Hi all and sifus,

I have been looking around the internet and found numerous foreigners have done hardware mods for sound cards especially the X-Fi Series and I'm planning to mod my Audigy Platinum EX. I am planning to change the Front Channel Opamp and also the power capacitors, problem is there is no guide for a card this old (maybe they didn't know back then it was mod-able)

I have also done a DIY EMI sheild for my card on both sides, it really changes the sound signature a lot, with the shield, the harsh treble/high frequencies are totally gone, producing a much warmer sound! Just used a paper cardboard and aluminum foil, cut the board to the card size and glue the aluminum foil to the cardboard. The reason why u need a cardboard is because the aluminum foli is conductive and will short out your card if u don't put an insulator in between. When gluing the foil to the paper cardboard u can use a ruler to straighten it out. Then i use cellophane tapes to tape the shield to the board.

[attachmentid=975382] [attachmentid=975385]


On my Creative Ep-630 IEM and Altec Lansing headphone it sounds really good as its not so harsh on the ear. But on my Edifier M3400, which is by default already a very warm sounding speaker, the sound became too warm and lack of high frequencies on that speaker due to the mod makes it sound muddy, On my Altec VS4121(spare speaker) it sounds much better as VS4121 has a very thin midrange and distortion-ish treble, it made the vs4121 sound much warmer. Still, i prefer my m3400 so i will be removing that shield to get back the brighter soundstage.

I need help in locating the front channel opamp and also the power caps, my sound card is exactly like the one in the pict below. Also I have pencil-modded a cap there(there is a slot for a cap, but the cap isnt there), as u can see from the picture, starting from the top left corner, right behind the clearly visible gold plated connector is a capacitor, we shall call it cap1

[attachmentid=975380]

to make it clearer, this is what i mean:

TOP LEFT CORNER
Gold Plated Digital Out--opamp--(CD CONNECTORSXXXXXXXXX)-----BUNCH of caps
--------------------------------------cap1--cap2-----cap4---cap6-cap7
Line Out------cap0-------------------------cap3---cap5-----X

X is the empty part where there is supposed to be a capacitor but there isn't, so i use pencil lead and draw a line across the 2 pins, connecting it (because i read so much about decoupling caps and people removing caps and connecting the circuit directly, i had to try it) . After that went for a test drive, and the sound was really really clear, previously my woofer's bass had to be set @75% to get that full-tone bass, now just at 55% its more than enough, also vocal clarity and instruments layer can be heard much clearly and nope its not high frequency distortion. Can someone explain to me what i just did?

Also, which is the front channel opamp and power caps? Any opamps and caps to recommend?

These are X-Fi links:
http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=71127
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/hotroddi...-no-56k-226975/
http://www.overclock.net/sound-cards-compu...-will-void.html

This post has been edited by andrew9292: May 20 2009, 08:56 PM

Is your soundcard codename is SB0090? You can check on the top right corner of the card.

If it does, the front channel opamp is labelled 5216, its more rectangular than other opamp on the card so its easy to spot. The power caps is somewhere around bottom right of the card, my bet is caps labelled C160. Pencil mod a cap hole? which one exactly? What does that even do?

Yeah its a SB0090, i just uploaded a picture...so front opamp is 5216 and power cap is C160 only...sure ah...?
hahah i dont want a mistake, altho i know that doing mods can ruin a card and i am ready to face the fact if i actually ruin it, still i need to do it with the least cost possible

Err no idea, i did it cause i saw many x-fi mods, they take out the caps and join the circuit with a peice of metal soldered, so the circuit is as normal, just with many caps missing

This post has been edited by andrew9292: May 20 2009, 09:08 PM

No, what you done there with shorting it is wrong. What they actually do is shorting coupling caps, not decoupling caps. It supposed to increase sound quality but it increase DC offset so its dangerous for headphones. Don't short anything its not there in the first place because the caps isn't there for a reason

I quite positive about the opamp, but the power caps you need to check it for yourself.

One thing, if you don't know what you doing don't do it. Read more which is which before doing anything