Caiman passive output mod revealed

[HighFidelityGuy]

I personally DO NOT MIND small or HUGE capacitors. I DO NOT mind if I have to place them out of case as long as I am able to find perfect Sound Quality (for my ears and my system).
So any suggestions are welcome as long as the cost of caps is not silly.
Since I got my 7520 from repair I have not been closing case of my lovely Mr Beresford as well as burning in all those caps.

@MartinT
I love the way your Beresford is looking especially the passive Caps. What is your model of Beresford DAC? With what caps you have replaced the biggest power supply cap and is the SQ any better?

My present state of DAC (just some random home found caps)

If you fancy trying something a bit different then Mundorf RXF are worth a try. I ran a pair of 22uF for a couple of weeks and found them quite good. Nice big sound stage and somehow made big stadium rock music sound especially good. They're rather big and difficult to use due to their shape and connection type, so that makes them a challenge.

[Clive]

There's always V-Caps, most teflon caps will be great, but with very extended burn-in.

AN Silver should be great, quite large but HUGE price

[Gazjam]

Another Supplier?

http://sidekick-audio.com/gatoshop_u...601b&mode=list


fiver delivery up to a kg in weight though...
maybe another group buy chaps?

[MartinT]

Martin, have you compared the same 16 bit CD via the Caiman to the SACD disc playing via your Ayre to gauge the differences in detail etc? I'd be interested to know what up scaling and interpolation really does to the sound.

Bear in mind that the Caiman sounds very close to the Ayre (not quite the soundstage or fine detail but close) for CD replay. This in itself is a very good result as my Ayre has the latest MP (Minimum Phase) filter upgrade.

SACDs and DVD-As sound different. Hi-res DVD-As sound exactly as you would imagine a hi-res CD to sound: more extension in the treble, lack of harshness, incredible dynamic clout, better spatial acoustic.

SACDs sound more like analogue. They also have the sweet, extended treble and great dynamics but their strength is in spatial positioning and a heightened sense of reality.

There is no upscaling or interpolation going on with hi-res discs.

[Gazjam]

Bear in mind that the Caiman sounds very close to the Ayre (not quite the soundstage or fine detail but close) for CD replay. This in itself is a very good result as my Ayre has the latest MP (Minimum Phase) filter upgrade.

SACDs and DVD-As sound different. Hi-res DVD-As sound exactly as you would imagine a hi-res CD to sound: more extension in the treble, lack of harshness, incredible dynamic clout, better spatial acoustic.

SACDs sound more like analogue. They also have the sweet, extended treble and great dynamics but their strength is in spatial positioning and a heightened sense of reality.

There is no upscaling or interpolation going on with hi-res discs.

SACD does sound better than redbook, for exactly the reasons Martin has mentioned here.
Interesting aside here, I got reading about upscaling 16/44 to 24/96 and got curious about it. Cant hurt to try right?

I could tell a difference quite easily. An improvement.
Again, for the reasons Martin has stated.
Theres no night and day, "veils being lifted" and all that hifi nonsense going on, but the soundstage is bigger and more focussed, and it sounds more "solid" sounding?

I'm not sure if I want to convert all my Flacs (waay to many and besides, life's too short - just enjoy the music! ), but of the odd wet Sunday, I might do a few of my favourite albums.

Martin, regarding Upscaling and Interpolation of 16/44 material, whats your take on the benefits/other of it?
Of course a SACD or DVD-A is better, but maybe using something like Foobar(*) or a commercial product to convert 16/44 to 24/96 could be a good thing?

(*) For those curious to try, I scoured various computeraudio and music production forums getting opinions on this, and and the best method of upsampling based on general opinion that I could see(subjectively to my ears of course..) was using Foobar with the SOX plug-in at default settings.

Cant hurt to try, its free and you might even like it?

[StanleyB]

What are the benefits of upupscaling? Is there any additional information in an audio file that cannot be decoded by the DAC in the original playback, but would be decoded in the upscaled version?

[Gazjam]

What are the benefits up upscaling? Is there any additional information in an audio file that cannot be decoded by the DAC in the original playback, but would be decoded in the upscaled version?

Good question Stan, I wonder if the benefits of some things though aren't always measurable?
I know how it looks on paper...

Maybe its just a subjective thing?

From what I can gather though (and its maybe a case of a little knowledge being a dagerous thing!) is that interpolation of the digital waveform smooths it out and brings it closer to the analogue one?
Its worth a try...is all I'm saying.
At the end of the day numbers dont matter, other folks opinions dont matter..its all about how it sounds to YOU with your ears.

Would it be interesting enough Topic to set up a Poll on AOS about this?
A lot of us like to improve our Dacs, roll opamps etc, so we're all looking to improve our hardware.
What if we could improve the SOFTware too...?
Would this be a valid contribution to the "big picture" of what makes our stereo's sound good?

Maybe its bollocks, I can accept that , but maybe like other potential work/dont work tweaks, its worth at least trying?

What about even proposing an experiment:
...the same tracks, one in 16/44 the other upsampled to 24/96.
perhaps 2 or 3 tracks, different genres I dunno....just some well recorded tracks.
We download the tracks, test them in our own system and report back our findings.

Get some opinions from the AOS guys?

Of course, the only thing that matters is how it works in the real world, in practical terms...I mean the numbers dont make up what makes the music.
I'd much rather be listening to the music and not watching waveforms..

[Ali Tait]

I cetainly find the well recorded 24/96 stuff I have betters red book.

[Clive]

I find upscaling sounds unnatural, especially when it's to 192. Multiples of 44.1 seems so much more logical and sounds better. 88.2 or 176.4 please.....why do extra mathematical estimating for 192.

[StanleyB]

I certainly find the well recorded 24/96 stuff I have betters red book.

That's a different ball game though.
Based on my own experiments, an upscaled 44.1KHz version of the album "Hotel California" sounded worse then the original 44.1KHz version.
But the official 24/96KHz release sounded better than the 16/44.1KHz and 16/96KHz upscaled version.

Please note that upscalng appears to affect only the frequency, not the bit depth according to my findings. If anyone else got the bits to also upscale from 16 to 24, I'll be interested to know what the equipment was that you used.