Saturday, October 21, 2006

 

Musical Fidelity X-DAC V3 Project

In June-06 I found Zanash's post about MF X-DAC modifications, something I had been looking for a while. Realizing how low quality some of the components were, I just could not resist starting the project.

I'm not an experienced modder, so first it took me some time to figure out what parts I would want and how the X-DAC was structured. Living in Finland I found out that here are very few shops for quality components, so I had to hunt parts from UK, Netherlands, US, etc. But fortunately for high quality cables, connectors and various other DIY-stuff we have niinimaen.com (in Finnish). While looking for op amps I also found Burson Audio HDAMs, that clearly had biggest single impact on the result.

Beginning of the project. Last pair of NE5532s removed and IC sockets were fitted in. First thing was of course to try-out the HDAMs. Note: do not use sockets with HDAMs they are much heavier than ICs and drop out easily (I ended up removing the sockets and soldered them directly as recommended). Posted by Picasa


Comments:
I also have a MF X-DACv3. How did you ground the HDAMs? I tried attaching the grounding wires to the chassis and RCA outputs but I still get a hum from one of the channels.
 
I connected the HDAM groundings with XDAC grounding wire (check the 3rd and 2nd last pictures).

I also have slightly more hum after mod, but it is audible only with max volume, i.e. cannot hear it with even extremely loud volume setting I might use.

- Pekka
 
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