Posted on Sunday, 24th March 2013 by Auw Jimmy

AD825 has been my favorite opamp for quite some time. But seeing the new trend of LM49720, I think it’s gonna be a good idea to have a try.

From my experience, AD825 should give a warmer sound with analogue touch. While LM49720 should have a modern touch with good high extension. I’m not saying who is gonna be the winner, but the test in next several days (or weeks) should gonna be (very) interesting.

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Tags: AD825, LM49720, OpAmp
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (2)

Posted on Sunday, 17th March 2013 by Auw Jimmy

I believe you still remember this one? I think it’s time to give a short review of it.

As comparison, I will use Jensen 4-Pole capacitor as both has same capacitance (470 uF).

Caveat: The Jensen 4-Pole has been used for quite some time as it’s my reference electrolytic capacitor. While this new ‘No Name’ capacitor is currently fresh from the oven. Quite unfair for the comparison, but from my experience, the ‘talent’ of capacitor should easily leave an impression on first sight, I mean, first listening test

So, what is my first impression?

This new ‘No Name’ capacitor has more ‘analogue’ sound. The vocal is sweet enough for an electrolytic capacitor, but not too sweet. The resolution also clearly ahead of the Jensen 4-Pole. The staging, depth and width, also much better than the Jensen 4-Pole (quite obvious on 月光小夜曲 by Cai Qin). Dynamic and headroom also not limited. Quite interesting. It just has more timbre and more ‘sweet’ harmonic along the music. Norah Jones, Cai Qin, and Livingston Taylor easily on this ‘No Name’ capacitor side. So, I can easily say this is more musical than the Jensen 4-Pole. The different is easily recognized on several seconds after the music played.

Am I saying this new ‘No Name’ capacitor has no weakness? Not really.

The speed is a little bit slow. This is quite obvious when playing ‘Black Magic Woman’ from Patricia Barber. During the last 3-4 minutes to the end of the track, we can hear and test the speed of the system (best part of the track actually). I can say this ‘No Name’ capacitor has the dynamic, power, and everything (including the guitar distortion which I prefer this capacitor instead of the Jensen 4-Pole). But it just seems like to play the music easily and constant speed (which eventually translated into a bit slower, especially when compared to Jensen 4-Pole). I could say it lacks (a bit) of pace?

Despite the speed, it has everything to make me fall-in-love at first listening test (my fall-in-love at first sight should be my wife;). Tonality wise, it’s musical. Staging wise, it’s deep and wide. Harmonically wise, it’s rich. Resolution wise, I don’t think we can have a lot of electrolytic could outperform this one. Male and female vocal? For me, it’s no contest against the Jensen 4-Pole.

The pace reminds me of too much Kiwame resistor. But Kiwame will hide the detail and resolution, while this new ‘No Name’ capacitor will keep the detail and resolution there, plus all the timbre and harmonic.

Will see how this will perform in next several hundreds hours. With additional extra of speed, this would be perfect!

Or, maybe it will need some extra tuning

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Tags: 4-pole, Capacitor, Electrolytic, jensen
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (11)

Posted on Sunday, 3rd March 2013 by Auw Jimmy

Before your mind gone wild, let me give you a clue: This is not a film capacitor…

Specially designed capacitor based on my ‘short’ experience testing a lot of capacitors.

No name yet, until it passes the sound quality test – which will come soon (hope so, finger crossed).

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Tags: Capacitor, Reference Capacitor, Special Project
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (10)

Posted on Sunday, 24th February 2013 by Auw Jimmy

There is a big surprise by MJ Audio Magazine this month. They provide a Technical Disc for their readers. There are total 16 amazing tracks, recorded superbly. I’m quite surprised to hear how the Teresa Teng (Track #10) and Track #8 (I forgot the singer), which should be quite vintage recording, could be recorded superbly on this CD.

Most of the tracks are popular one and must have to test your audio system. I play several times again and again and still amazing with the music selection and the recording quality.

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Tags: Magazine, MJ Audio, Reference CD
Posted in CD/DVD Review, Collectible Stuff | Comments (7)

Posted on Sunday, 24th February 2013 by Auw Jimmy

This is just another simple shoot. I don’t know why, the appearance of Mesh Plate tube always bring something special. I’m testing my burn-in tube rig actually. It’s good to power up old tube slowly, to prevent ‘heart attack’ since most of them has slept for quite some time.

Tags: Mesh Plate, rectifier, RGN
Posted in Collectible Stuff | Comments (0)

Posted on Saturday, 2nd February 2013 by Auw Jimmy

Yes, I’m kind a lazy guy when it comes to realization (or finalization) of my DIY project. But I think I’m gonna (or I have to) be serious to finalize this… Well, at least I have finished the component layout. Soon to have the final top plate machined based on this layout.

Soon I will post and (maybe) explain a bit about the layout and some of the reason what you should and should not during designing the component placement.

