Steve,
Received my S7700 from you earlier this week. Wanted to thank you first for a quick turnaround. Also thought I'd write up some details on my experience with it so far.
As mentioned above, I got the basic mod package with Jensen caps; I am using this S7700 as a transport with a Dodson DA-218 DAC. The DA-218 uses both upsampling and oversampling techniques, and re-clocks the digital signal just prior to feeding the DAC chipset (Burr-Brown 1704 "K"-series) via a FIFO buffer. Because of the re-clocking and the details of the buffer design, I thought that perhaps getting the Superclock2 and even the Turbomod would be overkill for my needs. As we've discussed before, theoretically the Superclock2 shouldn't have much of an effect in this setup because of the re-clocking. I fully acknowledge that "theoretically" often goes out the window in a lot of high end setups, but I also figured that I can always send it back for more mods if needed.
Anyways, I received the modded unit on Tuesday, and I put it in my system (currently consisting of the Dodson DA-218, using an Acoustic Zen 1m Silver Byte cable, a Blue Circle BC3 Galatea mkII preamp, BC28 hybrid stereo amp, and Focus Audio FS888 speakers). Compared to the stock unit (one of which I still have and keep as a spare/backup), differences were immediately noticeable...but clearly not broken in. The modded unit immediately produced transients with much better speed, and low-frequency extension appeared improved. However, there also appeared to be some "chestiness" in vocals and a somewhat closed in sound on solo instruments. Compared to the stock unit, there were some things that were better, others that were worse, overall a difference (but not necessarily an improvement).
Not to worry...
Steve told me that it would take about a week before the Jensen caps would be broken in. Being anxious, I left the player running on "repeat" with my favorite Bela Fleck CD (Greatest Hits of the 20th Century) overnight for a few days straight, only giving it a break Wednesday evening during a lightning storm when I turned off all my gear. By Thursday afternoon, I found all the issues to disappear...no more chestiness or boxiness; instead I was getting a sound wth clarity, dynamics, and overall presentation that I hadn't experienced in my room/system before (when Zybar had originally brought his EA S7700 over, we were using a lesser-preamp, and although we had the more powerful BC206 in there, I recently replaced the Sovtek 6922 tubes in the BC28 with Electro-Harmonix 6922EH in my BC28 to better effect). I want to emphasize CLARITY, because that's really what I'm noticing the most...not that I wasn't getting decent sound before, but the EA S7700 has just lifted an amazing amount of haze that I didn't even know I had. The other thing that I'm noticing is that the system imaging and soundstaging holds together much better at low volumes than it did with the stock unit. In some demo situations, my worries about getting the best performance when showing my system usually had me turning the volume up a bit...I no longer feel that need. And this was only after 2-3 days of breaking in. I'm salivating at the idea that this will get even better as we get through the week!
I'm thoroughly impressed with the overall performance of the Empirical Audio modded S7700. It does make me wonder what I'd be writing here had I gone ahead and gotten the Turbomod and/or Superclock2. Perhaps one day I'll be able to compare them in my system and see if they make a substantial difference given the technical design of my DA-218. But at the moment, I am one happy audiophile-camper! Thanks, Steve!
Phil
