Gentlement.
12 hours have passed and it's time to review/reveal!
A quick one sparing only the minute details...
The item:
T-Amp Board no.3What has been done:
Replacements of SMDs to Vishays discrete equivalents involving; capacitors qty:6 (C6,C7,C16,C26,C29,C30) and Resistors qty:4 (R2,R4,R5,R6).
Input caps replaced by 2.2uF ELNAs.During initial power on and after hitting 'play' this is was my first reaction: WOW!
After 1 hour lapsed I began to analyse what is being heard and these are the total 12 hours worth of burn in and intensed listening.
The bass,low end frequency response.Believe it or not, I could not believe this initially but finally I gave in. It is
as good as my second board with the 2 EPCOS 10uF input caps!
In fact it is marginally better in terms of control. More fluid and dare I say, dynamic. Well rounded and extended bass. I put in my Test CD specifically for bass testing and sceptical if the test would pass the board. I'm glad to say that it passed with flying colours!
and beat my Board 2 at the same time!
Midrange, vocals and high end.This is where the T-Amp really shines. I felt as if a 'veal' has been removed from the sound stage. It is like having the HIGH FILTER button pushed OUT/OFF.
Talking about sound stage, it is now much much bigger and better with just the right ambience and depth! No toroid inductors was used, unbelieveable!
Back ground was dark. Eeerie dark.The sonic results are the sum of the mods done on my Board 1 & Board 2, combined.
Diana Krall's Boulevard of Broken Dreams gave me the goose bumps.. (as usual, but more this time!)
The piano, the double bass, percussions, her vocals just flow with accuracy and most importantly.. so natural..
Jim Tomlinson's Brazillian Sketches was really full of soul and the music simply flows like water. Jim's sax playing was simply very fluid. Stacey Kent's voice is simply mesmerizing. Period.
Still at 12 hours, the overall fidelity especially from the midrange and above, the edges are still a bit 'rough'. Evident of graininess and a bit of courseness are still audible probably due to low burn hours. I believe once the board hits 30'ish hours, it's gonna be like a car after an engine oil change. Mind you, its gonna be a synthetic oil!
If this third board were to be compared with the stock version, no contest. It is like comparing a WIRA to a Perdana!
This would be the best analogy I can associate the improvements with...
If there would be only one word for me to describe what I heard, it would only be:
ACCURATE. So much accurate that the
PRaT is simply awesome!!!!
I bought a few 'audiophile' CDs when I was in Indonesia last week... The pix included here. I sat without moving a muscle till every CD has been played... which leads into this observation/conclusion, the
BAD points...Findings/conclusions/recommendations- It rendered almost ALL my local CD pressing 'useless/hopeless'
I couldn't bare listening to any of these CD.. can't even last a whole song!
Lack of dynamics, terribly bright, compressed,poorly mixed and badly mastered. One after another I put into the tray.. 5 seconds later I had to press the EJECT button... The local music industry had robbed from us the 'music' that we're supposed to get and enjoy...
- How can our neighbour, produce a better sounding CDs at a fraction/cheaper price than our local CD?
No more local CDs for me. They're good to be played on the minicompo. Period.
Gentlement,
The above would nicely sums up the mods at 12 hours burn in period.
After the input caps replacement, this would be the next best thing to do/upgrade. I would heavily/heartily recommend this modifications and after hearing the results, it WILL put a lot of commercial amps a run for the money and some to a definite shame..
P/S, I have NOT installed the Vishay's 2.2uF input caps. Also the 0.47uF caps were NOT touched.Surely we can predict whats gonna happen.. if I did.
Jazzy939 signing off.. (for now)
This post has been edited by jazzy939: Sep 14 2008, 09:39 PM Attached thumbnail(s)
Sep 13 2008, 02:29 AM
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