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 
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.
Tags: altec lansing, aureon, Black Gate, mundorf, mx5021, sound card, speaker
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Posted on Thursday, 20th May 2010 by Auw Jimmy
In just few days, world lost two big guys, well known in the audio/music world.
First was Gesang Martohartono (1 October 1917 – 20 May 2010), a renowned Indonesia singer and songwriter, especially in kroncong style. He was famous throughout Asia, not just in his own country, Indonesia. His most famous song was Bengawan Solo. One of his best recording was recorded by JVC Japan here.
The other was Dr. Fritz Sennheiser (9 May 1912 – 17 May 2010), founder of Sennheiser, well known as professional microphone and headphone manufacturer. Sennheiser has become a respected brand in current audio world.
Good bye to both of you.
God bless!
Tags: fritz sennheiser, gesang martohartono
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Posted on Sunday, 16th May 2010 by Auw Jimmy
I plan to compare some capacitors from Jensen and one from Audio Note. The two from Jensen are Jensen Copper Foil Paper-in-Oil (Paper Tube) and Jensen Copper Foil Paper-in-Oil (Copper Tube). From Audio Note, I have Copper Foil Mylar-in-Oil (I believe this is Copper Tube also). We gonna have a serious battle later since those 3 caps are using different “recipe”. Both Jensen are Paper in Oil type, but with different enclosure. While the Audio Note has similarity with one of the Jensen with Copper Tube, but with Mylar instead of Paper. Audio Note claims the Mylar will provide better combination between sonic reproduction and the reliability.
Shall we prove the result? Later… We must wait after the burn-in session, probably in 100+ hours.
For the burn-in session, I sealed the Copper Tube caps with plastic. This is to prevent the oxidation of the copper tube (both Audio Note and Jensen Copper Tube oxides very fast in my environment due to high humidity, thanks to the purity of the material used also). I should prepare a transparent heatshrink for a good looking appearance, but no time to find one now. Perhaps you will ask why there are 2 pair of Jensen Paper Tube? One is my friend’s, to join the burn-in session before used on his system.
Tags: Aikido, audio note, Capacitor, Duelund, jensen, preamp, tube
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Posted on Sunday, 2nd May 2010 by Auw Jimmy
After reading my article about finding out capacitor inner-outer foil, some of my readers asked me to do the similar test on the resistor. Well, technically speaker, resistor shouldn’t have any inner or outer foil, since most likely it’s a piece of carbon or wire on the ceramic core. But let’s see the testing result. On this simple session, I used Kiwame (Carbon Film Resistor) and Mills (Wirewound). I also have some Riken or Shinkoh, but not really available in many values. For Kiwame, I used 1M, 470K, 100K, and 2K2. For Mills, I picked one value, 22K.
1 MegaOhm readings below showed 332 mV.
Tags: oscilloscope, resistor
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Posted on Saturday, 24th April 2010 by Auw Jimmy
I just got my Oscilloscope, so I can play more fun with my DIY stuff. Ok, let’s start with some basic “game”, to find the inner and outer foil of a capacitor.
Basically, most of the capacitor, has what we call the inner foil and outer foil. Because, most of capacitor’s construction is based on the winding of paper or other conductor (silver, copper, gold, etc), so we will have a start position (the inner foil) and the finish position (the outer foil).
Although for the film type capacitor, it’s just fine to connect positive or negative to the inner or outer foil. But due to some reason, it’s preferable to connect the outer foil to negative side or to the “nearest” negative side (input side on coupling application).
Why? Because the outer foil will catch the outside interferences. So better if you can put this outer foil to the place nearest to ground or negative pole. So it could completely transfer those unwanted noise faster to the place where it should belong – the ground.
Some capacitor like Audio Note, Jensen, Auricap, Hovland, VCap, etc usually marks their capacitor with different color lead or print some black line to mark the negative side or input in the coupling application. Some other popular capacitor, like Mundorf, doesn’t seem to care about this, means no marks at all. So you got to check it by your own. Other capacitor like Duelund, which uses the Stacked Foil design, I believe doesn’t have any polarity (it’s not winded, but stacked).
How to do the test with Oscilloscope? Simple by testing both leads, and give some “interference” outside the capacitor (touch by hand or put some electric field interference e.g. high voltage cable, etc). The side with higher noise, means the outer foil.
