Posted on Monday, 21st June 2010 by Auw Jimmy

Post to Twitter

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.

Then, I decided to bypass the final op-amp section, so the WM8770IFT DAC will run directly to RCA Out. After checking the datasheet, I believed this method should run perfectly.

The next decision was to pick a coupling capacitor. At this moment, my decision went to Mundorf Silver Gold Oil 0.47 uF / 1200 VDC. This was the finest capacitor from the Germany company, Mundorf. So far, I liked this capacitor because of its natural sounding and very wide/deep sound stage. This could improve most of the consumer card limitation, the staging.

Before plugging the capacitor, as usual, I checked the capacitor polarity. For you who wanted to learn more, you might be interested to check here.

After finished the checking session, I plugged the capacitors directly after the DAC output, then connected to the custom RCA Out. Sweet…!

Another shoot. I would create a custom chassis later.

After checking all the wiring, I tested the sound with my modded Altec Lansing MX5021 (detail in here and here).

The sound was definitely awesome. The sound was very liquid, transparent, detailed, but not bright at all. A little bit stiff at some section, but this I believed due to the Black Gate not yet broken-in. Almost all the songs now I could enjoy. If before I have problem listening Patricia Barber, Ingram, or Rebecca Pidgeon. Now almost all of them could be played nicely. Well, it’s still a multimedia speaker and consumer grade sound card anyway. But for its class, the improvement was awesome.

Later I would check some other parts, like the DAC analog power supply and some bypass capacitor. This would be fun!



Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in DIY Audio | Comments (14)

14 Responses to “Terratec Aureon FireWire 7.1 Mod”

  1. Paul Yahya Says:
    June 23rd, 2010 at 14:58

    pak JA…

    try add one bypass on the digital PS cap with one 1uF/250Vac green K75-10.
    The 1uF/ K75 is particularly good for digital PS bypass
    This reduce the flabby/weak bass , made it more tight and more prominent and focussed.

    Try it,…. I done that in the digital PS of the T100 , the Quad66 & 67, AZUR340, now using it on the CDP4000….

    enjoy the music
    PJ



  2. Jimmy’s Junkyard » Blog Archive » Terratec Aureon FireWire 7.1 Mod (II) Says:
    June 23rd, 2010 at 23:35

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



  3. borgs Says:
    July 11th, 2010 at 21:13

    hi jimmy!
    can u educate me on how to calculate coupling capcitor value? notice u didnt have a parallel resistor to it too? why? i thought is was a series cap and resistor parallel..kindly advise
    thanks



  4. Jimmy Auw Says:
    July 12th, 2010 at 22:03

    Hi,
    Basic formula is as below:
    F(Hz) = (1/(2*3.14*A*B))*1000000

    A = Load impedance, in Ohm
    B = Capacitor value, in uF

    You can omit parallel resistor since on the next stage, most likely you will have a volume control and/or grid-to-ground resistor (but of course you can add it if you are feel comfortable with it).

    Thanks.



  5. borgs Says:
    July 14th, 2010 at 21:35

    thanks jimmy!! understood
    i use the formula from vcap site more easier to calculate..
    http://www.v-cap.com/coupling-capacitor-calculator.php
    so ur using a 0.47uf , wats the input impeadance of ur gear then?
    notice the vcap site has a-3db freq and i dun really understand wats optimal low freq response.thanks for ur time



  6. Jimmy Auw Says:
    July 19th, 2010 at 22:53

    Hi,
    For 0.47uF, I think with 50K you still get below 10Hz which is more than enough.
    Thanks.



  7. florian Says:
    May 2nd, 2011 at 22:24

    Hello,

    I have this device but I cannot make it run stable under XP SP3. Even worse: After having installed drivers version 1.20b from Terratec the hardware cannot be found. I think there was a firmware upgrade. Any ideas what could be done?

    Thanks.



