Dun wasting time to try other OPAMP ask Chua to get the OPA Sun from Audio_gd and change the OPA powering caps to blackgate. It will give you a big impression on that.

Blackgate are expensive but the improvement is unbelievable.

Able to take photo of your CDP? i would like to see how they solder the OPA on your CDP.

Friend, nothing is the best, and if i not misstaken you was planing to change your DAC before.
Just wan to share with you that in the market still have a lot low price DAC and sounded very good DAC.
Normally how we improve our DAC is listen to other DAC then inprove from your DAC.
If you think that is the best then that is the best loh..........

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Added on September 29, 2008, 3:04 pm
Woh... the chip is solder under the borad... that will be abit hard cause need to take out the chip and drill 8 hole on the board and solder the cable on top of it....

i need to have a look on the board then only know whether can put in the OP-AMP or not.

I am not sure cause i have no change to try on teh ZERO DAC, but i believe the ZERO DAC still can improve a lot by changing the some of the caps.

one thing i dun like about the ZERO DAC is because of the ZERO DAC it using a single unit OPA output. If it can make it 2 OPA output that is much better. This is all my opinion.

Eddy Lim

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Added on September 29, 2008, 6:18 pm
can you take back and front  of the PCB.

That is another matter to connect the OPA. you need to find out the 8 pin connected to which resistors and Caps, then you connect the OPA extend cable to the resistor and caps.
[attachmentid=615138]

+12v should be connected to one of the Elna caps and another 6 pin is connected toresistor another 1 is GND
Eddy Lim

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Added on October 4, 2008, 8:32 pm
Don't you think your DAC is much important then your soldering station.

Don't think that soldering job is very easy man, not only will spoilt PCB, sound quality also can be diffferent.

If you really want to mod it, mod it in a proper way.

Eddy Lim

good think never got cheap....

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Added on October 4, 2008, 9:02 pm
Yes, octave still got. I got it from octave also.

Hello everyone,
I was looking to upgrade to a nice soundcard (Auzentech 7.1) untill I bumped into this thread. So basically this is something like an external "soundcard" huh? I have optical output from my computer, so when I play movies or music from my PC, it goes like this?

PC-->Optical-->DAC-->Analog-->Speaker (Logitech Z5500).

Does it work like this? What about all those Dolby and DTS sound Movies? Can you get 5.1 surround sound from this DAC? I see the DAC only has 2 output, stereo?

Hi Brother God,

I have a Q for you, hope you do not mind.

My Earth that came with the extended wire ( forgot the exact name ) , sometimes not careful would hit the circuit board and cause a small spark . I used TACK IT to stick the earth to the casing. Would there be an overheating problem ? Do you mind to share a better way to seal it ?

10Q.

p/s : I think i have missed this important message earlier .  But Zero dac does offer the solution

" Category 2. Very good players which are normally of standard quality, but definitely worth effort of lampization. After tuning and lampization - they will be fantastic. If you are lucky to own them - do it. If you want to try - buy them, usually for next to nothing - and enter very very close to Nirvana. "

http://www.lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/CD_player_ranking.html

Thank you for your reply, Bro Abel.

I take that into consideration. But the ground cable  looks rather short if the Earth omp is on sitting position ( what i mean as a Tower without the case cover ?  )

more information ask for chua .... that day i audit at his Zero

Emm ... i got only one EARTH, sorry to tell you that ... u got the CD-63 off hifi4sale? Cos I seen one selling few days ago ...   Heard that bypass the original HDAM does makes it sound more transparent, emmm ... CD63 does sound musical and the HDAM is quite influential to the sound, IMHO maybe u should play with the internal cable connecting to the RCA female, try with high quality copper cable see how it sound Sometimes I feel that musical sound is abit more difficult to tune compare to transparency sound, just hope to you could improve further in details and dynamic without losing the musicality

Marantz CD63 mod list - lotsa mod done for CD63 could be found here ... hope it helps

It is indeed your piece of legend. It is outstanding piece of works. Coindentally, I found the sound slightly better than OPA Moon in unmodded zero, very very close.
I guess Moon in Madmen modded DAC will give more accuracy and imaging and more warm.

TCXO is it USD 20 per piece. Can u get it cheaper ?

http://www.diykits.com.hk/

Received Moon yesterday, replace OPA627 in DAC managed to spent about 1.5 hrs with it this morning.  Not really exciting yet, hope get better in next 2 weeks.

Pro -
Transparent , Clear 

Con -
No dynamic enough, feel very constraints (a bit gentle) 

System Setup -
CD63SE  -> DAC (Moon) -> NAD 319 -> Mission 771E + Cambridge SoundWork passive S/W