Going Linear with the Caiman

[Gazjam]

And what voltage should I feed it for best results? While the PSU is adjustable, it's a soldering job and I don't have all the right resistors (I had to wire loads together in series and parallel to get the right resistance for 12V!), so it's a bit of a palaver to try blind testing, to say the least!

It doesn't need to be that difficult honestly.

From Stans original post:
http://theartofsound.net/forum/showp...42&postcount=1

I have one of these and have found it a good improvement over standard, especially if you have upgraded the internal regualtors in the Dac to Muratas's.

I dont know my a*rse from my elbow when it comes to soldering , but Stans instructions here are very easy to follow.

You can do better than the Maplin supply of course, but I would think it would need to be a serious DIY job, or pay £££ for something like a Teddy pardo supply.

[MartinT]

Mutara's.

Did you mean Muratas? LOL!

[Gazjam]

Did you mean Muratas? LOL!

uhm..... yeah.
glad someone spotted the deliberate mistake?

[HighFidelityGuy]

The LED's on my Caiman go a bit funny sometimes after reconnecting it to the PSU. Pressing a few buttons like Stan suggested always sorts it out. It's nothing to worry about. I nearly crapped myself the first time it happenend as I thought I'd junked it doing a mod.

[amdismal]

It doesn't need to be that difficult honestly.

Well the PSU I have is the one I have. I should put a pot on it so I can vary it easily, but haven't got round to it.

However, it still does the Xmas light thing, even if I press lots of buttons for a minute or so - and that's at 12V. Why does it do this, anyone?

I'm a bit miffed that I seem to have a 12V Beresford PSU for my 15V Beresford device, but it works as is. I shall put the PSU back into the storage, I think...

[HighFidelityGuy]

The Caiman isn't a 15V device as such, it works with 12V and early Caiman's were shipped with 12V transformers. The 15V Caiman supply is an upgrade. The Caiman only requires a 15V supply if the 12V regulator has been upgraded to a Murata version as they have a dropout voltage of about 13V.

I would suggest that you try a different 15V linear supply as your current one may be faulty or may not like charging the large reservoir capacitor in the Caiman. The best results with a linear supply seem to come when the cable length between supply and Caiman are kept as short as possible and the Caiman's reservoir cap is replaced with a smaller film version. There's info about this earlier in this thread or one of the other linear supply threads.

[StanleyB]

I'm a bit miffed that I seem to have a 12V Beresford PSU for my 15V Beresford device, but it works as is.

The Caiman PSu was developed as part of a further upgrade, starting at the original TC-7520 that some of us modified with a WM8716 DAC chip. Things progressed from there with a modified TC-7520 called the TC-7520SE, and later renamed to Caiman. A few months after that people started experimenting with power supplies and I brought out my own modded PSU for the Caiman, which was sold with the Caiman as a package and at an additional cost.

I am not sure why you are miffed. It was well publicised on AoS that there was going to be a Caiman PSU, and that anyone with the Caiman DAC and TC-7520 PSU could upgrade to the Caiman PSU at cost plus shipping and VAT. I even put the Caiman PSU on my site as an upgrade.
So if you want a Caiman PSU as an upgrade it is still available to AoS members at the stipulated cost.

[Gazjam]

Well the PSU I have is the one I have. I should put a pot on it so I can vary it easily, but haven't got round to it.

However, it still does the Xmas light thing, even if I press lots of buttons for a minute or so - and that's at 12V. Why does it do this, anyone?

I'm a bit miffed that I seem to have a 12V Beresford PSU for my 15V Beresford device, but it works as is. I shall put the PSU back into the storage, I think...

Hey fellah just trying to help ...

[StanleyB]

If you got a bench type power supply with an LCD display, you can set the PSU to 16V (16.2V works for me, but that's pushing it) and hear a slight improvement over the 15V power supply. This combo works best with the Murata modded DAC in my selection.

[Ikemen]

Interesting Stan. The LCD bench supplies in Maplins seem to be SMPS based. This looks versatile with 5MV ripple and noise;

http://www.maplin.co.uk/triple-power-supply-5925