[oris98]

Hi all,

Can someone share some of the tweaking experience other than tubes rolling ?  What are the effective tweaks, such as caps upgrade, bybee filters, etc., that can further improve the sonic performance for this lovely preamp ?

Many thanks in advance..

[ted_b]

Just an FYI, but other than Herbie's Tube dampers (which some Modwright users have liked, some haven't) Dan is not a fan of tweaks and says most tend to color the voicing he spent a lot of time on.  That being said, he recommended the Herbie's to me and I like them (haven't spent a WHOLE lot of time a/b'ing them frankly.)  As per the other thread about this, use the Hal-O 9X for high heat.

Of course some power cord rolling is in order, but Lord knows what to recommend.  I use Chris's VH Flavor stuff on a lot of mine.

[Bill Baker]

I played around with tweaking on my original unit. In all honesty, it was only different flavoring. Dan already uses exceptional components in his preamp which is uncommon in this industry.

 If you think about it, Dan is a tweaker so he has already taken all the guesswork out.

 Tubes, power cords and maybe some Bybees are all that need to be considereed in my opinion. Whatever that's worth

[oris98]

Good points !   Does anybody do any kind of vibration controls applied to inside and outside of the case ?   I am thinking of using either Dymatech or Bluetac inside the case and on the caps.   Any copper cones underneath and weight on top of the case for isolation purposes ?

Thanks again ...

[Bill Baker]

I would recommend Audio Points set up in a 3 point arrangement. If using Audio Points (or any other type of coupling) do not use internal damping.
 Whatever method you choose to go with, use one or the other...not both.

[MarkR7]

Walker Valid Points on maple butcher block under the Modwright preamp work very well for me.

[HumanMedia]

Good points !   Does anybody do any kind of vibration controls applied to inside and outside of the case ?   I am thinking of using either Dymatech or Bluetac inside the case and on the caps.   Any copper cones underneath and weight on top of the case for isolation purposes ?

Thanks again ...

Whats your technique for blu-tac inside case?

Big glob pressed into each corner?  What else?

Would other acoustic damping treatments help, like stick-on dampening sheets?

[oris98]

I use a a lot of blue-tac inside the case for damping.  The most important part is the metal plate separating between the transformer and the tube stage.   I simply apply blue-tac randomly in where there is any empty room.  I also applied blue-tac on all the caps.   I notice the background is blacker after this tweak.

[VW]

As a new Modwright 9.0SE owner I'd like to share a  ' tweak ' apart from the aforementioned in this column. As we all know, getting the most out of high-end components involves dealing with hidden gremlins in the audio chain such as mechanical and electrical resonances and RFI and EMF contamination.  On the advice of an experienced  audio friend who runs a Bel Canto Pre2 in his system, I decided to try  Cardas Blocking Caps on the unused RCA's on the back of the Modwright.

I wasn't expecting much except perhaps a subtle change.  The change in my system, was however, quite dramatic, similar to a cable change.  And it was all good with nil downside - greater musical presence, improved bass weight ( something I was trying to achieve with tube rolling ) and  a ' louder ' presentation, like the volume was turned up.  Presumably this happened due to a lowering of the noise floor by combating EMF contamination at the RCA's.

The Cardas Blocking Caps are $36 for a set of 12 ( just perfect for the unused RCA's on the Modwright ! ). You can get them from www.thecablepro.com for a no risk home audition. Ted's great to deal with and in any case, once you hear them they're ( surprisingly ) a no-brainer.

[modwright]

Hi, with regards to tweaking, I find the following to be perfectly valid ways of changing/improving the sound.  I say changing/improving only because we all prefer different things:

1) Power cords.
2) Tube rolling.
3) Vibration Isolation.
4) Power conditioning.
5) analog interconnects.

