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Cheap to Audiophile with Simple Hacks
petertrog writes "The IEEE has a story showing how you can turn a cheap DVD player into something that sounds a whole lot more exotic. All you need is a small budget, a soldering iron and a desire to void your warranty."
Build some cheap speakers to go along with the player http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/Debertin/spbuild.htm
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
Nooo, you need MONSTER CABLES for the best quality! Aahhh, your signal!!
All you need is a small budget, a soldering iron and a desire to void your warranty.
Small budget - After getting a new computer, I have that
A soldering iron - Oh yeah, I've got that
And a desire to void your warranty - My desire to void my warranty has never been greater...
The article has a strong basis in real improvements. The slashdot title is an insult to it.
The instructions involve things like replacing cheap caps with low-ESR versions, putting in better diodes in the bridge in the power supply, replacing cheap op-amps...
All these things are legit improvements and are also where the corners are really cut in the cheaper players.
So don't dismiss it because of the slashdot submitter/editor's ignorance.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
That is the first real 'Audiophile' tweaks article I have ever seen. It actually detailed real changes you can make to improve the sound of your equipment.
The only reason people purchase expensive interconnects etc is because those components are very easy to change. NOT because they have a significant effect on the fidelity of reproduction.
To really improve the sound you have to improve power supply, decoupling caps etc, but even though the components are very cheap, it's a lot harder than buying a $500 interconnect cable.
I hope to see more articles like this in the future!
I grabbed one of those $35 "5.1 surround sound" speaker systems from Wal-Mart. They only accept a stereo input, and just kind of mix in the surrounds, center, and sub. So I popped it open and ran the numbers on the chips inside, locating the 6-channel volume control IC. I discovered that if I ran an audio signal directly to the inputs on the chip, it bypassed the stereo upmix. A few wires and drilled holes later, I had actual surround sound for my computer. Not gonna say it's the greatest sounding setup ever, but it was cheap.
My $35 DVD player has a digital (coaxial) output, and my PS2 has an digital (optical) output (but, the laser is blown and it can't play disks with even the smallest scratches). Why mess with the electronics inside when you can get the audio data right off the disk into your system?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
No, any idiot who burns his house to the ground like that gets what's coming to him. There's no liability (nor should there be) in the sharing of stupid ideas. Liability lies with the implementation. Allow me to share my recipe for sewing needle salad:
I eagerly await the first spurious lawsuit.If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
.. Of electronics I buy; the main amp in my car I bought for ~$150, put in ~$50 in better transistors, and a few critical resistors, and have a really nice amp, until it overheats. The watercooling project is next, I guess.
The thing in the article that pegged my bullshit detector is the 'audible difference' in capacitors. I design high frequency pulse amplifiers, and at subnanosecond risetimes, capacitors act pretty awful. but in the audio range, there is no way to hear the difference in a good quality capacitor. Below 1MHz there isn't enough difference to measure. You might hear the difference between a low quality, floor swwepings quality z5u capacitor at 20kHz, an a high quality silver mica cap, but I seriously doubt it.
P-channel mosfets are more expensive than N channel mosfets; If you look at the parts in any car amp, the P-channel parts are the lowest rated; replacing them is an easy way to improve the capabilities of an amp. but you have to upgrade the power supply as well, usually to take advantage of the improvement.
And replacing the resistors in the signal path with metal film, if they're not already, is an audible improvement.
Replacing the capacitors, with no design check, will result in shit blowing up, just as specified. Inrush current is a bitch. Replacing the output caps on a power supply board with larger ones is not a good idea; the lead inductance is a design constraint. The need to go in the same holes.
Also, FRED diodes are soft recovery, with no ringing. Schottky diodes ring like a bitch, and are why fred's were developed.
If you add capacitance to a switching power supply, do it at the circuit you want to help out, not at the power supply. The resistance of the wire going to the circuit board will damp the inrush current to the additional capacitance.
1 ohm of wire makes a huge difference in the surge current when you turn it on.
If I spent $10 on a capacitor, I guess I'd say I could hear it too...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Screwing around with the power supply is just stupid, a decent Tripp-lite conditioner or a UPS would handle line noise much better, simpler, and more safely..
Replacing the op-amps with better ones is probably the best tip in the whole article, and the only thing that is likely to have a serious impact on the sound. Replacing caps and other components in the signal path will have some effect.
The jacks have to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
All this 'gold-plated, super oxy-free' stuff is pure hokum. Sure, the cables might conceivably make a difference when you're using an Apogee converter to run audio from your RME Hammerfall through your $50K amp to your $250K mastering monitors.
But on a consumer-level system with unbalanced jacks? Please.
Unbalanced cable can only be run for 3 feet without serious risk of RFI and EMI corrupting the signal. You can run balanced cable 1000 feet before you face similar risks.
Pro recording and audio environments use almost entirely balnced gear, because it provides the signal quality necessary for major recording projects. For cable, it's plain old Mogami or Belkin. We break out the fancy-looking gold-braided super cable when we get a cranky performer who insists that our gear is simply not capturing his muse, because he always delivers perfect performances. Slap those into the mic chain, and watch them listen to the playbacks, nod knowingly, and say "Yeah...it sounds right now"
Nothing has acutally changed, but it sure makes some people feel better, and the same thing is at work in the audiophile arena.
Sure, different compositions of metals have different abilities to conduct signal, but once you get to a certain level of qaulity (which all basic cables meet), it doesn't matter too much.
"Why don't you interface with my ass...by biting it!" -Bender B. Rodriguez