Audiolab 6000CDT Mods

[Gazjam]

Your not wrong Martin, and a good shout.

For the Meridian I'd only be treating the base panel, which is a solid metal plate.
Not a lot of room inside, guess theres a reason for those big heatsinks.



My thinking is it might be beneficial to dampen where the big Transformer is fitted, hopefully bring about similar improvement to the other kit I've done this on.
Possibly the front plate too, if it can be easily removed.

Thats a "next week job" though, just gonna enjoy the (improved) Tunes for a while.

[Macca]

Not a lot of room inside, guess theres a reason for those big heatsinks.

lol yeah I think they try to make the cases as compact as they can but there's a limit to how small you can go with an A or AB amp if you want it to deliver some proper power.

[Gazjam]

I can walk on water....oops, maybe not yet

[Gazjam]

To finish off the mods,
did the Meridian power amp today.

Tightened up the big hexbolt holding the transformer then set to it.
Had a go at opening the case up to see if I could damp the front panel but was beaten by two wee screws that refused to budge. Ah well, not to be.



Job Jobbed.


Black tapes only there to stop the aluminium reflecting off the glass shelf the amp sits on, that would get annoying real quick.


Again,
Nice improvement for not a lot of outlay.

The Meridian was always a very neutral transparent sounding amp,
Damping the base and transformer has brought forward the amps 'grunt', its a bigger beefier sound now but with improvement in transparency and dynamics as well.
Everything flows better, image is bigger and more locked in place.

The mod has tightened everything up, and seems to have increased the dynamic range - drums hit harder and go deeper.
Vocals are more focused and stand out in the mix more.

So yeah,
A job worth doing and worked on a range of kit.
Really glad I did it.
Think will improve most kit, give it a go if your looking for a "free" upgrade.

Highly recommended Peeps.

https://www.deadening.co.uk/products...at-volume-pack

[Gazjam]

Another round of improvements to the Audiolab:

1 RFI/EMI treatment using Stillpoints ERS Cloth of Transport mechanism and various digital chips on the PCB
2 SilentCoat damping material on power supply capacitors, incoming AC rectifiers and a few other Caps I tried and found to benefit from damping
3 Further damping and Treatment of AC Inlet and AC supply wires to board
4 Fitted a Synergystic Research Orange fuse
5 All removable PCB ribbon cable connectors, PCB pins, IEC Inlet pins treated with Deoxit Gold contact Enhancer

Stillpoints ERS cloth
I've used Stillpoints ERS cloth successfully in my PS Audio Dac, Oppo 203 and even my AppleTV, masking the effects of RFI can improves the sound and image quality quite noticably.
You dont want to use too much though, or in the wrong place as it can kill the top end.

Even a 2cm square over the Toroidal transformer (or example) leads to a duller sound, but used on the digital chips - fantastic.
Was a back and forth process of identifying what works best and where - Took a while and time I'll never get back, I must be mad!

The Audiolab responded really well to RFI/EMI treatment.
This, along with the case damping I did previously, has noticably raised the sound quality over the stock Transport, which was no slouch to begin with.
Happy to have done this, well worth the time.

Capacitor Damping
Another thing I did (after experimenting and listening to player afterwards) was use small ammounts of SilentCoat damping material on power supply capacitors, incoming AC rectifiers and a few other Caps I tried and found to benefit from damping.
For the Caps I made sure to keep the top plate uncovered where it was designed to "split" should the cap go bad.
This mod didn't change the function of the cap, just dampened down any potential vibration. Lightly tapping the side of an untreated cap you could feel vibration going through it.
After treatment it was completely gone.
Also added additional damping to the PCB itself and AC inlet.

Also added a Synergystic Research Orange fuse.
These babies really work, not quite as good as the Purples I fitted to my Dac and amps, but runs it close, and is perfect for the Audiolab transport.

The Transport where I left it before,
showing case resonance damping, PCB Isolation and RF/EMI treatment of display PCB



For this round of Mods:
1 Damping & RFI treatment on AC Inlet
2 Capacitor and PCB damping
3 RFI Treatment on digital Chips and AC rectifiers
4 Damping of regulator heatsinks (these were slightly loose actually, tightened up the screw properly before applying small ammounts of damping.)
5 Internal of SPDIF socket RFI treated and dampened. Deoxit treated

Anything related to AC power I paid particular attention to.
A lot of trial and error here, listening back after making changes and deciding if it made things any worse. If not, it stayed on.



6 RFI treatment of Disc transport
7 Standby relay and and power supply too

Quite a lot of back and forth here too, applying treatment cloth different places and ammounts and listening to what effect it had.
Noticably better when the Transport mechanism was isolated, reckon the motor in there was giving off a lot of electrical mush.



IMPROVEMENTS AFTER THESE MODS

The Audiolab already had a good low end, after this round of modding its tightened up and goes a little deeper.
Bass drums have more heft, and feel more solid.
Bass solo's seem easier to follow and pick out where it is in the mix.

The sound now projects better, soundstage feels more planted with a better sense of depth?
Noticed it most with well recorded classical stuff, a lot going on but different elements seperated better and clearer.

Top end mostly unnafected, though improvements in seperation bring out things like cymbal taps and the like better.


So well worth doing!
Happy with the improvement, but this one was a lot of work.

Was going to do electrical mods as well, cap improvements, taking the relay and switch mode psu out of circuit (cheers Alan for the tip)
thought about replacing the IEC inlet with a Furutech and swapping out internal AC wiring with silver, as per my Oppo mods, But you know what?

Theres a big enough improvement over the stock Audiolab that I'm happy to leave it here.
So job' Jobbed.

Revisited my Oppo 203 as well,
A similar set of mods there too, but thats a different story for a different thread.
Quite a bigger jump with the Oppo compared to the Audiolab, CD playback is now better.

Audiolab v Oppo - Preferred the Audiolab before modding it, doing so just made it better by even more.
Compared them both though after modding, the Oppo is the better CD Transport now.

Further RF treatment and damping (using the thicker 4mm Silentcoat - was 2mm) seems to have really lifted the Oppo.
More like what I would expect actually, given its hooked up to the Dac via i2s, fully linear PSU and the other modded goodies I did to it previously.
Post that one and update my Oppo thread at some point with that.



I need better hobbies