anyone hung on to one of these and made it fly?
Olly
Can anyone help me with a service manual for the BB1 or BB2 with TDA1541A? I'm feeding I2S to it and I can't figure out how to bypass the clasic digital inputs. On the BB1 I have to insert a cable in the digital input, and on the BB2 I have to plug in another optic cable to switch it on, otherwise it won't output any sound, I don't know what it's turned off when it's no input. If I'm not pluggin anything in the digital inputs then it won't take my I2S signal, it's muted somehow. Thanks
This is my first project so please forgive my ignorance.
I am modifying an Arcam Delta Black Box 1 (TDA1541A). I have replaced most of the electrolytics with Silmic II's, upgraded diodes to schottky's, and have an OPA2132 opamp in at the moment.
I am happy with the improvement in sound but I want more. I ordered some WIMA MKP's to replace the TDA1541A decoupling caps. At some point, I want to do the NOS modification. I also have a couple of questions...
1) Most, if not all of the IC's have 2 parallel decoupling caps, one of which is much smaller than the other. For example, on the -6V supply for the TDA1541, there are 100uF & 10nF caps (#312ķ respectively). If I put in a very good 100uF cap, would it be a good idea to remove the 10nF cap? Also, for this application, is a 100uF Silmic II a good choice or would a film or ceramic cap be a better choice?
2) There is a hum that is bothering me. It's not too pronounced and not as bad as it was before the mods but I would like to get rid of it. I have a good power cord and my other devices do not have this issue so I am confident that the issue is within the Black Box. Does anyone have a suggestion to help reduce/remove the hum?
I am modifying an Arcam Delta Black Box 1 (TDA1541A). I have replaced most of the electrolytics with Silmic II's, upgraded diodes to schottky's, and have an OPA2132 opamp in at the moment.
I am happy with the improvement in sound but I want more. I ordered some WIMA MKP's to replace the TDA1541A decoupling caps. At some point, I want to do the NOS modification. I also have a couple of questions...
1) Most, if not all of the IC's have 2 parallel decoupling caps, one of which is much smaller than the other. For example, on the -6V supply for the TDA1541, there are 100uF & 10nF caps (#312ķ respectively). If I put in a very good 100uF cap, would it be a good idea to remove the 10nF cap? Also, for this application, is a 100uF Silmic II a good choice or would a film or ceramic cap be a better choice?
2) There is a hum that is bothering me. It's not too pronounced and not as bad as it was before the mods but I would like to get rid of it. I have a good power cord and my other devices do not have this issue so I am confident that the issue is within the Black Box. Does anyone have a suggestion to help reduce/remove the hum?
Attachments
I am considering the same type of project to either a One or a Two
How did you get on with the upgrades?
Thanks
DM
I recently tested my modded BB1 with a Benchmark DAC1. The BB1 won. The benchmark may seem to reveal more details but almost all of those details are on the BB1 too, just not so in front of you.
My current mods:
1) remove the small input board
2) disable the digital muting circuit which is connecting the data input to ground if I remember right, just before the TDA1541A
3) remove the Arcam custom chip and the PC74HCT, great improvement by getting rid of these chips because they generate a lot of RF noise as one member noted on the first posts of this thread
4) change all the capacitors with some good ones, I replaced them all with BG when they were still available, on my second BB I want to use Panasonic ECAM, I don't like the FC/FM for audio.
5) add a board which outputs I2S and connect it directly to the TDA1541A but make sure that you connect the DATA, CLOCK and WS before the three small resistors which are between the SAA and the TDA. You will also have to cut the traces on the PCB to the SAA and I also recommend to cut the power supply to the SAA
I'm using a board from teradak (Valab store on ebay). You can search USB to I2S or SPDIF to I2S on ebay.
I guarantee that almost any DIY digital receiver board that you can find with a modern chip will be much much better than the original receiver in the BB1.
6) replace the regulators with discrete versions from Burson Audio
What I would do next is to mod two BB1's, getting balanced output from each of them, I mean one BB1 for the left channel, and one BB1 for the righ channel.
Using two USB transports and ASIO drivers I can output the left channel in phase and out of phase to one receiver and the right channel to the other.
Would this be possible or am I nuts? I hope both!
My current mods:
1) remove the small input board
2) disable the digital muting circuit which is connecting the data input to ground if I remember right, just before the TDA1541A
3) remove the Arcam custom chip and the PC74HCT, great improvement by getting rid of these chips because they generate a lot of RF noise as one member noted on the first posts of this thread
4) change all the capacitors with some good ones, I replaced them all with BG when they were still available, on my second BB I want to use Panasonic ECAM, I don't like the FC/FM for audio.
5) add a board which outputs I2S and connect it directly to the TDA1541A but make sure that you connect the DATA, CLOCK and WS before the three small resistors which are between the SAA and the TDA. You will also have to cut the traces on the PCB to the SAA and I also recommend to cut the power supply to the SAA
I'm using a board from teradak (Valab store on ebay). You can search USB to I2S or SPDIF to I2S on ebay.
I guarantee that almost any DIY digital receiver board that you can find with a modern chip will be much much better than the original receiver in the BB1.
6) replace the regulators with discrete versions from Burson Audio
What I would do next is to mod two BB1's, getting balanced output from each of them, I mean one BB1 for the left channel, and one BB1 for the righ channel.
Using two USB transports and ASIO drivers I can output the left channel in phase and out of phase to one receiver and the right channel to the other.
Would this be possible or am I nuts? I hope both!
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Sorry, I am a bit late to the party, but I tried it by lifting R27 and R23. I connected the scope probe to the output before R23, playing a 0dB 1kHz signal, see attached screen shot: there is no DC offset but rather a big underlying 50Hz sine wave with 35Vpp (I tested both channels). So it seems the DC servo is there to iron that 50Hz out. As my unit is freshly recapped (and fitted with this mod) I wonder where the 50Hz comes from...?
Attachments
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