Quote Originally Posted by mervinb View Post
Yes, my Caiman+ did come with the Gator pcb as ordered. It is, however several dB softer than my other dacs (probably 2-3dB softer than the standard 2.0V rms, although I have not measured.

I could not resist the urge to add more teeth to my Gator, so I've applied the standard Murata reg (+5V only), better supply caps mods to the receiver/dac board. The sound, which was already good to begin with, started to get more 'life', but lacked the body / authority that my best dacs provided (highly modded Channel Islands VDA-1, Zhaolu 2.0). I looked carefully at the supplies for the Gator, and felt that given the lengths of pcb tracks taken by the supplies (+15V, +12V regulated), some extra caps would be useful. I used Silmic IIs. The results? Superb. This added body to the sound, without taking away the refinement and detail.

There is not much space on the top or bottom of the Gator pcb, but I added caps on the bottom. Cap sizes are "to taste", and I used a range between 22uF and 470uF. For Silmics space is a premium and I have not tested different sizes for optimal sound.
Interesting. Could you post some pics of the mod?