Quote Originally Posted by NRG View Post
Stan, I'd be interested to learn more about these mods.

Update:
I ran my DAC continuously for 24hrs with the new 5v ALW reg and the sound has now settled IMO. I was still not happy with the low bass quality and went back to the original configuration as a sanity check...what I discovered is that the small (11R ?) surface mount resistor in line to the supply of the opamp is needed, feeding the 12v from the ALW reg via this resistor fixed the low bass.....I have no idea why but without it there was something missing...with it everything fell into place.

I also tried listening without the input PSU caps as you suggested, I didn't loose any bass but I found the sound stage became confused and muddled....very strange. I then tried a single 4700uF Blackgate as a replacement and I was taken aback...

What a difference this made, simply more of everything, I highly recommend to anybody replacing the two PSU caps with a good quality replacement it made a very noticable improvment in my system.
Not knowing all the innards of this dac what other caps are after this 11R resistor Neil? is it just the SMD ceramic for the op-amp +v ? I wonder if it was some too low impedance or something the ALW didn't like and the 11R helps isolate it, also adds more impedance? I do know the ALW's can be picky whats on their output.
The ears are a good test tool for telling you theres a problem