I just finished my build and it sounds great. A little more solid state sounding than I expected, at least compared to my Decware Super Zen amp. Anyway, you guys satisfied with the quality of the volume pot? Anyone, bypassing or replacing it? My kit came with the alps pot, I mean it does the job, but thinking of upgrading it.
Yes, I think the vcap's are installed right. Yes, I have stock resistors. I was looking at the schematic and it looks like the audio signal going to the speakers only goes through one resistor(R102). I would guess the rest the resistors are for power regulation and negative feedback? Would using better resistors make a difference in sound quality?
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Im not sure how to correctly identify the shortest path to ground. Would that be the lower measured resistance to ground? Looking at the schematic I would guess the shortest path to ground for c103 for example is via r105, but I guess that is wrong. Anyway, would I just have to flip the caps to correct the orientation?
My guess with the orientation is more for noise rejection than sonic improvement. The manufacture already mentioned that the capacitor is not polarity sensitive. The outer plate of the capacitor would usually picks up the EMI and if it is installed with the outer plate lead has lower resistance/impedance to the ground, it would shunt the noise signal to ground which reduce the effect on the audio output signal. I never check mine and I am not going to take it apart and re-solder them! I am happy with the amp performance now. The high was a bit too harsh like my old solid state amp, but it has been settled down after two months of use.
I have read that the v-caps take a long time to break in. I used the original cap that came with the kit and really liked it for awhile until I swapped it out for Audience Auricap XO. It added detail and some warmth to it, at least to me. Oh, I am using Tackman resistors and everything else is stock.
And how does the Decware sound? Looking at SV-S1616D, TU-8900 or Decware Mini Torii-III.
I got the EIZZ Premium 24 Step and used it as an external volume pot. It doesn't sound as harsh as compare to the stock Alps Pot. It is very easy mod without making major changes to the amp. All I did was pulled the internal volume jumps and jumped out R and Ro and L and Lo to bypass the internal pot. Now the amp sound more like analog sound than Digital.