Well, yes actually. DIYParadise and Sanyo site And of course they low ESR as you can read from the link I provide

That cap is C177 my friend, I thought you know since you want to mod the card?

You can use those Rubycon MBZ too, they just below MCZ spec wise (use them on supply caps, but I think it won't work on C177 because the regulator hates low ESR caps, I have some spare MBZ, but I never tried it). I have some Rubycon MCZ before, but I accidentally broke their legs

The opamp will give the biggest improvement of all, 2nd is the decoupling caps. The DSP is only for longer lifespan since the Jamicon crap is prone to leaking and burst

I suggest you check the voltage on the places you want to change the caps, buy the one that have the closest one to the nominal voltage, going too high is not advisable, since it will makes the spec worse because you don't use at their rated voltage

Good that you done your homework enjoy your card, I enjoyed mine, and I changed another two caps that I missed before

P.S: Blackgate isn't from Panasonic, they from Rubycon

I think not. Just keep it

You mean, third phase Well congrats on the mod. I hope you have as much fun as mine Never in my life I heard such precise, spacious and detail that it gives from all these mod, its like I totally change my entire setup instead of just the soundcard

Oh, don't forget to post some pic of your card, I bet it looks better than mine

There are lot more caps to change, on DAC power section, opamp +5V and -5V supply and if you do recording, the ADC and line-in caps too

Don't worry about it. I even use as high as 1000uF on some places. Most of them are from 300-700uF

Here's the value and its places:

C177 - 3900uF 6.3V
C107 - 1000uF 6.3V
C108 - 330uF 16V
C56 - 470uF 16V
C16 - 510uF 4V
C43 - 330uF 16V
C75 - 470uF 16V
C74 - 181uF 16V
C72 & C46 - 470uF 6.3V
C91 & C119 - 470uF 6.3V
C172 - 100uF 16V

All in all, I replaced 13 caps, removed two caps plus short 4 on decoupling

Me too, plus from dead graphics card except for LME49720 I bought it about a year ago

Hmm, let me see.....I get those caps from 4 dead graphics card plus two mobo

Oh and my latest mod, RCA jack on PCI backpanel Anyone want to guess what backpanel is that from?

Nope, actually its from Prodigy HD2 backpanel, even the RCA jack is from that card too

Opamp is not a DAC, do some reading first before modding. Opamp = OPerational AMPlifier, DAC = Digital to Analog Converter

I already mention that changing opamp gives the biggest sound difference of all

You can buy those opamp from National Semiconductor themself or you can buy them from forumer (I forgot who, you can search at Music and Audio Related Accessories subforum)

There are some caps that are necessary to replace to improve sound quality, like decoupling caps and DSP supply caps. Others are just to prolong the card's life simply because the caps on the cards are pure crap, prone to leaking and bursting

Hey, that's my mod you talking about



Well, I mod the card again, even though LME49720 sounds great, but its colored and it sounds too 'blue' so I removed it entirely and I put some caps on decoupling

I don't know, I don't think they make such socket for SOIC, there's only socket for MDIP one. If you want, buy MDIP socket and solder wire to corresponding pins. That too much of a hassle to me and the probability of something goes FUBAR is high

Well, darn it, the DC offset is too high >200mA so my amplifier keeps resetting when I change volume. Well, the LME49720 is on again. Ah never mind...it sounds great anyway, without any opamp it sounds laid back while with LME it sounds a bit forward

Actually from people who tested it, the LME49720 is more detailed

Look here for some impression, I buy LME49720 because of this

LOL, you see my posts isn't it But RM34.23 a piece? It makes me think more than twice to buy it

I don't know about Entertainment Mode, never used it, I just use Game and Audio Creation. If you don't have the money, you don't have to change it. Even Trodas using a higher value caps without any anomaly. Heck, I even tried 3300uF on 10uF stock capacitance without problems

Hmm, I don't know whether to change opamp or not....I have the money but I'm not too keen on changing those.

@ coolkwc, I think I know why Entertainment mode have that kind of noise spikes. I read it somewhere that it natively uses 96kHz in that mode, so any other sampling rate might cause this. I say might, I don't know how true is this

Well, that might be it, when Entertainment mode is on, it enables other channel, resulting the interchannel leakage. My guess that is. One more thing X-Fi XtremeMusic (or any other SB046X) can't do 192kHz recording, its the ADC limitation

That is why I don't easily swapping before knowing whether the capacitor it replaces fits the old one (in terms of size, capacitance etc.) , I've encounter that numerous times before. So I leave the holes close first and put caps on top of it without the legs in the holes. Now that everything's fine then I permanently solder the caps legs in the holes
How's your card? Is it still functional

Anyway I put 1000uF 6.3V Rubycon MBZ on C177, no problem Its within the limit of the regulator and small enough to fit perfectly on it. I done some more cleanup on the card to makes it looks better. But because my hand is shaken (as usual) I do it slow, I don't want to FUBAR this lovely card. I'll post some picture later

EDIT: Tons of edit, my English is rubbish today

This post has been edited by Najmods: Jun 9 2008, 02:24 PM