Capacitor upgrade

RICHARDIIII

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I have been thinking about upgrading my DAC....ANK DAC 5.1. There are 2 Audio Note copper foil ones and some Mundorf Aluminium Evo in the power supply.

I plan on replacing the AN with AN silver foil and the Mundorfs with Supreme Oil.

With the Mundorfs being in the power supply, is it worth replacing the caps?

I have already replaced the valves with top notch NOS. Are there any other upgrades that would embed worth considering? I'm prepared to spend around £1000.
 

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Fatmarley

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I'd be very surprised if it wasn't a huge waste of money, but copper foils are my favourite for signal path, and I try to avoid silver anything because it sounds unnatural to me.
 

rabski

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Personally, I very much doubt the power supply caps will make an audible difference. Even if so, Mundorf would be a long way down my own list. For a change there to have any effect, you'd want something with better ESR performance and actually a possible improvement may come from caps that are in fact cheaper than those fitted. I'm thinking of the Vishay DC Link ones, though fitting would be a complete nightmare, as they're a LOT bigger. That said, you would ideally want to model the power supply in software carefully first, as any change could have unexpected effects. The ESR may well have been considered 'as is'.

The AN silver will make a difference. Whether it's actually an improvement is another matter. It's worth noting that ANUK quite often don't use the silver foil coupling caps even in their very high end stuff. I do know someone with a Kondo M7 who changed from AN copper to silver and I've heard it. Gives to my ears a slight 'sheen' to high treble that I'm not sure I like. Everything depends on the circuit and with resistors and capacitors there needs to be a balance. AN's own designers don't like the 'all silver' approach and mix and match to stop too much of any emphasis.

I can't see the markings, but from the size I'm guessing those are .47uF, so the silver foils would be well above your total budget in the first place anyway as they're about £750 each AFAIK.
 

Tazzo

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AN Silver foils are VERY expensive, there are cheaper and probably better better alternatives,. I'm sure the Mundorf's say 47uf and 33uf as the smaller one is 3.9uf. Beware - changing caps can be hit and miss, but if you get a sound you like they can be a great tweak.
 

rabski

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AN Silver foils are VERY expensive, there are cheaper and probably better better alternatives,. I'm sure the Mundorf's say 47uf and 33uf as the smaller one is 3.9uf. Beware - changing caps can be hit and miss, but if you get a sound you like they can be a great tweak.
There are three films in the HT supply: 3.9uF, 47uF and 33uF plus a 47uF electrolytic. Three chokes as well. That's unusual and obviously been chosen for a reason.
 

Lokes

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The best caps I've ever fitted to anything are V cap teflon, they take weeks to run in though and when I bought mine the exchange rate was $2 to the £. so they were sensible money at that time.
They'll be a smidge leaner than your AN caps, possibly a bit more detail.
I have the same AN copper caps in my modest valve DAC and they'll stay there short of a lottery win, they're very good.

A friend has used the Audio note silver in his CD player and it sounds excellent,
he bought them used and for a good price, the new price is toe curling and I'd be surprised if it couldn't be better spent elsewhere.
 

JamieMcC

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the new price is toe curling and I'd be surprised if it couldn't be better spent elsewhere.

I think your pretty much spot on with your comment when you start considering significant sums for such components.


The go to favourite of many diyer builders which costs about the same as a cup of coffee in comparison to try is adding a small UK value Russian military surplus teflon bypass to your output caps easy to add and remove in parallel.
 
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Jazid

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JamieMcC is on the money here IMHO/FWIW/YMMV &c, and Richard's opinion about PSU choices is sage advice.

That DAC is fantastic as is, and to be brutal to you OP, the chance of you improving it with random tweaks howsoever gratifyingly expensive is sweet Fanny Adams. Said tweaks will likely brutalise the resale value as well if you don't like it.

I would advise emailing Brian Smith who owns ANK, on ankaudiokits@gmail.com
and ask him what he thinks. He's very approachable and has been through this stuff already; he can help you make prudent choices to flavour it differently, but 'better' is a tough act to master at this level of product refinement.
 
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RICHARDIIII

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Yes I emailed Brian the other day.

I was listening this morning and just though, this sound amazing, why do I want to fiddle with it?
If I do anything, then I might see if I can try a SW1X DACIII, otherwise I'll just chill out on swapping things!
 

RICHARDIIII

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I have decided to focus on the signal caps in the Dac for now. I'll be getting some Dueland CAST silver. There are only 2 .22uF, still a big spend, but as worth while as I'll be keeping the dac for a long time. I'm also investigating replacement I/V transformers. I'm waiting to hear from ANK what are in my DAC and awaiting a response from HI FI collective regarding some Audionote Trans 496s.

That leaves the four 0.47uF 400v caps in the amp. Still undecided on those. Definitely not Silver as they would cost £2400, either Dueland CAST copper or V-cap CuTF. Finally, I'll replace the Alps pot with a TKD.

I would be nice to do the amp and dac in stages, but I will be asking Tom at Art Audio to do them both at the same time so I'm not repeatedly driving up and down the M1.

