Next DIY upgrade? Recapping my Dac... (big pic alert!)

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gazjam
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Posts: 103
Joined: Sat May 05, 2012 1:21 pm

#1 Next DIY upgrade? Recapping my Dac... (big pic alert!)

Post by gazjam »

ola..

Dipped my DIY toes into dac upgrades recently and have been extremely chuffed with the result. :)
More to come though and looking for some advice, thanks.

From advice and info on t'internet...Did two things:
In my Dac PSU, I swapped out the Teddy Pardo regulator board with a much lower impedance regulator board.
Nice improvement in dynamics and "life" to the sound.
Image

On the Dac itself, I swapped out the cheap Capxon decoupling cap near the power input with a Panasonic FM cap similar uf value but MUCH lower impedance and higher ripple current.
Nice improvement again. Cool.

Looking ahead though, I'd like to swap out the caps on the Dac board.
Been in touch with a guy over on 'Wigwam who did this a few years ago to the same dac and he says this did more than even going to a battery supply.
He has lost the info on what cap he put where unfortunately.
Not a problem though, I'll open up my dac and take note of the ratings of each cap myself.
He DID have an internal photo which is quite helpful. :)

Image

Looks like a mix of Sanyo OsCons and possibly Black Gates?
The OsCons I've read are good for audio and I've upgraded a few Beresfords with them, but the BGs are hard to come by.

Any suggestions as to alternative caps?
Just use OsCons of the same rating everywhere?
The guy who recapped hs dac had someone take a look at his dac and cherrypic what caps to change, so my intent is to use this photo as a guide.

I'm curious why he put BGs in certain places and not others, my knowledge of digital circuits is poor, I'm just aiming to replace like with like - but better!


Any suggestions/info very much appreciated.
thanks.
Gary.
JamesD
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Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:26 pm
Location: North Yorkshire

#2

Post by JamesD »

I would be very careful in swopping the caps on the digital circuitry parts of the board - it is quite possible to upset the circuit performance and re-introduce jitter, etc. by changing the cap for one of different ESR, etc.

On the analogue parts you can generally change away to your hearts content until you find a sound you like. :D

James.
gazjam
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Posts: 103
Joined: Sat May 05, 2012 1:21 pm

#3

Post by gazjam »

Cheers James, very helpful.

Cant track down a circuit dia. or schematic of the Young dac, asking about to see which are the analogue stage related caps on the board.

...to be continued!
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