Posted on Saturday, 18th May 2013 by Auw Jimmy

It’s been quite some time since I play with small soldering job. Time to practice a bit more. On the same time, I have to solder my LME 49720HA to the PCB board converter. So, let’s heat up the hand a bit. The idea is to convert TO-99 package into standard DIP8.

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Tags: LME 49720HA, OpAmp, Soldering
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Posted on Sunday, 12th May 2013 by Auw Jimmy

Finally it’s done, the modification of Asus Xonar Essence One (E1). Before we go to a final listening test, let’s enjoy some pictures first.

As I have explained before, this is not the best design to mount the big Jensen electrolytic capacitor. But it seems I don’t really have many option here.

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Tags: Asus, E1, Essence One, Modification, Xonar
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Posted on Sunday, 12th May 2013 by Auw Jimmy

After this process, now it’s time for the audio board to return to its original place. Time to plug her back.

The final touch is to assembly the power supply board and the new capacitors. It will take some time – 15 minutes probably?

For some capacitors, I need to jumper them (space is the main concern). So I use UP-OCC wire with Teflon insulation (around 18 AWG) to connect them. And off course, a bit of creativity to mount them. Note the yellow Jensen electrolytic capacitors and their new ‘DIY’ mounting kit Can’t see any better for sure!

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Tags: Asus, E1, Essence One, mod, Modification, Xonar
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Posted on Thursday, 9th May 2013 by Auw Jimmy

Time to get into serious business now: Let do some surgery. The object: Asus Xonar Essence One audio board.

I’m gonna make it quick. The ordinary Nichicon is no where good for my taste (it could be for me only, yours could be different). So I pick several candidates as listed here.

To be honest, the process is not that easy. It was easy to remove the capacitor, but to plug the new one, definitely it will need some time due to the small hole (this board is very stingy with the hole size).

All components here are soldered in WBT solder and Cardas Rosin Flux.

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Tags: Asus, Capacitor, Cerafine, Elna, Os-Con, OsCon, Rubycon ZA, Silmic II, Xonar Essence One
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Posted on Thursday, 9th May 2013 by Auw Jimmy

I believe you still remember this one?

After some listening test, I decided to have another revision. It was a good capacitor, but I was thinking if I could improve some of its aspect. Well, I could be wrong, but no pain no glory, right?

So here is the new revision of the ‘No Name’ Capacitor. Physically wise, they are all the same. But I add some mass on this new capacitor, so it will be a bit heavier. Due to its extra mass, I bet it will be better when vertically positioned, instead of horizontal.

Another different is, it has the 5th lead which is ground/shield of the capacitor. So although it has no metal case on the outside, but we still can have a benefit of shielding when needed.

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Tags: No Name Capacitor, Reference Capacitor, Rev. 2, Special Capacitor, Special Project
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Posted on Thursday, 9th May 2013 by Auw Jimmy

If you have a bunch of capacitors on the shelf, surely you will even face this. Once upon a time, I plan to use my old capacitor (we are talking several ‘few’ years, not 15 or 20 years or so). Off course as wise ‘technician’ says: better safe than sorry. So test your old stuff first before putting them into the real circuit.

When I test with a basic Ohm-meter testing with my Sanwa analog meter, I find some of my capacitor not totally back to infinity during the testing. It means there is some leakage on the capacitor. Mostly, such leakage is recoverable with reforming them (I will discuss this later as I need to use a power supply, some high wattage resistor, etc). So don’t throw them to the recycle bin directly.

See below the measurement result. The needle doesn’t move back to infinity.

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Tags: Old Capacitor, Reform, Reforming Capacitor
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Posted on Sunday, 5th May 2013 by Auw Jimmy

For Asus Xonar Essence One modification

Best on the class, perfect on their position.

Tags: Asus, BlackGate Jensen, Capacitor, Cerafine, Elna, OsCon, Rubycon ZA, Silmic, Xonar Essence One
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Posted on Tuesday, 23rd April 2013 by Auw Jimmy

It seems that one of my article here has inspired a guy from Warsaw, Poland, named Marcin. But instead of comparing those capacitors, Marcin deciced to change the capacitor based on his music and his taste. According to him, he enjoyed listening different caps with different kind of music. I completely agree that even the best Duelund Cast sometime not sweet enough (if you are really a fans of super sweet vocal) compared to – let’s say – Jensen Paper Tube.

So below photos are completely Marcin’s system and his works. I start to think that his work is completely better than mine, especially the Elma selector wood stand. Mine was done with a plastic CD cover

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Tags: Capacitor, Duelund, jensen, Reader's System, Sun Audio
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Posted on Sunday, 21st April 2013 by Auw Jimmy

Asus Xonar Essence One uses a ribbon cable to connect the stage before the final buffer output to potentiometer then brings back the attenuated signal back to the buffer output stage.

This is no where a best approach, as the signal will pass through cheap ribbon cable back and forth. Some audiophile will prefer an extension rod and put the potentiometer on the back, near the signal point which to be adjusted, instead of bring out and back the signal itself with cable. Well, there are dozens way to Rome, right?

The potentiometer itself (Alps B10K) is a balance type (4-Gang). I don’t really need that balance type as I will not use the balance output. So I did some tracing to get the connection between the LPF opamp to the final buffer stage. So here we go!

Remember that the layout below is seen from the top, not from the bottom. And I do hope I’ve done the tracing correctly Do at your own risk and double check before you proceed to modify that part.

“I” means Input, “O” means Output, and “G” means Ground.

One thing that you might notice is the Input and Output layout are all crossed. I1 is side by side with O2 instead of I2 and vice versa.

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Tags: ALPS, Asus, Essence One, potentiometer, volume control, Xonar
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Posted on Monday, 8th April 2013 by Auw Jimmy

As I have informed on previous post here, the best way to trace the PCB is to remove as much component as possible. This to make sure some of your tracing process are accurate. Although not mandatory, but seeing I plan to change some components anyway, so removing them would be the best approach

So, here is the Asus Xonar Essence One PCB with almost all capacitors removed.

It was so fun process and took around 15 minutes to remove (nearly) all the capacitors. Cleaning the hole was another story though

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Tags: Asus Xonar Essence One, Capacitor, Modification, PCB, Tracing
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Posted on Monday, 9th January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

I always have dream to have a separate and dedicated passive volume control. There was a time when I was offered to acquire few sets of Grayhill ‘M’ series rotary switch. Although it has 7 Decks which definitely overkill for most application, but seeing the quality of the switch, I decided to grab some.

Although ‘M’ Series from Grayhill is not Military qualified switch, but it meets the requirements of MIL-S-3786 which covers moisture resistance, medium and high shock, vibration, thermal shock (from minus 65 up to over 125 degree Celsius), salt spray, explosion, terminal strength (2 lbs pull minimum), and stop strength (15 pound-inches minimum). Quite convincing, huh? The simple but major different is, the ‘HS’ Military grade will have a sealed shaft and panel. That will make a lot of different in ‘heavy’ environment, but probably not much at home.

Each switch is bundled inside a plastic tube. Nice and convenient way to carry the switch and also easy to be put on the storage bin.

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Tags: Attenuator, Grayhill, Military, preamp, Switched, volume control
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Posted on Thursday, 3rd March 2011 by Auw Jimmy

My new digital transport has just come, QLS QA-550.

This is actually a SD Card WAV Transport, as it only has digital out (either Coaxial or Optical) and internally I2S pin-out.

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Tags: Digital Player, SD Card Player, Transport, WAV
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