These are all things that anyone can do with their SWL 9.0SE of course.  We still do offer the Bybee upgrades, but only direct (not through dealers).  We also experimented with Goldpoint and DACT CT-2 stepped attenuators and basicly there is some improvement in low-level detail, but you give up the remote control.  Most people are not willing to give that up for such a small improvement.  As a result, we stopped offering this as an option.  The rest of the parts are top quality and there really isn't anything else that I found worthwhile upgrading.  The Black Gate upgrade in the main supply did make a difference, but they are very expensive, harder to source and time consuming.

To be honest, we have been working hard to just keep up with orders and building stock units.  The custom work took too much time away from this, so most of the custom upgrades were dropped.

With regards to vibration isolation, we do have a product that we just started offering.  We are importing a product from a company in the UK, called the 'Isofeet'.  These vibration isolation feet are extremely well engineered and built and quite simply provide exceptional value in terms of both performance and aesthetics (in my opinion AND my wife's!?!?).  Current SWL 9.0SE units (pretty much all but some of the first made), have three M6-threaded female holes in the bottom of the chassis.  These will accept any isolation footer with an M6 thread - pretty much all footers with male stud use the M6 thread.  The Isofeet are easily user-installable, with two being installed in the front of the chassis and one in the rear.  We are offering them as 'tuned' sets.  The reason for this is that the weight distribution is not even across the bottom of the unit - obviously the power transformer is the single-heaviest component inside.  As a result, we tune each footer to the right spring tension and label them as to where they are to be mounted on the SWL 9.0SE.  The cost is $200/set and you can read more information about them in the current issue of Tone Audio - www.tonepublications.com.  I will have pictures on our website soon also.  Please call us for information or to place orders for the Isofeet.

I feel that the sonic benefits include improved low-level detail, air, separation and improved soundstage.  Although we do take special care to damp many elements inside the 9.0SE, not the least of which being the tube board, there is still a great improvement found in isolating the entire unit.

We are also going to start offering these as an upgrade option as part of our mods.  The only catch being that we will need to machine holes in the bottom of the player at the time the mods are done, to accomodate the male threaded studs.  Basicly, they will be bolted to the bottom of the player and tuned for the specific unit in question.  Pricing for this upgrade mod are still TBD, but I expect it will be $300/set, installed when done as part of another mod.

Our next product offering will be the SWLP 9.0SE preamp ($3995) with built-in phono and outboard supply that will be available through dealers after the Rocky Mountain show in Oct.  We will also have at this time, a SWP 9.0SE (standalone phono stage - $2895) that will be available at the same time.

It is my intent to make it attractive to our customers to be able to upgrade within the ModWright family of products.  Please stay tuned as we continue to increase our product line under the ModWright Instruments Inc. name.

Thanks,

Dan W.

[mtodde]

As a new Modwright 9.0SE owner I'd like to share a  ' tweak ' apart from the aforementioned in this column. As we all know, getting the most out of high-end components involves dealing with hidden gremlins in the audio chain such as mechanical and electrical resonances and RFI and EMF contamination.  On the advice of an experienced  audio friend who runs a Bel Canto Pre2 in his system, I decided to try  Cardas Blocking Caps on the unused RCA's on the back of the Modwright.

I wasn't expecting much except perhaps a subtle change.  The change in my system, was however, quite dramatic, similar to a cable change.  And it was all good with nil downside - greater musical presence, improved bass weight ( something I was trying to achieve with tube rolling ) and  a ' louder ' presentation, like the volume was turned up.  Presumably this happened due to a lowering of the noise floor by combating EMF contamination at the RCA's.

The Cardas Blocking Caps are $36 for a set of 12 ( just perfect for the unused RCA's on the Modwright ! ). You can get them from www.thecablepro.com for a no risk home audition. Ted's great to deal with and in any case, once you hear them they're ( surprisingly ) a no-brainer.

The Cardas RCA caps are a great tweak, widely available and cheap!  I was having some EMI/RF issues with my phonostage and putting the RCA caps on the unused RCAs really made a nice difference in the black level of the sound...when you're using lower output MC your phono stage is doing some serious amplification.  I've got them on all of the unusued RCAs on my pre now and this is probably the second best tweak I've ever made (speaker jumper cables being # 1) and I'm considering the XLR caps for my amp now.

