Posted on Monday, 16th August 2010 by Auw Jimmy

It’s been a long since I promised to write this article: A comparison between Audio Note Copper Foil Mylar-in-Oil, Jensen Copper Foil Paper Tube, and Jensen Copper Foil Copper Tube. Some of my blog readers already email-ed me to ask about this. Due to my main job, I couldn’t finish this article immediately. So just this weekend, I spend few hours to have a listening session on this three capacitors.

Below is the test bed. A little bit awkward, but at least it works flawlessly!

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Tags: audio note, Capacitor, ELMA, jensen
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Posted on Sunday, 8th August 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I was playing with my Rigol Oscilloscope to measure my laptop power output. The sound card was Realtek ALC660.

I played a 1 kHz sine wave with a software and measure the output. Since this was not an isolated environment (I have some application running on the background), so the frequency measured was not completely locked at 1 kHz.

On my typical daily usage, the output measured at 102 mV.

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Tags: ALC, measurement, oscilloscope, Realtek, Rigol
Posted in DIY Audio, Measurement | Comments (0)

Posted on Monday, 2nd August 2010 by Auw Jimmy

After completing the construction of my Duelund Interconnect 2.0 Rev2 here, I decided to do some short comparison. My friend has Duelund Interconnect 1.0 Rev1. I think this gonna be a nice comparison!

Direct to the stage, we have some equipment on hand, like floorstander 3-way speakers, CEC CD Player, Marantz CD4000 fully modified with tube output stage, Hybrid F4 power amplifier, Aikido 6N1P-6N6P powered with Duelund CAST Ag/RGN1054 Mesh Rectifier, and also #26 Pre-Amp powered with Jensen Paper Tube and AZ1 Mesh Rectifier.

Without any further ado, let’s go to review those cables.

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Tags: 26, Aikido, cables, Duelund, preamp
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Posted on Sunday, 1st August 2010 by Auw Jimmy

Last week, we have a local DIY audio gathering at Bintaro (Indonesia). I took some photo, hope these could inspire us (DIY) more in the future. Sorry I didn’t “remember” all the equipments in detail. So most likely, you will enjoy the photos without caption.

The overall look of the stage, used for the testing.

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Tags: Bintaro, Blind Test, Gathering
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Posted on Sunday, 1st August 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I designed a simple SRPP PCB for my own project. A special thanks to my friend, Mr. ATP who helped to process the PCB fabrication.

Well, later these days, I just feel more comfortable with PCB rather than point-to-point wiring. It’s nothing special, just an ordinary SRPP design.

Tags: PCB, SRPP
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (0)

Posted on Thursday, 22nd July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I don’t like expensive cable. My most expensive one was Kimber, the lower one was Synergistic Research. But I was stunned when listened my friend’s Duelund interconnect 0.5 and 2.0. Now, Duelund launches their new interconnect, the 2.0 Rev 2. This Rev 2 means the improvement over the original 2.0. They said, this one has more silver and better (silk) insulation. Ok, I have put half of my feet on the water, there’s no way back, let’s go deeper (that means, go deep inside your pocket to get this one).

The main ingredients of this cable is Silver (oil impregnated) with Silk insulation.

If we are talking Duelund CAST Silver as the most expensive capacitor, their cable is not even close to the most expensive one (like Pear Cable, Kubala Sosna, or Nordost Valhalla). But still, spending over US$ 40 per foot/single cable has never been an easy job.

The appearance more likely like a silver tape with my old socks! Well, it’s a silk though!

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Tags: Cardas, Duelund, Interconnect
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Posted on Thursday, 22nd July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

Actually, this is an old recording. I listened the first few years ago in XRCD format. I lost the CD, and suddenly I saw a SACD one on an audio shop in Singapore. Surely I wouldn’t miss it. This record also available in JVC K2 HD format, at almost double the cost. I picked the SACD one then, since I didn’t really know the K2 HD style. This SACD has Proprius label, which also well know with the “Jazz at the Pawnshop”.

The SACD format used on this album is Hybrid Multichannel. It means that you can play in on your ordinary 20-years old CD Player or your new sophisticated US$ 5000 SACD multichannel player. All can do. The surround effect on this – I believe – was created on purpose for the SACD label. The original master shouldn’t have surround track. I don’t really care about it since my main focus is stereo only.

