LAMPUCERA 1,0


NEW SUB-PAGE ABOUT MAXI-LAMPUCERA IS HERE

LAMPUZZERA LAMPIZZATA E BOXATA

To evaluate the impact of capacitors - I created FIVE lampucera boards:
1. Standard as it is
2. fully upgraded by WIMA MKP and TEAPO lytics low esr shitty but cost effective caps.
3. As above but with the best OS-CONS - Sanyo caps regarded to be the best for digital.
4. Totally electrolyte- free "lampucera MKP" with 2,8 uF MKP's in place of electrolytes (crazy job - fitting these !!!)
5. Tantalum

I am able to connect them and A-B side by side to see which money is better spent.

Verdict is not yet ready !!! Hold your breath .



Tantalum lampucera - 33 uF / 35 V








Tantalum (green heads )




Jackcon TEAPO low esr version with red WIMA bypass







Fully os-coned version



CAPACITOR GAMES

I was really very excited doing the capacitor games. Having ALL of thecaps on one PCB - all  of them  from one maker - should be finally AUDIBLE without a doubt. I wanted to nail down the characteristics of all these types.

First the easy one - the standard SMD type - on my subjective scale gets very low. There is no magic, no real high end sound.

The MKP type did not make it to the games - it will be evaluated in second games.

For the three other types the story is different.
All three mods rank VERY HIGH. Teapo, Os-con and Tantalum all upgrade the oryginal board significantly.

Now to tell the difference - I would have to be hard pressed except one.
To make the description easier - I will divide the criteria into 4 categories: Bass, Midrange and Trebles plus the Sensation of being there: respectively B,M,T,S

The Teapo gets in this context :     9, 8, 7, 7
The Os-Con gets:                            8, 9, 8, 10
The Tantalum gets:                          8, 9, 10, 8
and the naked untweaked board gets   7, 5, 4, 5

It is worth noting that:
each electrolytic capacitor has a SMD bypass on the board PLUS a red Wima cap 0,22uF/50V except the Tantalum which did not have the wima only SMD.
Teapo were 470 uF, the originals - 100uF, the oscons - 150 and the tantalums - 33uF.
Everything else was the same
Decoupling caps between the Lampucera and Lampizator were new chinese Obbligato PIO 2uF (FABULOUS !)
Digital signal was from Sony 557 ESD with KSA190A transport/laser.

The subjective feeling was that the trebles from Tantalum were so much superior to the other four that it was shocking. They were airy, pure, clear, strong, beautiful. Just the best I ever heard. But the rest of the spectrum did not match. The balance was tilted.

Os-cons on the other hand sound ..... like nothing at all. Equipment disappears and the musicians simply come to me. No trebles no bass - just total transparency and insight into the event. Quite spectacular feeling. I was amazed.
Teapo had very strong bass and everything else was really good. I could live with that. Considering its low price and good availability - a great value. MUCH above the standard board.

Now - any halfway intelligent reader would conclude at this point, that this could be the basis for MIX AND MATCH to achieve a 10 10 10 10 combination. Considering, that EACH CAP plays a DIFFERENT ROLE - I should be able to guess which cap should go where and what the result will be.
Well - you would be right. Thats what I am doing right now. If I could have the bass of teapo (I guess this is due to capacitance being so huge) and the magic of oscons, and the total treble power of the tantals. Oh My God !

I already made 4 test boards with the mixes and we will see.

In general - I would put the big teapo in the initial power supply delivery - say - in C19 (as marked by silkscreen not the schematics which says C20). Then I would bypass the smd small caps with a smallish Tantalum like a few uF instead of the Wima, and then - OS-CON everything !!!
That would be the ultimate recipe ala Fikus.

For the impatient people out there - if you want quick and straight advice - go all the way os-con. You cant go wrong with os-cons.  Tantalums may be interesting as an intelligently applied addition. Like spices in cooking. But  spices dont make a meal.

Each SMD capacitor gets bypassed with a MKP - you can use any cap you find, I used Vishay 0,22 uF / 63 V which is also good for TDA decoupling. I do not remove small SMD caps - they can stay as long as they are bypassed.
I leave SMD in place - I am lazy.