Below are some picture from my own measurement on some capacitors.
Audio Note Oil Filled Mylar Capacitor. The black line marking on the capacitor’s body means the negative or input side. We can see the noise is quite big if we put the positive probe on the side which has black line marking.
Tags: Capacitor, measurement, oscilloscope
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Posted on Sunday, 18th April 2010 by Auw Jimmy
The sign of a wear out tube? Time to grab some more… >.<
Tags: 26 tube, tube
Posted in Collectible Stuff | Comments (2)
Posted on Wednesday, 14th April 2010 by Auw Jimmy
Straight to the point. Just backed home tonight from a crazy traffic, then it was a great moment to payback! Let’s solder the new Duelund CAST Resistor. You can see brief information about Duelund CAST Resistor here and my DIY speaker here.
I decided to switch back to Auricap few months ago (from a set of Siemens NOS capacitors). I eventually realized that using too many capacitors in parallel may reduce some factor, like imaging and separation. The tonal should be similar, but some other factors mentioned before might be altered or reduced.
Okay then, let’s change the old Sfernice RLP10NI to Duelund CAST Resistor.
After around 15 minutes soldering, I completely finished the modification.
My first initial impression. The music was more solid, good depth and separation, but never got it too harsh. I also felt that it was even more relax in terms of musical pronounciation. If I felt that the Sfernice still has some “stiff” characteristic, then the CAST resistor absolutely very relax, even just powered on for few hours. To be honest, the role of this resistor is very important since the location is on the front of the signal path.
I will provide more experience after several hours. We sill have some Norah Jones, some Chen Lily, some Ingram Washington, some John Campbell, or also some Tsuyoshi Yamamoto.
Tags: auricap, CAST, DIY Speaker, Duelund, resistor
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Posted on Wednesday, 14th April 2010 by Auw Jimmy
Finally, I change my main transformer orientation, from horizontal to vertical. Not really easy to mount this giant transformer vertically. But here is the result. I’m quite sure I love this new orientation than before
Actually, the best solution is if you can “sealed” the two side of the transformer by a metal plate (either aluminum or copper). But since my DIY chassis is completely “rubbish”, then I don’t think I can do that. Just prepare for a future plan, so I keep the vertical mount position now.
This Z11 based iron with Australia/Germany copper wire is rated around 150VA or more. With current load about 110VA from my preamp, this giant is completely cool for over 8 hours non-stop performance. Damned, I do love this transformer! Sadly, not easy to get similar transformer in the near future (Z11 is quite rare here and expensive).
Tags: transformer
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Posted on Sunday, 4th April 2010 by Auw Jimmy
Before, my main transformer was designed to be mounted in vertical position. As you can see, the L-Shape was designed to be bolted on the main chassis vertically.
Due to some reason, after few hours experimenting, I didn’t really like this vertical position. Why? I haven’t found enough evidence, but for now, I must change the mounting position, from vertical to horizontal.
After few hours on the local electronic parts shop, I managed to find some tools for this purpose. And another few hours to install this and here is the result. Tadaaa… My transformer is ready to be mounted horizontally.
Tags: transformer
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Posted on Saturday, 3rd April 2010 by Auw Jimmy
Now it’s time to try the Duelund CAST Ag (CAST Silver) on my Aikido Preamp. You might be interested to read the installation process.
Short words, here is the final installation photo. For the break-in purpose, I don’t use expensive configuration. Usually the main source is my old iPod Photo, connected with old hi-fi amplifier, then my DIY speaker. Few hours break-in session should be enough for initial impression. Although serious listening evaluation must be done at least after 100 hours of break-in period.
Some brief information of my Aikido Preamp, if you are not yet familiar with it:
Tags: Aikido, CAST Ag, duuelund, preamp
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Posted on Friday, 2nd April 2010 by Auw Jimmy
My Sanwa PC510 multimeter has the capability to measure the temperature via small probe. So, I’m curious to measure my tube glass/surface temperature. I test the 6N1P, 6N6P, and 5U4G tubes.
Tags: measurement, Sanwa, temperature, tube
Posted in Collectible Stuff, DIY Audio | Comments (0)
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