Elna Upgrade to X-Cans V2

[canjunkie]

Finally finished the bottom board and put my X-Cans V2 back together

Having already fitted a pair of '74 vintage 6H23P's courtesy of Mike to what was an ailing amp (I'll do another thread on those - they deserve it!).

I've now fitted:
1. 'Elna' Upgrade kit + Diode upgrade
2. Alps pot
3. Jalco Headphone socket
4. New LED
All in all it was about two hours work with me taking pics & being careful - and constant interuptions caused by the need to earn a living

Powered her up..........................

And I've just lost four hours of my life

The immediate first impression is of a sense of space and scale that I've never experienced with the HD600's - or any other headphones before.

Following individual instruments in a piece is now no effort whatsoever and the tonal balance feels right no matter what I bung in the CD player.

There just appears to be so much more detail - delivered in a way I can only describe as effortless

And all that before the hot wand cooled down

I'll post some pics of the carnage tomorrow - right now I've got a stack of CD's to get through.

Oh - and the LED is just so with the light off

[PinkFloyd]

canjunkie said:

Finally finished the bottom board and put my X-Cans V2 back together

Having already fitted a pair of '74 vintage 6H23P's courtesy of Mike to what was an ailing amp (I'll do another thread on those - they deserve it!).

I've now fitted:
1. 'Elna' Upgrade kit + Diode upgrade
2. Alps pot
3. Jalco Headphone socket
4. New LED
All in all it was about two hours work with me taking pics & being careful - and constant interuptions caused by the need to earn a living

Powered her up..........................

And I've just lost four hours of my life

The immediate first impression is of a sense of space and scale that I've never experienced with the HD600's - or any other headphones before.

Following individual instruments in a piece is now no effort whatsoever and the tonal balance feels right no matter what I bung in the CD player.

There just appears to be so much more detail - delivered in a way I can only describe as effortless

And all that before the hot wand cooled down

I'll post some pics of the carnage tomorrow - right now I've got a stack of CD's to get through.

Oh - and the LED is just so with the light off

Excellent stuff mate! Pics appreciated! Please allow the caps a good few hundred hours to "form", you will find the sound gets better and better and better...... over a period of time. Sure, it sounds great from cold but gets a lot better

I am very happy with those 105c ELNA RE2 caps, they really work well in the v2 and sound soooo organic. The ELNA house sound without the Silmic price tag, excellent! You think it's £30 well spent then?

I agree with you on the LED thing.... "purple" is soooooo calming, those horrid blue LEDs are just cold and pedestrian in comparison (IMO)..... funny, but I am also finding the stock "red" quite nice again ;D

PM me with your details, I've got some nice Russian 470nF film caps in stock and will send you one (replace the blue EVOX / Rifa with it) let me know what you think

The v2 is a beautiful amp and ever so responsive to tweaks, it's like fine tuning an instrument..... very easy to get it wrong, very easy to over egg your pudding..... less is more in this puppy..... I think the ELNA mods are pretty much spot on sonically.... feedback very much welcomed

[canjunkie]

mrarroyo said:

Please post pictures of the finished job!

Here goes.....

PSU Board stripped down - note the scorching!

Added the Diodes - the original D6 looked very crispy!

Added the caps.... With Mike's instructions this was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Added the LED and with the top board done I put her legs back on..

Bottom board complete with new volco, socket & caps...

Ready to go back in the black tube....

All done and looking rather in the dark...


With Mike's advice on things like the pads on the volco taken on board my tiny mind this job wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Just shows what decent instructions and the voice of experience can do to make a job go a lot easier - cheers mate!

[canjunkie]

mrarroyo said:

Nice work, based on what I see you must keep that V2 on all the time. Do you think it migh benefit from heat sinks on the transistors? Just some food for thought.

Thanks, but credit to Mike for some clear as day basic instructions plus a load of hints 'n' tips.

I am looking for some heatsinks but Mike doesn't recommend his ones for the V2 & others I have tracked down are too wide. I'm giving it some thought but any suggestions would be welcome.

Perhaps turning it off while you sleep!

I do normally switch off when I'm not using her but I left a CD on repeat for burn in purposes.

Mind you - didn't head up to be until 3am & had the 'phones on again at 7.30 so I don't know why I bothered

As for SQ, initially I thought - what have I done - the treble seemed to being rolling off . But she opened up pretty quickly and she's delivering all the high end detail but without any harshness or hash - very sweet.



Over the last two weeks, what with new tubes and the upgrade, Headphone listening as gone from necessary evil to addictive fun!

I'm tempted to rip the CDPRE out of the main rig and try her in the study with the X-Cans.

And if Ebay sale goes to plan (which it seems to be at the minute) I'll be up for a Pinkie PSU as well.

But what to call her now - X-Cans V2EP .

[canjunkie]

You think it's £30 well spent then?

No-Brainer - [glow=red,2,300]Bargain[/glow]

PM me with your details, I've got some nice Russian 470nF film caps in stock and will send you one (replace the blue EVOX / Rifa with it) let me know what you think

OK.

[canjunkie]

Now I'm wondering what the bypass caps will do...........

I know I couldn't detect anything on the QED but there's a lot more capacitance in the X-cans and it just seems to love being tweaked!

As it is I've just ploughed through a few live recordings & some simply miked studio stuff. Just the sort of stuff I normally only listen to on the speaker rig and the sense of scale & atmosphere through the the X-Cans is a revelation.

And oh boy does it like my main MF CDPre. Come to think of it, I wonder what the caps are like in that lump .....