Chinese DriveHack PA2 Hopeful Improvements

[deadwood83]

Why were you happy with them?

In my conjoined dining/kitchen/HT living area (with a projector 4ft above my head) it honestly was not at all offensive. Combined with living inside a metro area there's no way I could reliably say every time whether or not I was hearing distortion/noise or just a distant interstate, life flight helicopters, somebody with an insanely obnoxious car, etc.

I could say with certainty that it sounded less good my JBL 308p MK2's fed direct from a DX& Pro but that's an entirely different room, different speakers (not ones I built, DIYSG Fusion 10 Pures btw) and a totally different source chain so the comparison is totally meaningless to me. The JBLs are also in a room which I think most would say is entirely too small for them (18 ft x 18 ft) but REW seems to show flat FR and I freaking love these speakers in a small room. Even before I modded the units, it was still MASSIVELY improved from any AVR under $1300 USD. I say $1300 because it was still a huge improvement compared to my Marantz NR1711. I think the Marantz measured slightly better but having DSP was more quality improvement than the sinad difference.

I only had to improve it in order to satisfy my neuroses; and that way I can blame room modes and the speakers I built and successively converted to active monitors with one Topping PA3s each. Gotta trace down every potential source of "why don't I like X as much as Y."

Great Job. I wished I'd be able to solder this tiny SMB stuff, but I fear I'm getting too old for this ...

When I mentioned a sore back and eyes... well let's just say I got up close and personal. Not an experience I want to go through a whole lot more, but the macro photos are deeply gratifying. I really need to find a jeweler's loupe with a decent focal distance. My genetic predisposition to hand tremors really doesn't help either

 

[gaderson]

<deletia>

At this point I was about ready to get a miniDSP Flex, but my amps take balanced only, and my subs require discrete inputs (not line level) and they need some PEQ of their own. So to get an equivalent setup, I could get either two flexes, a flex and a miniHD for the subs, and then what would I do with my Loxjie D40? Hmmmmmmmm.

I was perusing the miniDSP site recently, looking at the SHDs to use with some Genelecs for a 'little apartment system', and noticed that the latest Flex' have a balanced option — using TRS outputs in place of the RCAs. So that is now an option.

 

[Javs]

Fascinating thanks, I might have a look at this, I have one of these from Sinbosen, is that where this one is from?

Ive opened mine up now, looks like my C17 and C26 is already white. All the others are definitely brown though.

So you are saying replace all the brown ones with white ones?

 

[deadwood83]

Fascinating thanks, I might have a look at this, I have one of these from Sinbosen, is that where this one is from?

Ive opened mine up now, looks like my C17 and C26 is already white. All the others are definitely brown though.

So you are saying replace all the brown ones with white ones?

Basically, yeah! FOr me, C26 and C17 were the absolute worst offenders in the mid-low end. I also experimented with bypassing C26 and C17 which removed the signal from the diode array. THe opamps seem to clamp the voltage regardless and even at 16dbu input I was never seeing anything overdriving the codec with those removed.

I suspect the SInbosen is already rather better than my example simply from having class 1 caps in the C26 and C17 positions. But the only real way to know is with measurements.