Heatsinks for the output transistors in X-Can v3

[Deleted]

Bloody hell ! We are once again in complete agreement !

[szoze]

Anyway, I put 1000 uF capacitors (Nichicon Muse ES) in the output stage of my x-can v3 and did an initial listening.

Well, in direct comparison to an unmodded amp the sound through my k701 is not so good, very bass heavy (my God, who said these headphones are bass shy ) and "veiled", slowish, not at all good for classical. Senn HD650 are unlistenable, incredibly thick and undetailed.

I will give these caps a couple of hours of burn-in and then let you know if the sound has become better.

[szoze]

After a couple of hours of burn-in something has happened and the sound is "back to normal" . Now the balance is the same as in the unmodded amp (actually modded with stock sized 220 uF ELNA caps in the output stage to be honest).

In the direct comparision the differences are very subtle. I would say that the modded amp has a touch more bass, and the bass is more defined. Honestly I am not sure I could "identify" this difference in a blind test. The sound is very similar. Maybe I should do a blind test after all.

[PinkFloyd]

Apr 17, 2012 17:39:31 GMT szoze said:

Anyway, I put 1000 uF capacitors (Nichicon Muse ES) in the output stage of my x-can v3 and did an initial listening.

Well, in direct comparison to an unmodded amp the sound through my k701 is not so good, very bass heavy (my God, who said these headphones are bass shy ) and "veiled", slowish, not at all good for classical. Senn HD650 are unlistenable, incredibly thick and undetailed.

I will give these caps a couple of hours of burn-in and then let you know if the sound has become better.

I'm getting tired repeating myself, which is why I haven't repeated myself for about 3 years now, I have almost lost the will to live but have managed to crawl to the keyboard to say this:

The Nichicon 1000uF are FANTASTIC output coupling caps in the V3 (to my ears and when coupled with the rest of the components in the V3 kit I have tuned to my personal taste)

I don't know quite WHAT the score is with your amp, you're fitting everything, bar a kitchen sink, holus bolus and making instant judgements.... it took me the best part of SIX years to find a mix of caps that truly synergised in the V3 yet you are going to write off the Nichicon ES if they don't "improve" after TWO HOURS?

Look further back down the chain.... you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.... if you are randomly peppering the board with parts you are going to end up with one SHITE sounding amp, UNLESS you are really lucky.

Take your time.... evaluate each (and every) change and LIVE with that "small" change for a few months before even attempting another tweak.....

You are basically firing a fukkin' BLUNDERBUSS of assorted components into the amp and expecting INSTANT results....

I'll quote you again: "I will give these caps a couple of hours of burn-in and then let you know if the sound has become better".....

It "may" sound better, it may sound worse.... all dependant on whether or not you are actually listening to the "music" or more excited about fitting another "boutique" cap.... I get the impression, from your posts, that you are a "krisno" type who actually believes that audio nirvana will only be achieved by "parts".

He, like you, went down the blunderbuss route (fire those fekkin' Black Gates, garden sheds, cerafines, conservatories, munsters (mundorfs?), etc. etc. into the amp) and just didn't listen to anybody.... he changed valves as fast as I change my underpants when I shit my pants (7 times a day, I eat a lot of dubious curries)... (I also shower between sharting / changing pants BTW)....

Anyhoo, I'm rambling now.... I'll stop.... basically, what I am TRYING to say is "don't rush the brush"...... fit a new part, go sniff the roses, live with it, get to know that sonic signature.... only THEN (when you are au fait with the sound characteristics) and have noted them is it time to maybe dip your toe in the water again and do some serious listening to "maybe" one more part of the circuit.

I have NEVER blown my own trumpet but WHY do you think my kits are so popular? Why do they sound so good? years of trial and error, taking notes, patience, magic dust.....

As a parting shot I will have to quote you again:

"Senn HD650 are unlistenable, incredibly thick and undetailed."

Yup..... that's what you get when you tit about with an amp

[szoze]

Thanks for your comments Mike. Actually I am not trying to perform any magic tricks here or acheive audio nirvana. On the contrary, I am just comparing two amps, one modded, the other not. And they sound pretty much the same to me. No miracoulous expectations here at all (hey, maybe that's what I need ) Of course I can give it another couple of hours, days, months, years etc. and compare again. I will not change back to the stock caps anyway. I hope that you can accept my opinion even then, no matter what it is.

And for the record, for me, the music comes in the first place. The proposed excitement coming from fitting a cap into an amplifier is, in my case, incredibly low.

