[lacro]

I have been following the mods others have done, and decided to give it a go myself. I have been listening to the Blue/Black in stock form for several months. It has sounded pretty good, especially when paired with the little 6N3 3 tube pre-amp. With my recent mods the TPA3116 is now totally amazing. I just can't get over how much better it sounds. I haven't even tried it with the pre yet, its sounds so good by itself!

I am not very electronics knowledgeable, and I just follow what others have done, so I replaced the following caps:

Input caps
Decoupling caps
Bootstrap caps


The most solder slinging I have done at one time......
 

[ClefChef]

I cut the Jamicon original ecaps open. Never did that befor so I also cut a 1 year old Nichicon 1000uF open, that is a lot messier:) There is actually much fluid in the Nichicon and cutting the aluminium also has a little air sizzle, either air going in or out, air presure inside Nichicon was different then outside. Jamicon was complete silent. The roll you lift out of the can is soaking wet with Nichicon and drips , in the empty can you see a lot more fluid. The Jamicon roll was a little wet, no dripping and no fluid is in the empty can.

Well, let's "recap" - Nichicon is full of electrolyte in a vacuum sealed can, Jamicon has little electrolyte in a can that is not hermetically sealed. Hm...

[wired4sound]

Lacro, would you mind letting us know the parts you used? I would like to replicate your mods. This will be my first venture into modification. I thought replicating yours will be a good start for a novice like me.
Thanks!

I have been following the mods others have done, and decided to give it a go myself. I have been listening to the Blue/Black in stock form for several months. It has sounded pretty good, especially when paired with the little 6N3 3 tube pre-amp. With my recent mods the TPA3116 is now totally amazing. I just can't get over how much better it sounds. I haven't even tried it with the pre yet, its sounds so good by itself!

I am not very electronics knowledgeable, and I just follow what others have done, so I replaced the following caps:

Input caps
Decoupling caps
Bootstrap caps


The most solder slinging I have done at one time......
 

[lacro]

Lacro, would you mind letting us know the parts you used? I would like to replicate your mods. This will be my first venture into modification. I thought replicating yours will be a good start for a novice like me.
Thanks!

PM Sent.....

[Markvdv]

Well, let's "recap" - Nichicon is full of electrolyte in a vacuum sealed can, Jamicon has little electrolyte in a can that is not hermetically sealed. Hm...

Jamicon's are very close to not being a capacitor anymore:) close to end of life.  When I tried to measure resistance they instantly became hot, with others you can feel a temperature rise a little after some seconds. The metal foil inside the Jamicons have little white dots all over, looks like oxidation, elctrolyte still in roll made roll look greenish. Nichicon use other electrolyte probably, that is brown. In the amp they made music sound like brake was on, like amp wasn't able to drive speakers properly. Turning up the volume seemed like nothing was changing, turning down the volume made chunks of music dissappear. Like I mentioned only the brainsplitting high frequencies at higher levels seemed to get through the fog, after moving the 0.1uF's I am 100% certain those are the powerreservoir for those higher frequencies, the hard/harsh side sometimes heard remained equal with panasonic za, but moving the 0.1uF's changed it. They impact music quite a bit. In the air tonight's drum solo wasn't close to hiampmini's, or close to what you want to feel, now it just sounds right, I didn't compare yet but from memory of 4 hours listening session the other day I would say blueblack might sound better now:) Comparing the hiampminis to blueblack for me also revealed the outputfilter capacitorvalue recommended by TI (1uF for pbtl) does exaggerate treble a bit on my speakers, it shouldn't with the constant impedance I thought they had, but impedance is rising it seems and redoing zobel calculations revealed the zobelcalculator I used created values different from all other zobelcalculators I now tried, damn, that would confirm what was heard.

[randytsuch]

There is a new group buy for bare boards, but you would need to be willing to do surface mount.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/group-buys/257996-gb-tpa3116-8-pbtl-bare-pcb.html#post3969462

[Markvdv]

There is a new group buy for bare boards, but you would need to be willing to do surface mount.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/group-buys/257996-gb-tpa3116-8-pbtl-bare-pcb.html#post3969462

seems inductors are most important part there. they are important, but I don't feel I need the biggies! or maybe finally I will, but for now powersupply seems more important, layout Dug's powersupply is very good too btw, looks surperior to all/most!

[randytsuch]

seems inductors are most important part there. they are important, but I don't feel I need the biggies! or maybe finally I will, but for now powersupply seems more important, layout Dug's powersupply is very good too btw, looks surperior to all/most!