  8. Auw Jimmy Says:
    May 2nd, 2011 at 23:50

    Hi,
    You can try to downgrade the firmware. I’m running SP3 and has no problem with it.
    Thanks.



  9. florian Says:
    May 3rd, 2011 at 21:20

    thank you for your answer. You are lucky.

    I have now a tiny progress:
    Driver Version delivered with the device: Audio-Inputs and Control panel are working but I have no Audio-Output.
    With Version 1.20c from Terratec Homepage: Audio-Output is working but Control pannel is inactive and I am getting no Audio-Input.

    What version of driver and firmware are you using? Do you know how to downgrade the firmware?



  10. Auw Jimmy Says:
    May 3rd, 2011 at 22:06

    Hi,
    I forgot, I think the 1.2.
    Just download the firmware and run it.
    Thanks.



  11. florian Says:
    May 5th, 2011 at 19:28

    Hello Jimmy,
    I cannot find the original firmware download in the web. The install archives contain only 3.2.13.31 which is now on my device.
    Could you please check the Aureon control panel
    (small control window: http://img.tomshardware.com/us/2004/06/21/terratec/pilote_06.jpg
    ) under Miscellaneous (last tab) and send me your software versions listed there?

    Version: 1.0.0.0
    Driver Version: 1.5.0.0
    Firmware Version: 3.2.13.31
    Service Version: 1.5.0.0

    Many thanks in advance and best regards!
    Florian



  12. Auw Jimmy Says:
    May 5th, 2011 at 21:28

    Hi Florian,
    I don’t have the Terratec on hand now, so can’t run the driver.
    But if I check the AureonFWCP.exe version is 1.3.3.33 and the AureonFWService.exe version is 1.20.3.32.
    Thanks.



  13. florian Says:
    May 6th, 2011 at 03:15

    Hi Jimmy,

    thanks a lot for checking! So it seems that you have the latest installation package 1.20 from terratec. This normally commes also with the a newest Firmware 3.2.13.31. With this version I am getting sound but unfortunatley no control pannel on my laptop.

    Don’t know where the problem is. Could be also the firewire hardware. Best would be to test it with another computer.

    My driver sets (device manager) are:
    System/crlds3d.dll 4.12.01.2002 Sensura 2000
    System32/a3d.dll 4.12.01.2009 Sensura
    System32/Audio3d.dll 4.12.01.2009 Sensura
    System32/Drivers/drmk.dll 5.1.2600.5512 Microsoft
    System32/Drivers/ks.sys 5.3.2600.5512 Microsoft (xpsp 080413)
    System32/Drivers/portcsl.sys 5.1.2600.5512 Microsoft (xpsp 080413)
    System32/Drivers/stream.sys 5.3.2600.5512 Microsoft (xpsp 080413)
    System32/Drivers/TTAuFWav.sys 1.20.0.0 BridgeCo AG 2003-2004
    System32/Drivers/TTAuFWsa.sys 5.10.00.3514 Sensura 2004
    System32/Drivers/TTAuFW1394.sys 1.20.0.0 BridgeCo 1394 Audio device Driver 2003-2004
    System32//ksproxy.ax 5.3.2600.5512 Microsoft (xpsp 080413)
    System32//kuser.dll 5.3.2600.5512 Microsoft (xpsp 080413)
    System32//wdmaud.drv 5.1.2600.5512 Microsoft (xpsp 080413)



  14. florian Says:
    May 28th, 2011 at 20:00

    finally I tested the Aureon Firewire 7.1 on another Laptop with XP installed. I installed only the Aureon7.1 FireWire_App_Drv_XP_1.20c.exe
    and everything works ecellent!
    I should have tried this earlier.

    Control Panel shows:
    Version: 1.3.0.0
    Driver Version: 1.20.0.0
    Firmware Version: 3.2.13.31
    Service Version: —

    So either the other Laptop’s driver configuration is completely messed up with subsequent installs and deinstalls or something is odd with the Firewire device.



Leave a Reply