[Deleted]

Maybe I should do a blind test after all.

Perhaps you should listen to people who have vastly more technical and practical experience in this area ?
As regards electrolytic capacitors, a large number of members found that the larger value capacitors
used in the JLH PSU PCB didn't achieve a stable sound quality until more than 48 hours of CONTINUOUS use.
Some of the larger Elna capacitors are reported to take 100s of hours to fully stabilise.
The makers of the Wyred4 Sound DAC recommend several hundred hours of use before serious listening for the same reason.
While we are at it, it was suggested that contrary to Mike's advice,electrolytic capacitor lead length of up to 10cM wouldn't matter.
The information given is different to that from the respected on-line resource "Westhost"
Members could do a lot worse than checking out this site for information on many areas of electronics, including PSU design etc.

The section below is from sound.westhost.com/articles/capacitors.htm

The inductance is not great ... about 5-6nH per cm (centimetre), but it is still significant at very high frequencies.
With a 1uF cap (hardly massive), a mere 10mm of lead length (6nH) creates a series resonant circuit at close to 2MHz.
Increase the capacitance to 10,000uF, and it is now 20kHz. This is not capacitor resonance,
it is a resonant circuit formed by the capacitor and the external inductance of the capacitor's leads.
For bypassing applications, the resonant circuit so formed does not reduce the effectiveness of the bypass capacitor if it is 'too big'.
In reality, power supply bypass capacitors will supply the current required by the circuit regardless of the 'self resonant' frequency,
so small values of capacitance do not mean better bypassing.

P.S.
Although his site is very good as a purely technical resource, many people are likely to dispute his claims about whether some of these
differences are audible or not.
I would recommend that people use their own ears, instead of listening to what other people tell you, you can or can not hear.
Alex

[XTRProf]

Hi szoze,

Yes, I agreed with Mike and Alex about changing too fast before the parts stablise. Go one thing at a time and stablise before going on. In this way, you also get to know what sounds good for you at what position you have just changed the parts.

I also sometimes do not understand how people judged an equipment when they have not lived with it for sometime. There is just no way we as human beings can judge an equipment just like that. We don't have super memories. It's something like being married and courting time. 2 entirely different experience.

So do things one at a time and stablised, like what Mike had done, before judgement day or else you will find yourself lost in the maze by going too fast. I'm also moding my V2 now but listen for sometime to let it stablise and have a better impression of things before going further although I have some of the parts with me now.

[Deleted]

Apr 17, 2012 21:43:40 GMT PinkFloyd said:

I'm out of here... was going to say "semi retirement" but, truth be told, I can't be arsed with any more......

Let the dogs bark, I don't give a f**k@

Mike
I feel tempted to join you .
Kind Regards
Alex

[XTRProf]

Btw, Frans, what are the chances of hitting high dc from sources nowadays given that most sources will also put an output coupling cap or servo to eliminate dc to be technically responsible in the design of those sources?

From anyone also can. This is just for discussion.

[XTRProf]

Apr 17, 2012 21:53:21 GMT @sandyk said:

Apr 17, 2012 21:43:40 GMT PinkFloyd said:

I'm out of here... was going to say "semi retirement" but, truth be told, I can't be arsed with any more......

Let the dogs bark, I don't give a f**k@

Mike
I feel tempted to join you .
Kind Regards
Alex

Seeing Status Quo?

[Deleted]

Seeing Status Quo?

Chong
I have been quite active on a few forums.
I feel tempted to leave it all to the religious zealots with sympathies to the closed minded thinking typical of Hydrogen Audio forum members, who know everything, and do not encourage people to think and listen for themselves.These are "The Thought Police"
who tell us how we should think, and even what we are able to hear.
Alex

Attachments:

[szoze]

Apr 17, 2012 21:25:55 GMT @sandyk said:

Perhaps you should listen to people who have vastly more technical and practical experience in this area ?

I have a decent experience in listening to things, beleive me. I am a musician, playing several instruments, tuning pianos (educated piano tuner), have had my studio since the beginning of the nineties. I have no problems in hearing sound differences between two grand pianos or between two violins. So I don't really know why I should listen more to people who have bags of theoretical/practical knowledge in "this area" in order to be able to hear differences between two amplifiers (or anything else for that matter) in a direct comparative (or blind) test. I think that my ears are "golden" enough.

I don't like thought police either, you see, and like to build up my own opinions based on my own experiences.

Apr 17, 2012 21:25:55 GMT @sandyk said:

The information given is different to that from the respected on-line resource "Westhost"
Members could do a lot worse than checking out this site for information on many areas of electronics, including PSU design etc.