Which one is Dug's board?  I'm a newbie to this amp.
EDIT:  nevermind, Dug is the diyaudio board, I was confused 

I bought the audiobah last week, now I am waiting to get. 

And the diyaudio boards are cheap enough to order a couple just in case.

Randy

[Markvdv]

dug's boards come without any parts so they will be a lot more expensive then any chinese amp you can buy. and it won't be just 2 tiny smd's like I moved, there will be a lot of tiny and even smaller contacts to solder, take a look at tpa3116 chip for example

[lo_tse]

Which one is Dug's board?  I'm a newbie to this amp.
EDIT:  nevermind, Dug is the diyaudio board, I was confused 

I bought the audiobah last week, now I am waiting to get. 

And the diyaudio boards are cheap enough to order a couple just in case.

Randy

The Audiobah board sounds good.  I am using it with a TVC and really enjoy it.  This combo sound better than the YJ red board  with a pot.  No poping sound when switch on too.

Regards,

[wushuliu]

dug's boards come without any parts so they will be a lot more expensive then any chinese amp you can buy. and it won't be just 2 tiny smd's like I moved, there will be a lot of tiny and even smaller contacts to solder, take a look at tpa3116 chip for example

I don't think Dug's will be that hard. For a newbie, yes, but the SMDs are reasonable size. Toughest part will soldering the chip itself.

[Markvdv]

yet I have not seen pictures or read about other people doing something to try to better decoupling or anything else involving SMD's
btw just noticed by accident that the inductors run warmer then the tpa3116 chip (without heatsink) on blueblack (very lowlevel background radio for 4 hours), funny, so it kind of makes sense to replace them I guess. I will first listen serious again and then touch the inductors afterwards to see what temperature is then, but this doesn't feel good now, inductor temperature should not rise with levels this low I feel

[lacro]

I have been looking for an Astron PS for awhile now. Hoping to find one locally on Craigslist. Most of the ones on E-Bay have high $ shipping because of the weight. A newly listed E-bay SL-11A caught my eye because it was $25, and had "free shipping" so I jumped... Got it in 2 days

 So far I have only tried it with my nearfield PC system powering my newly modded TPA3116 Blue/Black, and a cheap pair of Pioneer BS21 bookshelf speakers. After doing multiple A/B blind tests, I can truly say the SQ difference with the Astron PS is definitely noticeable over my 12V Indeed brick which has been the best "cheap" brick I have tried.

 I have been listening to my modded Blue board for about a week now so I decided to add back my YJ 3 tube pre-amp back into the system. Previously  adding the Pre with the unmodded blue board the SQ improvement was amazing, especially after rolling tubes.

 However, the 3 tube Pre doesn't seem to have the same dramatic improvement with the newly modded Blue board as it does with a stock board?? I need to do more listening, especially with different speakers, but right now my modded blue board powered by my new (used) Astron PS sounds amazing, and doesn't need tubes to make it better.

[OzarkTom]

Wow, 25 bucks.

Tomorrow I am getting in a Cryo'd power cord for a weeks trial to go between my Astron and Itube. The custom cable costs $55, would anyone else here be interested in my comparisons?

[rajacat]

Does anybody know what's the rated wattage of the audiobah board in mono PTBL mode @ 8 ohms?

Thanks

[Markvdv]

Does anybody know what's the rated wattage of the audiobah board in mono PTBL mode @ 8 ohms?

Thanks

Between 3 watt and 40 watt @1% THD depending on supply voltage

[rajacat]

Wow, 25 bucks.

Tomorrow I am getting in a Cryo'd power cord for a weeks trial to go between my Astron and Itube. The custom cable costs $55, would anyone else here be interested in my comparisons?

I'm interested.
I'll be purchasing an Astron any day now.
I've also ordered the audiobah board.

[ebag4]

Does anyone know the input impedance of the 50+50 Yuan Jing Blue Black board?  The website appears to be down or I would have looked it up myself.

Thanks,
Ed

[rajacat]

Just purchased an ASTRON MODEL SL-11R, 11 AMP power supply on Ebay for $38 shipped. I'm glad I got the SL-11R model which is internally adjustable to 15V. I'd like to squeeze as much power as possible out of the TPS3116.

[HaroldHill]

For those interested, Astron SL-11A can also be adjusted to output 15V.

Just purchased an ASTRON MODEL SL-11R, 11 AMP power supply on Ebay for $38 shipped. I'm glad I got the SL-11R model which is internally adjustable to 15V. I'd like to squeeze as much power as possible out of the TPS3116.