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Tags: Choke, layout, tube
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (8)

Posted on Thursday, 3rd January 2013 by Auw Jimmy

I was thinking what was the alternative to replace my standard Pulse Transformer PE-65612 on my QLS QA-660. Actually I had several options, but after some simple research, eventually I ended my journey on Scientific Conversion product, the SC947-02 “SUPER”.

I know the name is quite weird: “Scientific Conversion”. I believe they are not related with Calculator or something, but surely they have something serious on their product.

I had some options from Lundahl, and some other common brand like Murata or similar. But if you are familiar with me, I do what people don’t. So let’s see how this Scientific Conversion could perform

This pulse transformer is very cute and small. It’s only 9.5 x 5 mm and it has 8 pins like basic opamp. Imagine that!

Image below was taken with my ‘macro’ lens so don’t be surprise if they are looked ‘big’ than it should.

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Tags: AES/EBU, Pulse Tranformer, QLS QA-660, SC947-02 "SUPER", Scientific Conversion, SPDIF
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (4)

Posted on Monday, 24th December 2012 by Auw Jimmy

If you have read my previous article regarding the Sencore LC102, definitely you will notice that I have no power supply for this unit. After searching around, it seems quite impossible to get the original power supply (especially I’m living in Asia which has 220V line). The plug also quite unique with 3-prongs type. The worst scenario, I plan to patch some cables inside and change the plug.

Well, the spirit of DIY surely doesn’t allow me to give up. After reading Sencore LC102′s user manual, then I realize that this unit can be powered with 12 Volts battery. I believe the original battery should be either NiCd or SLA (forgot which one). I think we can use traditional AA battery to power up this unit, right?

Finding appropriate battery enclosure which could hold 8 batteries is not the toughest job. The toughest one is to find correct DC ‘female’ power jack which could match the DC ‘male’ jack on this unit. FYI, Sencore uses a quite big ‘male’ jack which put me some trouble to find the correct ‘female’ one. I try several laptop DC adapter jack and it just wont fit.

I visit several component shops to find a set of DC power jack, then finally I can find one that suit this Sencore LC102. Finally, we can wake up this amazing tool. Voila, it runs perfectly at this stage. Need some more testing to make sure its functions are working perfectly. But at this stage, at least all buttons and displays are working nicely.

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Tags: Battery Power Supply, Sencore LC102
Posted in Collectible Stuff, Measurement | Comments (2)

Posted on Monday, 24th December 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Call me a perfectionist (or paranoid or retarded, like some people usually call the ‘audiophool‘), but I always keep my soldering iron only for certain type of tin solder.

The first one is dedicated soldering iron for WBT tin solder (with lead). This is one of my favorite tin solder (but not the lead free one). With the lead inside, we don’t really need high temperature soldering iron. Also, I have a lot of project which need small tip soldering iron. So the best choice falls to Goot CS-31. A 25 Watts precision soldering iron.

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Tags: Cardas, Dekko, Goot, mundorf, Soldering Iron, Tin Solder, WBT
Posted in Collectible Stuff | Comments (2)

Posted on Sunday, 23rd December 2012 by Auw Jimmy

I was digging my component box to see if I can find some other opamp to be used in Xonar Essence One. Luckily I still have some obsolete (but my favorite) AD825.

I also bought a couple of new one few days ago (LME 49860 and JRC5532).

AD825 is still my favorite. It was on the generation of OPA627 as they are both share similar mono type opamp. Although quite obsolete, but price wise, this AD825 is not cheap at all as mono opamp. Need to use some converter in order to use them in DIP socket.

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Tags: AD825, gainclone, JRC5532, LM1875T, LME49860, OpAmp
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (2)

Posted on Friday, 7th December 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Just looking around and found something that looked interesting. Hope I’m right

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Tags: Aucharm, Fuse
Posted in Collectible Stuff | Comments (0)

Posted on Sunday, 11th November 2012 by Auw Jimmy

If you have a lot of old tubes, then this idea could be useful. I have planned to make this small device, but somehow quite lazy (ugh!). I think because I have Knight 600 and Hickok 539B which are quite convenient to be used.

A background of this idea is, usually an old stock tube, either NOS or not, has been kept inside the box, attic, or warehouse for years. Some could be more than 10 years. Sometime, turn it on with maximum voltage could become a ‘heart attack’ for it. Well, it’s ok if it’s a cheap $2 tube. But how about for $400 RGN?

Usually I use my tube tester, either Knight or Hickok, and set lower filament voltage first for some time before putting an actual filament voltage to this kind of tube. But somehow, I would prefer to have a simple stuff but with more function. Here you go.

The ingredients are simple. Some hole saws (lucky if have quite vary of size). A thick platform or box is nice to have for this purpose (could be acrylic, wood, or metal plate). Some rulers to measure the size. Off course you will need a drill with some extra bits. It’s always nice to work if you have a complete stuffs.

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Tags: power supply, regulator, Tube Burner
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio, Measurement | Comments (0)