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=315

so R2 becomes 3k, C22 becomes 22nF, and C23 becomes 1 nF


Just like here:

So first step - remove all electrolytes. Second step - bypass SMD caps. This will be impossible once the new electrolytes are added.

Third step: put new electrolytes - the type for digital circuits: I use OS-Con from Sanyo, and blackgates are good.
Size is unimportant - disregard what was on the PCB and inslall all the same size - above 47 uF and below 1000 uF, voltage min. 6,3 V , 10 or 16 V. (the power to the receiver cirrus is 3,3 V only, DAC takes 5 V)
Do not waste time on the caps for the removed opamp - these would be 16 V minimum anyway.





This corner cap is one of two most important ones. Power to the DAC.





The SMD all bypassed - most important are C9 and C10.







This big C17 oscon is critical for jitter - it sits in the RECEIVER chip power supply. C10 bypasses it for improved impedance matching.

IMPORTANT! The jumper goes CLOSER TO THE CORNER !!!





Less critical places - I used TEAPO caps not os-con.



The tapping points for single ended operation. Of course - for balanced - would be all four points.




This is power supply. Plus is red wire, minus is black.
It can be taken from:
CD player motherboard - find the 5 V regulator (7805)
or a gel battery 12 V plus add-on 7805
or 4 cells AA without regulator
or a dedicated power supply
or find 12 V or 20 V on the motherboard of the CD player and add a 7805 to get 5 V. Add one huge cap like 2200 uF/10 V after the 7805.

Don't forget that this ground (black) must also serve for signal minus.


Job complete



WARNING! The attached schematics does reflect the reality - only parts and connections - but the part numbers - are DIFFERENT from PCB silkscreen. 

lawrencechanbig (a.t.) msn.com and ask for Lawrence. Tell him I sent you.

THE KIT:

MARANTZ SA-12 S1           CS4397

MARANTZ SA-14              CS4397
MARANTZ SA-12S1
MARANTZ SA-13S1
MARANTZ SA-14
MARANTZ SA-15S1
MARANTZ SA-17S1
MARANTZ SA7001
MARANTZ SA8001
MARANTZ SA8260
MARANTZ SA8400

jonners [] Offline Location: Cheltenham CS8416/CS4397 board at 96kHZ? Post #1 I recently bought one of these cheap CS4397 dac boards from Hong Kong:. It works fine at 44 and 48kHz, but at 96kHz I just get a hissy noise. I consulted the Cirrus Logic CS4397 data sheet and found that the mode operation settings on this board, which are M0=1 M1=0 M2=1 M3=1 M4=0, give 'single speed' (16 to 50kHz) I2S operation at up to 24bit. However, according to the data sheet for the Crystal CDB4396/7 Evaluation Board, these same settings give "Automatic Mode Operation'. If anyone can help me understand what this means and suggest how to get it working at 96kHz I would be very grateful. (The digital input, incidentally , comes from a Behringer SRC2496 upsampler. I've had it working with no trouble into other dacs.) IP: Logged

error401 [] Offline Location: Vancouver, BC I'm not sure where you're getting that from the CDB4396/7 datasheet, it seems to indicate the same values in the CS4397 datasheet, which is what I believe is true for this IC. The results you're getting make perfect sense given that schematic. I would normally expect a DAC using this IC/receiver combo to utilize the 96KHz pin on the CS8416 to select a high sample rate mode in the DAC when you apply such a signal. An obvious failing of the design. M4 is the CS4397 pin that puts it in high sample rate mode, you'll need to disconnect it from ground and apply an appropriate signal. You will need to carefully lift the M4 pin (2) from the PCB (or cut the ground trace), and bridge it to the CS8416 96KHz pin (16) with a wire. This pin is an output so shouldn't be connected to anything and you won't need to lift it. Your other option would be to just lift the pin and connect it to a switch to choose manually. I don't see why you wouldn't use the 96KHz pin though, it's not really any more difficult and is more usable. All of this of course relies on that datasheet being correct, but from a quick glance at it I think it probably is, at least concerning the pins we're talking about here. ____ Yesterday, at 10:38 AM

jonners [] Offline Thanks for your help. I'll give that a try. IP: Logged Yesterday, at 12:49 PM

jonners [] Offline Post #4 Excellentissimo! All sampling rates now working, and 96kHz sounding very good. Thanks a lot for your help.