New Amp and Altmann Upgrades

[unique72]

Hi,
heres some Pictures of my Current System - its a Fully Digital Front end
Playing through a menu driven Apple TV/iMac (soon to be replaced by a MAC Mini - When apple get around to upgrading them )
Going through Border Patrol Pre and Power...

System is:
AppleTV (Fitted with a 250gig HD with Lossless albums)
24" iMac (3.02Ghz/500HD)
Marantz KI63 Mk2 (Ten Years young! )
Altmann Attraction DAC (With Paul Hynes PSU and with his Excellent Shunt Regulators)
Border Patrol Control Unit Pre-Amp (Tweaked! )
Border Patrol P20 (Western Electric 300b) Power Amp
ProAc D38 Speakers in Ebony (spiked)

Cables are:
Chord Sig Digital (CD to DAC)
Kondo KSL-Vc (DAC to PreAmp)
Chord Sig Interconnects (PreAmp to Power Amp)
Chord Sig Speaker Cables (Going to try some pure Silver cables soon)
Nordost White Light Glass Optical (Apple TV to DAC)
QED 8m Optical Cable (iMac to DAC)

I Keep swaping the Kondo and Sig Interconnects around - Just can't
make up my mind which way sounds better...
will probably end up going for both Kondo in the end ..
Chord Sig is a pain in the butt! (Too inflexible!)

The Sound Panels are Swedish Snow Crash 'Lunas' - They have really sorted the Bass Problem out that I was Having!

Nice Cheap Rack - which is really rather good especially for the price!
(good Old Ikea)

I listen to a Very Wide Selection of Music from 70'/80's/Pop/Rock/Jazz to Modern House/Electronic/Rock & Pop & Acoustic!

the BP Pre has been rewired with Silver Kondo Cable (The Silver and Brown Cables in the pics below)
and had a few(!) caps added! it sounds crystal clear, Open and wonderful...

I've included some internal shots of the BP Pre as it may interest some of you



This is the Rack I settled for - I wanted a Low Profile Rack made of Wood (well sorta wood! )
its very cheap and solid especially once Glued! - i'll be spiking it once the new curtains are delivered and I have to move everything
I didn't bother with the centre Support as I wanted My preamp there
And it all Looks nice and symmetrical!


Border Patrol CU Internals ...










I've substantially modified my Altmann DAC By Upgrading the Power even Further (It Had Already been upgraded with one of Paul Hynes' PSU's)
Now its the turn of the onboard Regulators :eyebrows:
they have been upgraded with Paul Hynes' Custom Shunt Regulators (3.3v + 5v)
To say Things are much better a vast understatement !
EVERYTHING has improved - timing, Attack, Jitter Rejection (Which was great to begin with) Low end Bass is Tighter Soundstage is VERY wide now - its truly a revelation!.. but could I stop there?? erm.. no
I decided to throw Some better caps at the Output stage!
After doing some research I settled for Mundorf 3.3uF Silver/Oil 1200v!
Hmmm....... Silk is the word! I now have the DAC I Always Wanted at any Price!
i've enclosed some Pics so you can see the Support this 1543 Chip Has now!

Oh and if you want your DAC taking up to the next level try paul at :

http://www.paulhynesdesign.com/ Nice chap to deal with and knows His Stuff!

All Pics will open to 'Supersize' If clicked!









^^^ Views of Regulators they get Warm - But not too hot to touch.




Any Questions feel free to ask - Any Major PSU Questions would be better thrown at Paul though!

Unique72

 

[anubisgrau]

nice, i've always wanted to hear altmann DAC with a good PSU instead of a car battery i used back in the days when i had it. it's a great DAC anyway in a stock form and can only imagine how it sounds now. i was lucky enough to finally find a dac that sounds better and is more convenient to use (twinDAC+ with BMS) however if i didn't, i'm sure i would repeat many of your steps. i know what mundorf supreme caps did to my altmann amp so they are a proven winner in this case.

 

[Dev]

As anubisgrau put it, nice.

 

[unique72]

nice, i've always wanted to hear altmann DAC with a good PSU instead of a car battery i used back in the days when i had it. it's a great DAC anyway in a stock form and can only imagine how it sounds now. i was lucky enough to finally find a dac that sounds better and is more convenient to use (twinDAC+ with BMS) however if i didn't, i'm sure i would repeat many of your steps. i know what mundorf supreme caps did to my altmann amp so they are a proven winner in this case.

Hi anubisgrau,
I Agree about the car battery - a Well Designed PSU does beat it (to my ears Anyway!) and I'm Sure Charles Could have improved His Design much more without hitting his Profit margin!.
The Mundorfs Really have tightened the bass and opened up the sound, Its Suprising Just How Much these Rectifers Have Improved the efficiency of the Whole Circuit improving the Jitter Rejection, Dynamics and lowering the noise floor (all of which were great to begin with!).

I'll be investing in another DAC shortly - But will Keep this DAC as it now sounds Superb!
Why Another DAC? Well i'd Like To Have a Mess with 24bit /192, Upsampling etc. Also the BP Pre has 2 inputs wired to Kondo! and I Can't Let One Go to Waste! I Think im Just Going to Wait a few months For everything to settle Down (Plus there maybe some dealer bargains with the credit crunch!)

Unique72

 

[thrudge]

I spy with my little eye, a bunch of Hovland caps in a BP amp. Looks like Kevin Scott has been at work here. Cool

Great looking system, thanks for posting. I'm just a teensy-weensy bit jealous