I would like to hear the result

Done something just now, I blow another SB Live! because of modding. Desperate to get a new card, I think of an old creative card from my Celeron 60oMHz Dell machine. I plug it in and it sounds horrible! I mod it, looks normal isn't it (except for the heatsink part)?


Look closer, you can see (or blurry) LME49720 , it really is. I removed the stupid 4560 and hit it hard with a hammer and change it with this lovely opamp. Sounds a lot better than even the SB Live!. Detail just amazing, best part is, there's no low quality capacitor on this card!

Behold! The world first (I think) dual to single adapter! Too lazy to buy the single version of LME49720, so I mod the socket itself to comply with single

The design, the bottom three pin on the right side of the opamp is bent:


How it looks:


Inside the DAC:

My new mods, single dual to dual single opamp I solder it down to the socket to make it more secure, plus I put 20nF as a bypass on positive and negative rail to clear up white noise (as I read). Other mod that I done to this DAC is replaced all capacitor on digital circuit with Sanyo OS-CON 100uFx2 per hole (stock is 180uF) plus I change decoupling caps with 0.47uF Philips MKT (on the back of the though, its too big)

Sorry, I lack of equipment, I just use anything that I have and what can I find, which is just my hand .....and a solder iron

This post has been edited by Najmods: Jul 13 2008, 10:05 PM

Thanks for your advice I have still much to learn, I shouldn't mod in the first place, as I have been known to be impatience plus I have shaky hands. But well, my will is stronger than all of the limitation

I'll buy the single version of it (LME49710) and solder them directly to the board without any sockets

Thanks for the advice, bro Yeah this thread is old and not many hits, but that is still a good advice

Many has happened since I last done that, I soldered the opamp directly to the socket, and I only uses one opamp per channel to reduce the 'brightness' of LME49720

This post has been edited by Najmods: Oct 26 2008, 01:55 AM

I get a couple LT1363 (single version of LT1364) from Linear themself to try on my DAC. Installed it side by side with LME49720 (not pictured, I singled them and soldered it on the back of the PCB and bias to class A, its quite messy I don't want to show it )

Anything else, I have changed the cheap coaxial cable with a good thick one my father bought at JP, 2 meter long, soldered them directly from DAC to soundcard, before this I use RCA jack and cheap coax cable. Plus, I bypass the output caps properly now, it looks a lot better and soldered the RCA jack on the PCB itself, I want to reduce as much link as possible

Any improvement? Yes, and hell a lot of it, I don't know where to start. With direct coax cable from the DAC to soundcard and direct RCA soldered on PCB, the blurry background detail is now very sharp and precise. When I soldered the LME49720 directly, it sounded a lot better, but with LT1363 accompany it (stock is Texas Instruments NE5534), it totally surprised me, its hair raising moments! The vocal locks tight in the middle, with very nice airy sound on the percussion, the guitar sounds fantastic I loved it, its less fatiguing when listening to long hours. I listening to my favorite singer, Marit Larsen now, its like a totally new experience, having vocal on its own layer, its just fantastic (eargasm )


A bit dusty, because I don't put the lid on

No problem, now here is some tips. To get the most from SB Live! you must use kX driver. Get it from here. Its a bit hard to use the driver but don't get ahead of yourself. Just use the stock setting first.

First after installing kX driver it will automatically change the default output to the rear channel (the black jack, not the green one). Why? Because the rear channel have separate Phillips DAC which are higher quality than the front AC-97 DAC

Your card is CT4830 which is the older SB Live! model but everything should work. I have the newer SB0100

Yea there is other version of the card as well, SB0220 etc. But the core component are all the same

Don't expect to find high quality product at Jalan Pasar. If there is some of those boutique caps/opamp you find, there is high probability that its fake

Welcome to the forum Those are fine mods, even you change the tiny and almost-impossible-to-change SSIC opamp! But the adapter for discrete with MCap is a bit too long.

Where did you get those components, especially that discrete opamp DX2010?

^Nice mods, since now its socketed, its roll time baby

Some of my recommendation are LT1364, LT1361, and AD8599 (but AD8599 only available in SOIC so you need another adapter)

It depends on application and the location, some might work great, some might not. You could mix the LT1361 and LME49720 on the card.

The adapter is called SOIC to DIP adapter. I don't know if they sell it or not here. Looks something like this:

You could try here