Faulty X-can V3 fun

[leo]

I was offered a faulty X-can V3 pcb to play with, I was actually curious to have a proper listen to one of these amps so gladly accepted the kind offer

As you can see the pcb required some work, it had suffered some burns to the pcb which had destroyed parts of the track , this was no problem to fix and required some scraping and linking



The output Darlington transistors had blown along with the supply transistors and some burnt resistors, luckily I had suitable replacements spare, the Darlingtons I fitted was the higher rated version to the originals





I also needed some replacement caps so it made sense to use one of Mikes kits which included a nice selection of bits and pieces, he's been tweaking these things for ages so had a far better idea than me of best parts selection, you can spend ages trying to find the right parts so this saved me a lot of work



I'm going to give it plenty of running in before sitting down and having a good listen to it, quick first impression was its bloody loud it sounded smooth and a little tubby in the bass, another quick listen an hour later and the soundstage is much wider! The highs are now starting to increase and the bass is better controlled/tighter ,we'll see how it goes after the caps etc have had more time to mature but so far I must admit it sounds better than I was expecting
My main cans are HD250 linear II , a mate is currently borrowing my K701's so I'll try those sometime later , I have his HD650 so will also try those although tbh the 650's have not been to my taste so far



Mike sent me a pair of 6N1 valves to get me going along with a few other bits I needed but didn't have, I hunted around in the garage and managed to find a pair of NOS Amperex Bugle Boys, these have tested ok so I'll compare these against the 6N1's

[dejanm]

Nice work. This is probably the cheapest way to get yourself a very nice amp - to repair the broken one.

By the way, interesting DAC you have ... ;D Did you assemble it by yourself or did you bought it already assembled from Pedja Rogic ? How happy are you with it ?

[Will]

Nice repair work on the tracks. When I saw the pictures, I could almost smell the charred pcb!

If anyone else has a faulty XCan they don't want, feel free to contact me, I'm happy to pay postage!

[robertkd]

Leo,

nothing like a well defined scorched earth policy, even looks like there was some carbonising of the PCB material.

nice re-construction work

Robert

PS

did you check for electrical leakage on those carbonised areas?

[leo]

Thanks guys, I've had to do much worse than this in the past with boards using very thin track, that really proved fiddly repairing hair thin tracks

I'll probably give this a going over and make it more tidy, I've scraped around the edges to remove flux and as much carbon as I could, it measures pretty damn close to the other channel so it should be ok.

I popped in the D getter Amperex Bugle boys , these sound quite different to the supplied ones

[leo]

May 16, 2009 14:01:59 GMT mrarroyo said:

Nice work there Leo, the V3 is more "correct" sounding than the V2. That is it adds less colour to the music, hope you enjoy it.

Thanks Miguel, I'm wondering if it can be altered to V2 by some alterations ;D would be interesting to listen to one of those modded too

Is there any schematics for the V2?

[jonclancy]

Very nice work indeed, Leo!!

[buelligan]

All Hail Leo the Reanimator!

Nice job! Any chance of getting some part numbers for the higher rated Darlingtons?