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More and more mods to the Rotel RCD-991 CDP. Brought to you by your grouchy mad modder!

This is the 2nd last phase of mods to be done to av98m's Rotel 991. It entails replacing the Nichicon Muse Finegold caps used for digital supplies with Sanyo Oscon SP caps built solely for this purpose! 2 extra large capacitance Finegolds were also replaced with Ultra Low ESR Nichicon caps instead as Oscons didn't come in the values required.

The output caps were also swapped from the top-of-the-line Muse KZ's for the much frowned upon Elna Cerafine's instead.

The digital section before modifications:

The DAC's, dual PCM63P chips surrounded by Blackgate F's:

After modifications, we felt that the player could well be called Barney:

The Cerafines in all their glory.. Yes, the underdog beat the crap out of the Muse KZ's!

One last picture to end this post. Our stomachs are growling from the lack of dinner!!

I think it's 2 phono amps. The one on the right is obviously an EAR 834P. Not too sure of the left piece though.

Don't wanna be a damper but I've tried K1000 driven by Audiovalve RKVII via headphone and speakers output (3W/channel) but utterly not impressed. Of course, the power is sufficient to drive the cans but I suspect more headroom is required to push this cans near their full potential. Later research revealed K1000 may only sound optimal with a healthy feed of 7W and above. YMMV.

That may be true for speaker amplifiers but the AKG K1000's don't actually need that much power.

I've tried my amp design with the K1000's and found it to sound very good despite it being able to deliver a maximum of only ~45mW (0.045 watts) into the K1000's while in Class A.

Many thanks Mackie, will look into the cables at Atlas hi-fi. I have seen some high end cables for sale and they are balanced XLR plugs.Could you enlighten me on it's use? are they for the high end equipment and not the normal rca connectors on the 'normal' hi-fi equipment.Also what kind of products are used for connection maintenance? as like to prevent oxidation and rust etc.

 

As to the cdp,I will continue to keep my options open especially when I travel to destinations with much better price than here in sg.

Balanced XLR is more commonly seen on equipment sold in the States. It's advantages are that balanced cables have better reject of noise.

They do cost more because you need to dedicate additional conductor(s) for the 'cold' signal in addition to the 'hot' and 'ground'.

Also, additional circuitry (or high quality transformer) is required on both amp and source sides for transmitting or converting the balanced signal (for non-balanced amp designs).

You can buy Craig Labs products like Preserve-it, Pro-Gold and De-oxdit for maintainence of contact points.

That player has not arrived in Singapore yet but I just got to listen in to the price quotes for the players.

CD-T100 @ SGD 2200

CD-T200 @ SGD 2750 to SGD 2800

CD-T300 @ SGD 8000!!!!!!!

Edit: Prices correct as of 29-01-2005, 15:00

It depends on whether the lens can be found at 3rd party shops in SLT. If so, it shouldn't cost you more than $80 to replace. Otherwise, replacement from Sony will cost you anything from $160 to $200.

Yeah one of the sister quite pretty.. but seldom see her in shop this days..

Nah.. Don't feel that any of them are pretty. =P Same goes for the Kaichin daugther.. No idea why some people are so hung up over them..

Cute... haha never too young to learn photography, N@Z you'll know what to get for his birthday present this year

Yeah... Something along the lines of 1D MKII w/ L lens!! LOL..

Playing around with PS.

The young guy or the old man?

The young guy is Adam, one of the brothers. Very friendly.

OTOH, I'd never bother to deal with the old man. Then again, I know all 3 brothers by name so I don't deal with the kuching kuraks there.

Some new toys I found in a neighbourhood shop.. Hehe...

Isn't the RS85 already cordless?

This is my kind of player in terms of looks and build. If it were anodised black, that would be better.

Actually, I wonder why no one is getting the Dynax 7D. It has lense compatibility with the Dynax Film SLR range which has been around for a long time. Also has Anti-shake capability on the body itself and a extra large 2.5" LCD. Yummy.. Makes me feel like getting it especially since my dad 'stole' my Lumix for vacation.

You wouldnt happen to be using an ATI AIW card wouldnt you Firefox?

Nope. I'm using an Nvidia equivalent.

It's a Gainward Golden Sample, Geforce 4 Ti4600 (factory o/c'ed to higher speeds) with VIVO functions, dual-RAMDAC's and 2 DVI outputs!

Not bad for a card that cost S$300 odd several years ago. =)

Benq 16X dual layer DVD writer now is $129, the savings from 3.0Ghz to 2.8Ghz should cover for the DVD-RW

Nope. The price breakpoint is currently at 3.0GHz Stepping down to 2.8GHz only saves about $40.

Was just converting videos from VHS to digital while surfing and chatting at the same time.. Damn funky..

I paid about $1.4K for:

3.0GHz P4 w/ 1MB L2 cache

Motherboard

1GB DDR-RAM

74GB WD Raptor SATA HDD (10,000RPM)

Casing + PSU

FDD

More than good enough to handle video editing and graphics editing. Doing some video editing for my camp these few days as well.

You'll need a large HDD to handle DV editing and large photoshop files. Don't skimp on the HDD. Fast and huge is the way to go.. A 120GB SATA HDD with 8MB cache just for editing and storage of files will do. For the primary HDD holding OS and programs, just a regular 40GB and above will suffice.

Graphics card is not an issue when it comes to video and graphics editing. It's more important for games and animation or CAD/ CAM. Even onboard video will suffice for video and graphics editing.

I'm aware of this possibility, but I don't like the bulk and cost associated.

Maybe I will look for a reserve voltage pump that produce a negative voltage and effectively double the voltage from an adaptor.

When I said 2*18v, I meant a transformer with 2 windings at 18v each. =) Not 2 pieces of 18v transformers.

I doubt you can find many charge pumps that will throw out that much current. Charging 24 cells within an hour will require more than 2A. And that's only up to about 80% capacity. The last 20% of so requires slow-charging. ie. trickle charge

There aren't any black anodised versions of that Suzurando knob. I bought the last 2 pieces for av98m's amp in Sg so...

5000mA? You'll see exploding batteries at that charging rate.

i missed the digital amplifier part but even that has to have a dac in it in order to convert the digital pulses to voltage when driving the headphones....

Of course it has a DAC. I don't expect it to have a Class D digital output amplifier since the transformers used for digital drive would weigh more than 300 grams each. Imagine wearing 2 bricks.. Sheesh..

You can just integrate a 2*18v, 3A transformer with diodes and a large capacitor into the charger's circuit. The charger circuit should already have some form of voltage regulation.

Hrmm... Lemme guess.. You didn't expect the top screw (of the Neutrik jack) to hit the top of the case? hehe..

that would mean they need a dac to turn them in to raw analog signal again.....

What do you mean 'again'? The SPDIF interface is directly derived from the digital information output by the microcontroller in the source. This information is then converted into the SPDIF format by the filter/ DAC. It's digital all the way.

LoL... Notice the nice big HEX screws?