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Tags: Choirs, SACD
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Posted on Wednesday, 21st July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I love the Duelund CAST Resistor sound on my speaker crossover. Despite its cost, it’s better than some of my previous favorites, like Sfernice or Mills (YMMV). But since they are designed for crossover application, so they don’t have such high value. I manage to get special order one, custom value at 299R.

Definitely, 299R is not a common value at crossover application. Not even close.

One measured at 303.6R while the other measured at 305.6R. At 0.6-1.6% accuracy, I think it should be fine.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

I plan to put this cute black resistor on Grid application, on my tube preamp. Which preamp, we will see later

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Tags: Duelund, Duelund Cast Capacitor, Duelund Cast Resistor
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Posted on Sunday, 18th July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I this world, there are lot of tubes, with different filament supply. In most of my tube rectification application, I stand with two choice of rectifier, the one with 5 Volt filament (most Octal and UX type) and the others with 4 Volt filament (RGN or AZ families).

The best way to use two type of rectifier with different filament voltage is to use dedicated switch to select the exact filament voltage. You can also use Resistor to drop the filament voltage (up to 1V drop and 1A), but this way is not recommended due to a lot of heat must be dissipated (also not too good in terms of sound quality to).

I just finish the switch installation this afternoon. Now I can choose to use 4 Volt or 5 Volt filamen voltage. You can see the picture below.

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Tags: Aikido, preamp, RGN, tube rectifier
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Posted on Saturday, 17th July 2010 by Auw Jimmy

Due to my busy time, I haven’t written much on this blog. But in next few weeks, some hot entries will come -  as I have purchased some new toys. Wait and see…

Let’s fill the entry with some “light-weight” topic. I bought some CD during my business trip last week. Let’s enjoy some.

Standard CD, although considered as an obsolete formats for many years, but still become a most used audio format until now. We have seen DVD-Audio and SACD were the strongest candidates to terminte Red Book CD Audio. But still, CD Audio maintains its superiority as widely used audio format, until present time. Perhaps we can see the digital storage format like WAV or loseless stored in your giant HDD, someday will terminate the life of the CD Player. But before that time comes, we still enjoy the CD as the main audio source.

I knew JVC recording long time ago. It was XRCD (eXtended Resolution Compact Disc), continued with XRCD2 and XRCD24. About one or two years ago, they release K2 HD format, which claimed to provide better sound at standard Red Book CD Audio, without additional decoder. Could it be?

This is one recommended collection from FIM, contains various artist. All remastered with K2 HD technique.

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Tags: HDCD, JVC, K2 HD, SACD, XRCD
Posted in CD/DVD Review | Comments (1)

Posted on Wednesday, 23rd June 2010 by Auw Jimmy

This post is the 2nd episode of my Terratec Aureon 7.1 FireWire mod. You can check the 1st one here.

Below is the final appearance of my Aureon. Sigh… despite the colorful capacitors, I don’t see any reason to say it’s a beauty or an art

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Tags: aureon, Black Gate, mundorf, sound card, speaker
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Posted on Monday, 21st June 2010 by Auw Jimmy

I’ve been very busy later these days, almost no time even to refresh myself listening the music. Powering my tube amp, let them warm up won’t take less than 30 minutes. Well for next few weeks, I don’t think I have such time. Now, I spend most of my time in front of my Notebook, limited with poor onboard sound card and speakers.

After digging my cupboard, I found a pair of Altec Lansing MX5021 speakers and my old Terratec Aureon FireWire 7.1. Not the finest setup and my ears were irritated to hear the sound at first time, although they were better than my onboard combination. On a lazy Sunday evening, I fire up my soldering iron. Let’s see what we could do to improve the sound

You can check here for my previous introduction about the sound card.

The main improvement should be the power supply. I found “el cheapo” 1000 uF  /35 Volt. OK, this was the main filter, the most important, let’s change it to Black Gate NX Series 680 uF / 65 Volt. Also note another capacitor changed to the “purple” Os-Con. This was on the digital supply section.

Enough change for initial stage. Let’s power it up and test the sound. Wow, that was the first impression on the 1st second I heard the sound. The sound was very transparent, the staging, the tonal, all were improved. Not to the level that I was expected, but for a consumer grade sound card, this was OK.

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Tags: altec lansing, aureon, Black Gate, mundorf, mx5021, sound card, speaker
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