Caiman Mods

[MartinT]

I'm waiting for the next idea...

[StanleyB]

Already?

[quadsugdenman]

Some of us would just like to catch up, and are eagerly await Jimmy at Tirna's purchase of bipolar caps.

[Gazjam]

I'm waiting for the next idea...

What else is there?

My thoughts are related to my SB Touch, which APPARENTLY is a pretty great solution of getting bit perfect SPDIF to a Dac.

Thinking out loud....How does the Bdac cope with Jitter?
I'm sure its been asked before, but does "our" dac do any reclocking of the stream before it gets to the outputs or...?
What about looking at the spdif input...any milage there?

Cant think of any other potential improvements?


Oh, I fitted the "extra" Elna cap near the power button too (as I'd already bought it...) and now my power putton works a treat

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Some of us would just like to catch up, and are eagerly await Jimmy at Tirna's purchase of bipolar caps.

you must be the gary who is on the waiting list before me

[trailer]

Well I sat down for a couple of hours this afternoon and gave the 7520 a jolly good listening to against the new Naim DAC.
The 7520 I have is similar to Gazjams I think: Wolfsoned, Muratas, Rubycon bi-polars, Elnas, Caiman PSU, AD826 op-amp: Listening through the optical via an Apple TV with a lossless stream.

I picked out a few tracks to listen to that I know pretty well: Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen (Remaster), Led Zep - Remasters and Kraftwerk - Tour de France (Remaster): and made a few notes as I went along.

After going back and forth between the DAC's a few times for all the tracks I listened to I ended up with the following comments in all of the comparisons:

7520

Again more 3D and a bigger soundstage, not as wide but brings the music closer to the listener. The vocal especially is in the middle of the room not sat back in the speakers. The instrumental section is definitely more 3D sounding although not as refined. A brighter sound.

This was compared to the Naim DAC which was:

Clear vocal. Solid and tight bass. Easier to pick out the instruments and vocal. The sound is sat back into the speakers. Rich sound. More detail and clarity.

A quick summary but that was the long and short of it.

If you did a blind test with the two DAC's then I'm sure you could pick one out from the other. They sound different for sure, especially in the presentation. The BDac is definitely more up front and "in your face" than the Naim. I think this is why there is a loss of refinement as it seems a bit harder to pick out the individual instruments for instance(?).

No surprise that the NDac was my preference then. (It was a fair wedge more so it should be I guess). However, the BDac certainly isn't disgraced. Far from it, and I think some folk would prefer the different presentation of the 7520. The increased clarity and refinement of the Naim DAC swings it for me though.
Comparing the pre-Tirnad 7520, which already had the Wolfson chip in it, to the to the post Tirnad 7520 is a little more difficult as I have been without the 7520 for a couple of weeks so a side by side comaparison wasn't possible of course. I did listen to the 7520 against the Naim DAC before it went down to Jimmy though and from what I can remember it is certainly now sounding better.
I'm also definitely keeping it too. (and waiting for the next upgrade )

[Gazjam]

Gawd.....

[quadsugdenman]

you must be the gary who is on the waiting list before me

Yip Hamish, been waiting nearly 6 weeks since I first spoke to Stan and then to Jimmy. I tried to convince Jimmy that there would be a que for the mods but he first had to purchase something like zillions's of bipolar caps upfront!!!!!!!!! Unless you can supply Jimmy with the bits (Others have already done that) we have to be patient!!!

However the Beresford still amazes me in stock form, so if it can be improved - Woww

[The Vinyl Adventure]

im happy waiting for him to get the parts too...less room for error on my part!

[Gazjam]

See my earlier post which lists all parts needed...

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...t=4580&page=34 (Post 333)
They were delivered next day from HiFiCollective so big thumbs up from me.

Useful info for those impatient buggers like myself?