I know this will all add up to a substantial amount, but I've sold some expensive speakers and their replacements will be £2000 cheaper, so I don't feel too bad!
 

Jazid

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I think you'll find that there are silver wired I/V transformers in there, crafted for that chip in that circuit. You'll be paying a lorra lorra dosh, probably needing them hand wound by a unicorn on a virgin's thighs, to add the magic you crave. If there's a real issue maybe the DAC isn't right for you. If you just love tweaking stuff then cool, I do too and understand the temptation, and the lack of motivation to consider cost when doing it :)
 

JamieMcC

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One of the inescapable truths when purchasing anything of high quality is that you pretty much always pay exponentially more.

The flip side with high quality products is you get to appreciate and enjoy using them long after the price is forgotten.
 

RICHARDIIII

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I think you'll find that there are silver wired I/V transformers in there, crafted for that chip in that circuit. You'll be paying a lorra lorra dosh, probably needing them hand wound by a unicorn on a virgin's thighs, to add the magic you crave. If there's a real issue maybe the DAC isn't right for you. If you just love tweaking stuff then cool, I do too and understand the temptation, and the lack of motivation to consider cost when doing it :)
There is no issue with the DAC at all. My thinking is as I like it and plan on keeping it a long time, why not fit the best components possible and make it as good as it can be. I would have to spend a considerablely larger sum to change the DAC (I would fancy an SW1X at somepoint). Again, I love my amp, but lots of people recommend the TKD over the Alps and whilst it is getting that done I might aswell try some different caps.
 

RICHARDIIII

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One of the inescapable truths when purchasing anything of high quality is that you pretty much always pay exponentially more.

The flip side with high quality products is you get to appreciate and enjoy using them long after the price is forgotten.
I've always had that philosophy. For example, If I try to save 25%, I will forever be wondering what it would be like if I bought the best. Then to try the beat I have to spend the whole amount again. I much prefer spending money on thinks that last many years.... but hate spending money on holidays! The money is gone in a week and never to be seen again!
 

rabski

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You cannot just swap the IV transformers for something 'better' without other circuit changes. The overall circuit does not use any digital filtering, so the low-pass filter is implemented purely in the analogue IV section and relies on the transformer characteristics. Change the transformers and be prepared for it to potentially sound significantly worse unless the circuit on both the transformer primary and secondary is changed as well.

The Audio Note transformers are anyway incredibly hard to get hold of and incredibly costly. That said, I don't even know if there is one 'better' than the ones you have in it. It may well already have the best available.

Do (or let others do) what you like to the analogue gain stage if you must, but seriously leave the digital side and the IV section well alone. If you want to spend crazy money on transformers, you could always change the output ones for the silvers. May need a second mortgage though, they're about £7600 each. But then you only need two :)
 
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RICHARDIIII

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You cannot just swap the IV transformers for something 'better' without other circuit changes. The overall circuit does not use any digital filtering, so the low-pass filter is implemented purely in the analogue IV section and relies on the transformer characteristics. Change the transformers and be prepared for it to potentially sound significantly worse unless the circuit on both the transformer primary and secondary is changed as well.

The Audio Note transformers are anyway incredibly hard to get hold of and incredibly costly. That said, I don't even know if there is one 'better' than the ones you have in it. It may well already have the best available.

Do (or let others do) what you like to the analogue gain stage if you must, but seriously leave the digital side and the IV section well alone. If you want to spend crazy money on transformers, you could always change the output ones for the silvers. May need a second mortgage though, they're about £7600 each. But then you only need two :)
I have just had a reply from the owner of ANK....he said the same. He said that he has heard from a few customers using the CAST silver caps and they love them. So I'll stick with just those on the DAC.
 

lostwin

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I get the tweaking thing, it’s the best bit of the hobby for me. You love what you’ve got, but is there anything more you can eek out performance wise.

Gains are usually small, sometimes just different. But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the most profound improvement from a tweak that I have experienced is isolating the speakers on springs. DIY is possible or Townshend will do a sale or return on their Podiums.

If you haven’t already, that’s where my money would go. It won’t change the voicing of the system,but it will make it sound , in quite a fundamental way, better.
 

RICHARDIIII

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I get the tweaking thing, it’s the best bit of the hobby for me. You love what you’ve got, but is there anything more you can eek out performance wise.

Gains are usually small, sometimes just different. But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the most profound improvement from a tweak that I have experienced is isolating the speakers on springs. DIY is possible or Townshend will do a sale or return on their Podiums.

If you haven’t already, that’s where my money would go. It won’t change the voicing of the system,but it will make it sound , in quite a fundamental way, better.
I have always just plonked them on the carpet!

I have been looking at the Townshend website about thier podiums and "Earthquakes under our feet". It's nice to see a hifi product with a detailed scientific explanation.

How do they work with stand mount speakers? Do you put the stand on a platform or the platform/iso pods between the speaker and stand? .....Just when I thought my hifi spending was coming to an end!
 

MF 1000

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Detailed scientific explanation …..that’s pushing marketing blurb to its limits imho
 
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