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Hong Kong Lawrence CS4397 Cheapo DAC modified to work as it should

Many months ago I bought a DAC to use with my computer in the bedroom. Just to connect to my Musical Fidelity X-Can V2 for some serious headphone listening. I have used it, but not been impressed by it at all. But when surfing around, I got in to this amazing/crazy page about installing a tube amp output on CD players and DACs. And he listed the cheap one I have as one of the best DACs he ever heard. The guy bypasses the output stage and replaces it with a simple tube buffer/amp. This got me interested.

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Vortex Live

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Vortext Live
For probably 20 years I’ve been searching for a song. An old friend of mine, Micke Fredriksson used to play this punk song from a live recording. The only thing I remembered was that they sang “They called me an animal, then they cut me up”. So sometimes I searched the net for the text, but could never find out the name of the song. Irritating!

But today I went to a vinyl record sale and I found it! As soon as I saw the album cover I knew that it was the right one. So now I can finally listen to Art Attacks masterpiece Animal Bondage

Never bought so much music

The last couple of years due to the iPod, I’ve listened to more music than ever before. I also haven’t bought much music. But in the last six month I bought a lot of CDs and now also vinyl records. I would never pay full price for a CD, in Sweden you pay around $18! But I do buy nice price CDs. Then I have to pay around $5. And vinyl can be even cheaper. Hopefully the record industry will finally get it and change their pricing so I don’t have to buy back catalog all the time.

Vinyl crazy

ipod old 20071203 012144Well, let’s face it. The iPod have changed my interest in music during the last few years.
With my 5 gig first generation iPod I had most of my music coded in 128kbit MP3 due to the constraints of the number of songs. The first year I put up with the included earphones and really didn’t think of upgrading.

koss portapro 20071203 011829But finally I got a Koss Porta Pro by recommendation from a friend. These headphones are not audiophile, but good enough to make me realize how much better MP3 files coded in 160 or higher sounded. But to accomondate that kind of upgrade in sound, forced me to buy a 15gb third generation iPod to fit more songs. So I recoded all my music to AAC in 160kbit and faced out older songs when I could get my hands on a higher quality version. The third generation iPod worked excellent for me for over three years. Then I upgraded my headphones to some in-ear headphones which took the sound quality up a notch again. A month ago I bought a iPod Classic 160gb and now have all music in lossless full quality.

But guess what, I bought a vinyl record player a while ago. Some would say that it’s a step backwards, but have to disagree. There is something about listening to vinyl. It’s like smoking a pipe, It’s a bit more involved. An other good aspect of this is that I’m forced to actually listen trough a whole song. But one thing is for sure, you need to invest in rather expensive equipment to get good performance from vinyl. But one can still find interesting records dirt cheap. It really is the black gold.
skivspelare 20071203 004510

Zhaolu 2.5 DAC

macminiI just bought a new Mac Mini Core Duo2 as a media player in my bedroom. I connected it an old 23″ Cinema display that I don’t use. First I was a bit annoyed that I needed to use the keyboard and mouse, but then I found Remote Buddy. What a relief! I can now do almost anything with Apples lovely simple remote. I’m going to use it for playing back my CD collection that’s been ripped to a large hardisk. Watching DiVX, DVD, MPG films on it. And watch TV with my EyeTV kit.

zhaoluSo the next step was getting the audio out of the mini. Well, let’s face it, the output quality from line-out isn’t something you can call great. So I’m about to order an Zhaolu DAC 2.5 and mod the crap out of it! I’m thinking of installing a ZapFilter, better clocking etc. I’m then going to use mini-spdif connector to get the digital data out from the mac to the DAC.

Now I just need to get my home built amp finished.

Obsessions

I’ve now been in my HIFI obsession mode for almost half a year. There’s always a new obsession around the corner. Maybe my next one will be photography again? I have these stints of interest for a specific area that is all consuming. Thankfully I have a very understanding wife.

I’m currently working on moving my homebuilt class-D amplifier to a new rack enclosure. So the kitchen is full of PCBs, connectors and tools. But it seems like I’m never going to get this amp finished. I was really annoyed with the amplifier, because I really need a remote for it. So I ordered a kit for a passive motor controlled Alps control. This time I have put in a lot of effort in getting all the wires as short as possible. So the volume control is sitting at the back of the amp and I’ve made a brass rod as an extension.

I also added a notch filter to my ProAc clones. First I was very happy with the sound, but after a couple of weeks, I realized that I got tired of listening to them after just 20 minutes. Well, turns out I had made one of the tweeter filters the wrong way, so now with the notch filter they finally sounds more to my preference. Success!

ProAc Response 2.5 clones plays real music

proac
So finally my new ProAc Response 2.5 clone playing music. And how they play! I got myself a new Class-A amplifier to have something nice to drive them with. At first they sounded a bit short on the bass side, but now after about 20 hours of listening, the bass starts to improve. I’ve never believed in the “burn-in” of speakers, but I have to say I’ve been mistaken.

I invited some friends over for a music listening party. A lot of records and an even larger amount of beer made for a beautiful evening.

At the same time I ordered my new amplifier, I also ordered a new DVD player with DVD-Audio and SACD playing capability. So I rush out to get my hands on a SACD record, but the only one I could find was the slightly overplayed Dark side of the moon by Pink Floyd. But it was a good test record because I have two different mastering versions on cd, so comparing was easy. And to my surprise the CD (actually Flac played through my Squeezebox) sounded better than the SACD one! So I had to check that the player didn’t play the normal cd layer, but no, it played the SACD layer. The singing voices on the SACD sounded muffled compared to the Japanese pressing of the CD. Also the pinpointing of instrument placements in the stereo image was not as good an coherent from the SACD. The player a Pioneer 696 is a low budget player so it could be it. But I’ll crank up the manual and check so I haven’t done something stupid with the settings.

More testing tomorrow…

Proac Response 2.5 clones

proac response clone
So I finally decided to go with the Proac Response 2.5 clone speakers. The original speaker costs $4400, but a very good copy or the original is possible to build for around $1000. It uses high quality Scan Speak speaker elements, and I bought them today. My friend Micke is also building a pair at the same time. So now I have four speakers standing in my livingroom. Everything is covered in MDF dust. Thankfully I have a very understanding wife.

So far we have put together the side and top walls. Today we glued the Bituben dampening material to all the walls (except the front baffle) I still feel faint and feel a stinging sensation in my fingers. Next time, gas masks. Anyway, we are moving along in a good pace. Hopefully we will have a pair of working speakers finished this weekend. The plan is to first finish the speakers, but not glue the back end so we can make adjustments to the stuffing and filtering. I also want to try different lengths of the bass reflex tube. Coming along nicely. But I’m still worried about doing the veneering.

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