Again, why do I need to know all this in order to be able to hear something?

Apr 17, 2012 21:25:55 GMT @sandyk said:

The section below is from sound.westhost.com/articles/capacitors.htm

I would recommend that people use their own ears, instead of listening to what other people tell you, you can or can not hear.
Alex

And as said, that is precisely what I am trying to do.

By the way it was only the output stage of the amp that I modified. The rest of it is well stabilised. As I said I am going to do a comparative test in a couple of days. I have a privilege to have two amplifiers that I can make direct comparatives on. I don't have to rely on my "sound memory" as many other people do when they compare.

I have been quite active on a few forums.
I feel tempted to leave it all to the religious zealots with sympathies to the closed minded thinking typical of Hydrogen Audio forum members, who know everything, and do not encourage people to think and listen for themselves.These are "The Thought Police"
who tell us how we should think, and even what we are able to hear.

Close-mindedness can be a result of any kind of religious thought. We should be able to discuss our opinions, experiences and views and at the end of the day accept them (even if they differ from ours) without having to be pissed off (as some people on this forum). My intention is not to chase away paople from internet forums.

I will always be for objective testing, relying on what we hear rather than knowing what we have done to our equipment (changed caps, cables, in- or output connectors etc.). Blind tests or direct comparatives are the best way to do this.

[XTRProf]

Apr 17, 2012 22:12:49 GMT @sandyk said:

I have been quite active on a few forums.
I feel tempted to leave it all to the religious zealots with sympathies to the closed minded thinking typical of Hydrogen Audio forum members, who know everything, and do not encourage people to think and listen for themselves.These are "The Thought Police"
who tell us how we should think, and even what we are able to hear.

Alex, relax, man! Don't take things so seriously. After all we are here to have "fun" rather than faulting. We may not agree with certain things but that doesn't need you to jump down at the top of a condo.

Enjoy Status Quo with Mike. To help you relax, have one of Mike's favourite:







Heh, heh, you are in the army now! Don't barricade yourself though.

[szoze]

Apr 17, 2012 20:29:58 GMT PinkFloyd said:

You are basically firing a fukkin' BLUNDERBUSS of assorted components into the amp and expecting INSTANT results....

I don't think that changing output caps in my x-can is anywhere near "firing a fukkin' BLUNDERBUSS of assorted components into the amp". Rest of the amp has had chance (time) to "stabilise" for many days. I always change one thing at the time and listen.

[Deleted]

There is a rather LARGE difference between coupling caps and decoupling caps.

Mike, Alex and ESP are talking about decoupling caps.
Szoze is talking about coupling caps.

In Szoze's case the wire inductance is in SERIES and doesn't form a resonance circuit as it is 'damped' or should I say non existenet by a rather high-Ohmic series circuit.

I completely concur with 'listen for yourself with your own ears'.
The difference between the thought police and the free thinkers is 'sighted and blind'
This accounts for most 'detected' differences.

At least that is what this 'thought cop' is trying to enforce/push down the throat/dictating/telling/insisting/pressuring.

Use your ears ... but use them wisely.

[szoze]

Apr 17, 2012 21:49:50 GMT XTRProf said:

Hi szoze,
I also sometimes do not understand how people judged an equipment when they have not lived with it for sometime. There is just no way we as human beings can judge an equipment just like that. We don't have super memories. It's something like being married and courting time. 2 entirely different experience.

Hi Chong,
In this case I didn't use my audio memory. I simply compared two x-cans v3, one modded and one non-modded. Maybe I am missing something but what exactly can "living with the equipment" add to my judgement of the sound difference between two amps?

[XTRProf]

Apr 18, 2012 9:22:15 GMT szoze said:

In this case I didn't use my audio memory. I simply compared two x-cans v3, one modded and one non-modded. Maybe I am missing something but what exactly can "living with the equipment" add to my judgement of the sound difference between two amps?

Oh, lots. Similar to between courting time and married. Even Frans who is so objective can immediately be subjectively clear on this aspect. Frans, right?

Also like in football, those professional footballers can tell what's the difference between an Adiddas and a Nike football as they kick those bloody things day in day out. Ask those Sunday footballers to tell the difference between them? So now you see my light?

[szoze]

Apr 18, 2012 13:12:04 GMT XTRProf said:

Oh, lots. Similar to between courting time and married. Even Frans who is so objective can immediately be subjectively clear on this aspect. Frans, right?

