DAC Hacks & Mods: Zhaolu Oritek DAC

[restorer-john]

Afaik they started modding CD players first.

Oh no. I wonder how many previously perfect CD players were ruined by them? It's criminal what some of these idiots do to competently engineered commercial products.

 

[gvl]

Oh no. I wonder how many previously perfect CD players were ruined by them? It's criminal what some of these idiots do to competently engineered commercial products.

Quite a few it seems: http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/CD_ALPHABETICAL.html

 

[amirm]

Quite a few it seems: http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/CD_ALPHABETICAL.html

 

[lucian]

Right below the link "Comments from Our Customers. You're the First!"

LOL.

im s. on Jan 02, 2019
Loving my High Fidelity Digital Cable

Adding the CT-2 S/PDIF cable has been a major upgrade to my digital chain. I'm hearing greater realism, imaging, and most importantly, an analogue-like listening experience.
And Alfred is terrific to work with


https://highend-electronics.com/products/high-fidelity-digital-cables

This is opjectiv prove of placebo effect !!!

 

[restorer-john]

Quite a few it seems: http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/CD_ALPHABETICAL.html

I know about the "lampizator" absolutely ruining CD players- he's been doing that for decades.

 

[daftcombo]

Any chance of a listening test?

 

[graz_lag]

... under the label Oritek Audio by a fellow named Ori Mizrahi ...

If he's the same Ori Mizrahi-Shalom who was owning Oritek Audio in the Bay Area 10 years ago or so ... Oh my Gosh! Snaked-Oil interconnects, speaker cables and such ...

According to LinkedIn, it appears he's currently R&D Engineer at Synopsys Inc.

 

[filo97s]

I often see those mod, the most popular one being a tube buffer on CD players... Why the hell those modders with an hand made PCB think they are better than the manufacturer? Why the manufacturer should sell a product that can be improved with a little PCB otherwise?
Every audio product is optimized to sound in the best way straight from the manufacturer, if you want better performances, go buy another product.

 

[Herbert]

I know about the "lampizator" absolutely ruining CD players- he's been doing that for decades.

To be fair, Lampizator did it for his private fun, when used High End player were sold off cheap. To my remembrance
he never offered the mods (Called Lampization) commercially and he now builds ans sales tube - based HiFi gear.
He also demystified many High-End player while poking into their mechanics and electronics.

http://lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/REFERENCES/TEAC-T1/VRDS-T1.html

 

[Wombat]

To be fair, Lampizator did it for his private fun, when used High End player were sold off cheap. To my remembrance
he never offered the mods (Called Lampization) commercially and he now builds ans sales tube - based HiFi gear.
He also demystified many High-End player while poking into their mechanics and electronics.

http://lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/REFERENCES/TEAC-T1/VRDS-T1.html

What were the electronic mysteries? Who did they mystify?

 

[Herbert]

DEmystify - in the link above cheap motors for the disc.
Other gear had screwed SPDIF signals that was extremely rounded ...

 

[Tks]

If he's the same Ori Mizrahi-Shalom who was owning Oritek Audio in the Bay Area 10 years ago or so ... Oh my Gosh! Snaked-Oil interconnects, speaker cables and such ...

According to LinkedIn, it appears he's currently R&D Engineer at Synopsys Inc.

LOL so I was right?! I was only joking.. oh wow.

 

[raif71]

Let' get more basic then with frequency response test:

View attachment 36592

The owner tells me that people used to praise this product. If anyone did, they need to reexamine their hearing.

Something you said about examining hearing. I had undergone a hearing test found in one of the threads here, test of 20Hz to 20kHz tone sweep. It seems that I can only hear from 70Hz to around 12kHz. Now given the frequency response of this dac, would it be ok for me ?

 

[AudioSceptic]

Quite a few it seems: http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/CD_ALPHABETICAL.html

Couldn't resist looking at one example. I now feel quite queasy. He really admires the internals and then does this!
<http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/REFERENCES/ARCAM CD73/Arcam Diva CD73.html>

 

[Ralf Stocker]

I am a MOD doctor! Do we want to do heart surgery here in my kitchen?

 

[C37]

Blast from the past... The Zhalou 2.5 was my first external dac, there was a very long thread on it at diyaudio and headfi. Price was 100 USD - compare this to the AD1853 evaluation board which was US$ 175 at the time. Given the price and some obvious flaws, people started modding the hell out if it (including me) inspired by the diyaudio thread. Oritek got clever and started selling these off-the shelf units for those who where afraid of using a soldering iron and including his "secret" sauce output boards. What seems obvious here is that they completely overlooked the power supply.
Mods would range from fixing obvious safety concerns like missing protective earth to complete change of the output stage and capacitors upgrade. I had installed a zapfilter output stage with its own power supply on mine. I still have the unit somewhere although it's been a very long time it was replaced by buffalo dac. All i can say is that , at the time, it was quite an improvement on the analog output of my SONY CDP. Obviously things have moved quite a bit since, but i had great fun modding the original one. But i would never had bought an off the shelf modded one such as here...

 

[Lotus97]

there are people here who claim all DAC hardware sound the same and can never tell the difference between a $50 USB Stick DAC or $3000 DAC Unit from like Macintosh, I wonder if they would be able to hear the difference from this one when running 20db.

 

[AudioSceptic]

there are people here who claim all DAC hardware sound the same and can never tell the difference between a $50 USB Stick DAC or $3000 DAC Unit from like Macintosh, I wonder if they would be able to hear the difference from this one when running 20db.

Most DACs sound very similar, but this one is so bad, even someone with Golden Ears will hear the difference.

 

[Xulonn]

So this is what it used to look like inside before the mod clown got to it?

Side-by-side for easier comparison - they look like different versions, even before the mods. Is my guess correct?

 

[C37]

There have been only two versions of the 2.5: one with Crystal dac chip, one with AD. Impossible to spot the difference without High def pictures. Note that there was a factory option to get a better headphone board (the one closest to the volume knob) with discretes rather that OP's as well.

Anyway why would anyone be interested in this in 2019 but as a testament that some tweakers back then did not do great job- even if they had some good if not raving reviews at the time. It is like comparing a tweaked 2005 laptop with today's gear...