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Help me tune my Theta Gen Va DAC

Any word of advice is welcomed. I'm a newbee when it comes to tuning. One thing I was planning to do is to replace all caps on the power supply board with Black Gates. The PS board looks like this:

http://www.audioshow.com.pl/Zdjecia/audio/Theta%20Gen%20Va%20ps%20board.jpg

Do you think that it makes any sense at all ?

Do you think that I should use the same value caps ? And what type should I use (there are several different BGs) ?
elberoth2
elberoth2's avatar
elberoth2 OP
1,223 posts
 
Unfortunately, there are no mods available for this DAC from Theta and it out of warranty anyway.

I'm also sceptical about the effects of so called "tuning" and buying such a DAC from someone else ... but recaping is IMO another story. You just can't go wrong with that. The DAC is 8 years old, and some of caps had probably already dryed out a bit.

It is more like changing tires or shocks in a car - it must be performed at some point along the way and can only increase the value of the car.
elberoth2's avatar
elberoth2 OP
1,223 posts
 
I ordered 500$ worth of Black Gate caps for my Theta DAC. I'm gonna use Black gate Standard for the analog supply, and Black gate N for digital.

Hope the change in sound quality will be as dramatic (and for the better !) as some ppl reported with other equipment.

Stay tunned !
kana813
956 posts
 
"I ordered 500$ worth of Black Gate caps for my Theta DAC. I'm gonna use Black gate Standard for the analog supply, and Black gate N for digital."

Did you measure the working voltages for the caps you're replacing? Otherwise how did you select the optimum BGs to use? Are you installing any "super E" combos? Also, you should look into upgrading the pulse transformers on the digital inputs.
elberoth2's avatar
elberoth2 OP
1,223 posts
 
Yes did. I have even found that I could use some lower voltage caps (6,7V instead of 16V) since the voltage was in the 3,7V-5V range, which would be about 4x cheaper, but decided to follow the original voltage values. In fact I in some cases I even exceed them, since original voltage was not available (470uF/50V instead of 470uF/16V for example).
kana813
956 posts
 
"I in some cases I even exceed them, since original voltage was not available (470uF/50V instead of 470uF/16V for example)."

Why? If Theta had a 16v caps in there the working voltage was probably no more than 8 volts, and BG makes a STD470/16,FK470/16 and a N470/16.
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