Tweakers' Asylum

What have I done?

69.87.204.233

nightdoggy

I completed an expensive and time consuming mod of my Quicksilver LSP and Mini Monos. I used excellent parts and the best techniques I know of.
I've been listening for three days now and they sound like solid state!
Lower noise, better dynamics and much better bottom. But some of that tube magic ("shimmer" as one called it here) is lost.
Eeek!
doggy

Follow Ups:

Feel for you...you know how they say to make one change at a time... - Steve Parry 21:45:03 06/27/07 (0)
...but boy that could take a long time, especially with burn in, and of tube gear (!). One thing can make a big difference...I had my female RCA chassis jacks changed on my amp and the first try brought horrible results. It was nearly unlistenable until I changed them to something else.

Not sure what the best answer is. I am considering changing out my coupling caps. Given my experience, that is the only thing that will be changed. There really is something to voicing, I suppose.

Steve
That has to be a gut churning feeling - 1973shovel 08:23:43 06/27/07 (0)
I always have that sense of hesitation when diving in with my soldering iron, ever since reading Laura Dearborn's "Good Sound" book. She describes a friend who had a Marantz 8B upgraded with caps, resistors and wire. It sounded awful.

I got the bright idea the other day to tear into my McCormack phono, even though I thought the Black Gates I bought might not fit. Sure enough, they won't, and this is after I unsoldered a few off the board. I ordered Panasonic FM's and FC's, which WILL fit. Now to find where to cram in the Hovland coupling caps. Meanwhile I'm "stuck" listening to CD's, since I disabled my phono stage. Oh well, it gives me a chance to burn in the Black Gate coupling caps in my JVC 1050, which DID fit, and did make an improvement.

I guess one consolation is to think how you'd feel if you were one of those audiophiles who sell their gear and buy something new based on a great review, only to discover they hate the new stuff.

I think the burn in advice you've received is wise. Let it cook for a while. And see what happens. Hopefully things will improve.

Good luck!
Allow for burn-in - Jon Risch 20:04:29 06/26/07 (3)
All that soldering and new parts, it is like firing up a new unit.
It will probably take several days worth of continuous on time and signal exposure to even start to settle, maybe a week or longer to really settle in.

Jon Risch
- JEEZ(, ND, I thought you'd been on a 3 day bender and woken up in Mexico. - dave c 20:21:25 06/26/07 (2)
  With, as Iggy Pop once put it, blood on your shirt, a disgusting taste in your mouth and something green coming from your penis...
  Relax and let it fully burn in. That could take 200 hours of continual use.
  Then is the time to panic and try to put it all back...
  Here, 2 music lovers await full burn in...
  - I like your kitties better than mine - nightdoggy 20:37:16 06/26/07 (1)
    mine hate each other.
    I'm about ready to go on a bender. I've been known to lose it on occasion. Why do anything different?
    Time to give my neighbor the car keys.
    - Now that is a good idea - dave c 22:29:02 06/26/07 (0)
      The car keys, not the bender!
      One advantage of an at least partial giving up of excess is that it takes considerably less to become intoxicated.
RE: What have I done? - sherod 19:54:14 06/26/07 (1)
You didn't go into detail of what mods you performed, but there's a chance that if you replaced some caps the unit might need a bit more of burning in.
- RE: What have I done? - nightdoggy 22:54:20 06/26/07 (0)
  Yeah I replaced every cap in all three units. QS caps are not bad, but I wanted better, for both sonics and longer life. I'm at the point now that I probably won't upgrade components a whole lot.
  I've been skeptical of non-electrolytic cap burn in, but hopefully I'm wrong. I've been wrong many times before that's for sure.
  I did precondition all of the caps at 625 vdc using my Lambda ps. That's not sinusoidal of course. I do it mainly to test for breakdown. A lot of caps come with nicks in the outer wrap so you never know.
  I once had a Solen MPP 51uF/630 cap short internally due to a small nick in the wrapper. I checked everything and was perplexed until I finally zeroed in on it.
  For the price of some film caps they should come protected somehow like tubes. What would that cost, maybe a nickel?
RE: What have I done? - kenster 19:41:35 06/26/07 (0)
Welcome to the "Mods that don't go as planned" club.

I have lost count on how many times I have performed some mods thinking it/they would be an improvement but they turned out not to be so. Out of all this comes experience and the discretion to know when/where to mod and when/where not to mod.

Chalk it up to a learning experience and use that experience to broaden your knowledge. If it really bothers U, return the units to their original configuration or ride out the burnin and then see if U still feel the same way.

Cheers,

~kenster

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