I would caution folks against using the plastic end caps and thinking they are blocking EMI/RF; all the plastic cap does is to keep dust out.

[HumanMedia]

Reading the capacitor review at:

http://www.vhaudio.com/21capacitorshootout.pdf

And knowing there are Sonicaps(?) in the SWL I wondered if upgrading to V-caps could improve the sound.  Can anyone comment if this is worth trying? And which caps to upgrade first?

All this talk about tube rectification making an improvement also made me wonder if there is room for improvement in rectification fro the SWL, by replacing the Hexfred diodes with Crees?

Does this sound like something worth doing?

Any guidance and advice appreciated.

[mtodde]

All this talk about tube rectification making an improvement also made me wonder if there is room for improvement in rectification fro the SWL, by replacing the Hexfred diodes with Crees?

From talking to Dan the tube rectified power supply makes a big difference.  I hope to hear it for myself very soon.

[Double Ugly]

Reading the capacitor review at:

http://www.vhaudio.com/21capacitorshootout.pdf

And knowing there are auricaps in the SWL I wondered if upgrading to V-caps could improve the sound.  Can anyone comment if this is worth trying? And which caps to upgrade first?

Any guidance and advice appreciated.

Has Dan changed caps? 

At one time, he used Sonicaps, specifically the Platinums.  See here.

[MarkR7]

Has Dan changed caps? 

At one time, he used Sonicaps, specifically the Platinums.  See here.

He uses the Sonicap Gen IIs (white caps) in the preamps, not the Platinums (which are black).

[HumanMedia]

All this talk about tube rectification making an improvement also made me wonder if there is room for improvement in rectification fro the SWL, by replacing the Hexfred diodes with Crees?

From talking to Dan the tube rectified power supply makes a big difference.  I hope to hear it for myself very soon.

This will only be available for the SWLP (and teh modded CDPs) not the SWL.  So is there room for diode rectification improvement using replaceable components, in absence of  the external/tube rectification for the SWL?

[HumanMedia]

Reading the capacitor review at:

http://www.vhaudio.com/21capacitorshootout.pdf

And knowing there are auricaps in the SWL I wondered if upgrading to V-caps could improve the sound.  Can anyone comment if this is worth trying? And which caps to upgrade first?

Any guidance and advice appreciated.

Has Dan changed caps? 

At one time, he used Sonicaps, specifically the Platinums.  See here.

Ahh thanks for that.  The Auricaps was just a typo, sorry.

[Double Ugly]

He uses the Sonicap Gen IIs (white caps) in the preamps, not the Platinums (which are black).

You're right, he didn't say he uses Platinums, only that he prefers them to the V-Caps. 

Thanks for the clarification.

[mtodde]

All this talk about tube rectification making an improvement also made me wonder if there is room for improvement in rectification fro the SWL, by replacing the Hexfred diodes with Crees?

From talking to Dan the tube rectified power supply makes a big difference.  I hope to hear it for myself very soon.

This will only be available for the SWLP (and teh modded CDPs) not the SWL.  So is there room for diode rectification improvement using replaceable components, in absence of  the external/tube rectification for the SWL?

I thought this would be an  option offered to SWL owners...in checking the tube rectification thread, Dan's last post doesn't mention this.  The standard SWL offering will be with a solid state power supply.

I've heard a friend's SWL 9.0 many times...my SWLP should ship Monday.

[modwright]

Some Clarifications:

We use Sonicaps - Gen I's in large values for output coupling and small values for PS bypass.
We use Sonicap Platinum Caps (Teflon) for bypass of output coupling as well as at input to grid and interstage coupling in tube circuit.

The SWL will not be available with tube rectifier, but the SWP, SWLP and player mods will be.

Todd, your SWLP with tube rectifier should show up tomorrow if not sooner .  Enjoy! and please do share your impressions.

Take care,

Dan