Following from this:
some of my stock of Maplin veroboard has been attacked to do something like this
http://www.acoustica.org.uk/t/3pin_reg_notes4.html
together with a slightly chunky 100VA transformer to feed it all. Lm1084s still to be soldered in as 8ishV drop at possibly over an amp will need heatsinking.
Nice bit of overkill. Always worth heatsinking, pennies for a chunk of alloy; even though I doubt the DAC is pulling more than 1/10th that current even at switch-on.
Also have some Maplin closing bin dives ready for that. Just need to plonk the lot in a Modushop box currently winging over from Italy to work out the layout.
And at this point I will preemptively swear about mini XLR connections.
+slightly too-big cable is always nice. Especially when you forget to thread the cover on first…
Recently I got a new/old tuner, followed shortly by a better antenna. The antenna - tho’ excellent - came with slightly too-little, badly-screened cable, attached to a crappy Belling-Lee plug.
A quick google suggested Webro WF-100 would be a good coax cable (all copper, 150% copper screen), to which I could add the required F-plug. Job done - reception even better. Nearly 2m of WF-100 left, so I made some RCA Phono interconnects from it. They sounded slightly worse than the VanDamme Silver Series that preceded them. Which surprised me, but whatevs.
Couple of weeks later and I have bought Papa Lazarou’s old ANUK DAC 1.1S - already tweaked-up very nicely by the legendary Coco-San, it nonetheless still had scope for more tweakology.
A little research showed that higher-up the AN foodchain two things proliferate - valves and electromagnetic devices (inductors and transformers). IME/taste, AN DACs all sound great, and all the later and whizzier models have a feature in common which I have rarely noticed being used by anyone else - a (needlessly) hefty common-mode choke connecting the S/PDIF input to the main boards.
I have a drawer-full of CMCs c/o of years tinkering with mains filters, so decided to add one to the 1.1S. Only problem being the shoebox was tight on internal space, so literally thinking outside the box I grabbed a small alloy enclosure, a couple of glands and a CMC, snipped one of the Webro cables in half and soldered it all together.
We all know that digital cables cannot possibly make any difference to how your system sounds, right? Of course that depends on a host of factors, including-but-not-limited-to characteristic impedance and how you deal with unwanted out-of-bandwidth signal components… No matter, manufacturers don’t usually put anything on a PCB that they don’t feel needs to be there - it’s all cost and no headlines, so on my usual monkey-see-monkey-do basis I sucked it and saw: and it was good. Compared with a good quality Supra ‘DAC’ S/PDIF cable the difference was in all senses clear - resolution up, noise levels down.
No question the CMC will be 99% responsible for that, chances are the proverbial wet string in place of the Webro would not be discriminated in a double-blind test, but this is where the tuner comes-in: it has a digital output and I like to use it with the DAC, but digital electronics tend to be RFI-incontinent, and with broadcast radio signals being in the few-microvolts range, they are very easily affected: I’ve owned equipment (hello Musical Fidelity!) where my CDP was by FAR the strongest signal detected by my FM tuner…
With that lurking in the back of my mind, I noticed that Webro do an even-better screened coax - WD100 - so conceived an improved (and usefully-longer) version of the foo digital cable - Neutrik Pro-fi plugs, slightly better looking enclosure, metal glands, 1-piece ferrites, more-compact but higher-inductance CMC, enclosure properly grounded to screen etc. And that is this -
…and yes, it does sound Even Moar Betterer… 
.
[inb4 “Herp-derp, streemin is betr m8! Hyuk, hyuk!” - fuck off.]
Que? Thought it was only some hens teeth Bel Canto or Accuphase boxes that did that.
Arcam DT91 - uses one of the Radioscape modules that converts FM to digital (which is not ideal), but then means anything it can pickup can goes thru the DAC whose better O/P stage means it all sounds better than anything this side of Magnum Dynalab.
Before someone says it, yes, internet-radio resolution could offer far higher bitrates, but since most mainstream channels are using low-res music files (PCM= at best, MP3 all-too-often), and I actually (perversely) like this interface, it’s not something I can be arsed to pursue, especially with the shoddy internet we have here.
So is that why Henley want 40 quid for a DC power cable?
Fuck Henley, I’ve probably got a spare you can have when I made a few - none of them are very long mind, any notion how long you need?
1m would be more than enough, much shorter would just mean shunting stuff around on the rack or Macgyvering an extension box.
PM your addy, I have a 1m length - Neutrik mini-XLRs via V-D screened balanced patch cable, so good up to ~50VDC.
Mrs M Opinion - thanks for the explanation.
Great video, amazing to think that those Scammel Junior Constructors had only 185bhp and could tow up to 200t. Our 7.5t truck at work has 160bhp, how things have changed.
Just tell them not to touch and get on with it man.
With a 6 year old?
Of course.
I will send him round to yours then…
Brilliant gif 
