OK, digging into this today, after letting it burn in and getting used to it.
First of all, this thing is BUILT! I spent time yesterday, removing all of the covers and inspecting the transformer, drive, video processor and video supply.
1) The linear supply is powered by an EI core transformer, nicely made! This transformer is completely shielded!
2) The video processor is completely shielded and self contained.
3) The drive is not only completely shielded, but fully insulated against all vibration via soft damping material in apparently every axis! Never seen this before! It IS dead silent for a reason and this also equates to lower jitter and greater overall performance for audio and video!
4) The power supply for the audio circuitry is purely linear and all sourced from the transformer. The ONLY thing that is powered by the SMPS is the video circuitry. Even the DAC and all digital circuitry appears to be powered by the LPS for this unit!
DAC is 9026PRO from ESS (SABRE)
As expected, I-V, gain/buffer, filtering and summing circuitry for XLR-RCA outs are all accomplished by Burr Brown op-amps. Good op-amps, but I am not a fan of them. I don't like op-amps because they are inherently feedback based devices. I prefer Class A tube circuitry with zero feedback, typically aided by inductive reactive devices such as chokes and transformers. To my ears, the purest sound is achieved in this way!
I am next going to look at how best to take the audio signal from the SABRE DAC, without the use of any op-amps. I expect this input circuitry will be similar to how we achieve the same result from the Oppo 205 mod. Why? Because it SIMPLY WORKS and sounds amazing with very low noise floor!
More to come, but I wanted to share my thoughts here.
Now because this unit is not currently available in the U.S. right now, I am also VERY interested in the LX500 that IS available in the U.S.!
Now the LX500 has no Linear power supply for audio and uses the AKM DAC chip. My proposed solution for this model is to build our own audio LPS unit inside the LX500 and also install our own audio PCB internally, for a true on-box solution! There is enough room to do this and the AKM DAC chip is very good!
If this interests you and you have a LX500, please let me know!
Thanks,
Dan