Also like in football, those professional footballers can tell what's the difference between an Adiddas and a Nike football as they kick those bloody things day in day out. Ask those Sunday footballers to tell the difference between them? So now you see my light?

It wasn't a two seconds listening session either of course. I listened to a couple of tracks on each amp, different music styles. But as I said, I am not done with my listening tests. I will make another comparison during the weekend.

[szoze]

Apr 17, 2012 21:25:55 GMT @sandyk said:

While we are at it, it was suggested that contrary to Mike's advice,electrolytic capacitor lead length of up to 10cM wouldn't matter.
The information given is different to that from the respected on-line resource "Westhost"

With the stated lead inductance of 5-6 nH per cm and a 10uF capacitor (as the input capacitors in the x-can v3) with 10 cm leads the resonance frequency would hit somewhere between 205-225 kHz. Not even my dog could hear anything in that range. How could we?

[Deleted]

Apr 19, 2012 7:55:05 GMT szoze said:

Apr 17, 2012 21:25:55 GMT @sandyk said:

While we are at it, it was suggested that contrary to Mike's advice,electrolytic capacitor lead length of up to 10cM wouldn't matter.
The information given is different to that from the respected on-line resource "Westhost"

With the stated lead inductance of 5-6 nH per cm and a 10uF capacitor (as the input capacitors in the x-can v3) with 10 cm leads the resonance frequency would hit somewhere between 205-225 kHz. Not even my dog could hear anything in that range. How could we?

You are conveniently ignoring the fact that 10CM leads, even in a metal case are likely to pick up RF, and EMI from rectifier switching etc.
Mike , Chong and myself have given you advice based on many years of combined experience. You have argued with almost all advice that has been given to you, and even wanted to consult somebody else outside the forum regarding our advice.
You are on your own now, as far as I am concerned.I don't intend further arguing with a newbie know-it-all.
In case you think I haven't a clue what I am talking about, perhaps you should check the DIY area of this forum re the SC HA (Jaycar) (>150 of the modified version constructed worldwide), SC Class A HA/preamp, and 15W Class A amplifier projects.. You will also find that both Frans and myself are in agreement on most technical aspects excluding subjectivity, despite how it may sometimes appear.

[szoze]

Apr 19, 2012 8:16:39 GMT @sandyk said:

You are conveniently ignoring the fact that 10CM leads, even in a metal case are likely to pick up RF, and EMI from rectifier switching etc.
Mike , Chong and myself have given you advice based on many years of combined experience. You have argued with almost all advice that has been given to you, and even wanted to consult somebody else outside the forum regarding our advice.
You are on your own now, as far as I am concerned.I don't intend further arguing with a newbie know-it-all.
In case you think I haven't a clue what I am talking about, perhaps you should check the DIY area of this forum re the SC HA (Jaycar) (>150 of the modified version constructed worldwide), SC Class A HA/preamp, and 15W Class A amplifier projects.. You will also find that both Frans and myself are in agreement on most technical aspects excluding subjectivity, despite how it may sometimes appear.

It seems that any questioning of opinions on this forum only leads to irritation. I don't really understand why it should be in this way. You, for example, seem to be a very experienced (and quite rude) wiseacre who don't respect other people's questioning of your religious (in your world maybe objective) opinions, and only being nice to the people who are following your own beliefs. What is your problem anyway?? Talking about "thought police". OMG

You're conveniently talking about 10 cm leads picking up RF and EMI. There are at least 50 cm length of wires in the x-can v3 going criss-cross inside the amp. How come MF didn't think about this as a potential danger? Please enlighten me.

[Deleted]

szoze
You have already managed to get offside with the owner of the forum and myself, a member of the Admin team.
I suggest that you lose some of the the confrontational attitude if you wish to remain a member of this forum. You claim to want to learn, but all you seem to want to do is argue.
Alex

[Deleted]

Gentlemen.

Each of us is different, hears different and has different 'beliefs'.
This might be a fact of life.
A little respect for BOTH opinions goes a long way.

I propose we all keep it friendly.... just a thought.. from THE THOUGHT COP.

[PinkFloyd]

There are at least 50 cm length of wires in the x-can v3 going criss-cross inside the amp. How come MF didn't think about this as a potential danger

They're not connected to a capacitor.

Taken from Rod Elliot's article:

[PinkFloyd]

You, for example, seem to be a very experienced (and quite rude) wiseacre

Yes, Alex IS very experienced, he IS wise but he certainly isn't "rude".... he'll call a spade a spade, not "rude" just says it as it is.