Dr Jimmy is your man if you are a klutz like me.

[Tony G]

Embarassingly for me, having followed all the excitement over modding the Caiman, I obtained all the necessary bits for the recommended mods, NP caps and Wimas for the opamp board, Silmic IIs and the Murata regs.
Set them all carefully to one side and fully burned in the Caiman to have a known starting point and on a fateful day, proceeded to dismantle it and remove bits willy-nilly.
Now it can happen, and in this case did, that our ambitions outrun our abilities.
Whilst my soldering skills are passable, my desoldering obviously needed some work.
Results not good. Lifted pads and other atrocities and a most unhappy Caiman.
A couple of days thought and a futile attempt to recover from my ineptitude left me thinking it might be a bin job.

In a last, desperate gesture to avoid scrapping the entire unit and putting it all down to experience, I contacted the good Dr, not, at this stage, holding much hope that even he could help.
He however, replied promptly and confidently that he felt it should be possible to resurrect the beast.
A response he may have subsequently regretted.
Heartened, I packed the wreckage into antistatic bags and packed them off for a trip half way round the world.
He proved as good or better than his word and the poor abused Caiman is once again connected up and making better music than ever before even as it burns in its new caps.

I am very, very grateful to the good Dr Jimmy of Tirna Electronics for salvaging this mess of my making and am now making public confession of my ineptitude in the possibility that someone else may find themselves in a similar position and feel naturally reticent to ask advice.

Should anyone be in this position, I can most heartily recommend they contact Dr Jimmy.
I would rate his skills and gracious communications as first class all the way.

A sordid tale with a happy ending, thanks to the good Dr.

Hope no-one takes this as advertising, just a very happy (and chastened) customer sharing his experience in the hope it might be of help to someone else.

Happy listening folks.

TG

[Ashmore]

Ha you sound almost as inept as me!

I can also attest to the good Doctor's brilliance. Not only did he fit all the murata whatnots to my Caiman - making an already excellent product supersonic, but unprompted he also improvised a new 'foot' for one that had come off.

[Marco]

Hi dude,

Sorry to butt in, but your first name should be shown somewhere on your profile. If it's not on your user details, after "I'm", then it should be on your signature, where your system is currently listed :)

So please attend to that - churz! :cool:

Marco.

[StanleyB]

I had a long and pleasant conversation with Jimmy a few days ago. He had in his workshop a Gatorized Caiman that had come in for the Murata mod. Jimmy asked if he could buy some stock of the Gator off me so that he could add it to his list of mods that he can fit.
I myself was thinking about closing the book on the Gator once the 200 pieces were sold to mainly AoS members. But as knowledge of its existence has spread, I am now getting inquiries from customers who bought their DAC from one of my dealers across the globe. So a 2nd batch of 200 pcs is under way.

Of further interest are some findings by a number of helpful customers. The ones of note are:
The TC-7520 with Gator fitted has a less bright sound than the Caiman/Gator, and suits bright systems very well.
The Gatorized Caiman was preferred over the DAC1, rDAC, and a few other more expensive combinations. It was hard to choose between the Gatorized Caiman and the Linn Akurate.

It's all useful feedback for the R&D of the updated Caiman I am working on. But I do need more info so that I can iron out any technical issues.

[Krisbee]

Stan,

Well, I've finally decided to send my TC-7520 to Tirna to get the Wolfson chip implanted, so if they are likely to get stock of the gator board I'm happy to hold on a while. Any idea when this might all happen?

[StanleyB]

Later this month I reckon.