2. tech-talk
  3. 1103150786

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) ?
128x128elberoth2
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.
elberoth2's avatar
elberoth2 OP
1,223 posts
 
"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."

Sorry, I made a mistake here - I was quoting from memory. I replaced the 47uF/16V caps with 47uF/50V BG N caps, not the 470uf/16V ones. BG doesn't make N 47uF/16V and the N 47uF/50V is the closest match.
elberoth2's avatar
elberoth2 OP
1,223 posts
 
To make the long story short, I sold the Theta before I got the caps (they were backordered).
More to discover