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ASL Wave 8 cap mod report (long)

Posted by Mr. Noodle on March 26, 2002 at 08:06:17:
First off, whatever happened to "Mon?" He's the one who started all this! Well anyway, thanks Mon. After reading his posts about doing the coupling cap swap with Auricaps I became intrigued and have finally gotten around to doing this myself.
Like many others have done or are planning to do, I used two .47uF Auricaps per amp. These replace the two coupling caps per amp, some Wave 8 amps have Bennic .22uF value caps and others have reported having Bennic .47uF's, I had the .47's. You'll see in the picture in this post just how you need to orient the black and red leads of the Auricaps. Take note of the front of the amp and the layout, there's not much more to say- just orientate the caps as seen in the picture. I was fortunate enough to have a fellow Inmate, Jim A., help out with the mod. He figured out the signal flow direction and thus the correct orientation/directionality. If you plan to do this mod please remember that you must be careful working around those filter capacitors, they can easily kill you by stopping your heart. Therefore it's safest to drain the filter caps and use a meter to measure voltage. If you want to know how to drain the caps consult some pro's over at the Tweaker's Asylum or find someone who knows how to do this. This may be old news to many but it was news to this newbie. After removing the stock caps you might have to clean up the hole a little bit for the larger Auricap leads to fit through. You can twist the leads pretty tightly and they should go through, if not then you might trim a few strands off the leads for an easier fit. You might open the hole up a bit with a tool if careful. To get at the caps on the underside of the board, remove the four screws that hold the PCB in place from the top of the amp. The LED light/wires pull right out of the faceplate, then move the red wires going to the power button out of the way and you are able to pull up one whole end of the PCB at an angle for working. An extra set of hands is nice.
Upon first listen right off the workbench I noticed nice extension at the extremes, the bass was much more solid and deeper. Compared to stock MUCH tighter and more solid down low! Overall a tighter sound, somewhat more up front and bigger too. Over the next few days I noted more of the same, more detail, bigger sound, excellent bass. I had recently swapped out the stock Ei tubes for Svetlana 6BM8's, which at the time of the mod had several days on them (75 hours or so). The Svetlana tubes are an improvement over the Ei's in my system, they extended the treble and bass, evened out the plumpy mid bass that the Wave's seem to exhibit and they cleaned up the treble. In a word they brought a much more "linear" sound, maybe "refined" quality, compared to the Ei's. Others have reported similar impressions.
I let the Auricaps settle in for a good 50 hours or so before really sitting down for a critical listen. I don't know if I have ever experienced such a dramatic change in the sound so suddenly. At about 60-65 hours or so all of the sudden the Auricaps just hit their stride. The tone just snapped into shape, the treble became liquid, images retreated back further into space and the backdrop of the sound just went quiet. It was so sudden, I wasn't expecting it at all. In retrospect the Auricaps sounded a bit tizzy up top, forward, kind of cluttered, confused and incoherent up until then. I was blaming my speakers at first. Now at about 80 hours it's just more of the same after that magic 60-65 hour transformation. The Waves just seemed to get out of the way, which they had done a pretty good job at already. Hey, I like these amps a lot, I liked 'em in stock form. Now, the Waves sound much more refined, some rough edges are smoothed out and the tone is beautiful.
The Auricaps have really improved things all around. Cymbals are less brash, delicate cymbal taps are eerily real and ring with such realism. Cymbal crashes seem to hang on longer too. The treble is just fantastic at this point! Very clean, smooth and extended. I noticed that the amps sound more quiet too, there is more silence between notes. The tone of voices and instruments seems more faithful compared to stock. I mean I could go on and on. It's just an all around improvement. Auricaps in my view are very neutral sounding, detailed too, but they also are very liquid through the mids and treble. So in turn the Wave amps sound much more liquid, balanced and ultra engaging. After that 60 hour point I also noted a huge improvement in soundstage depth, dimension and layering. That feeling the speakers have all but completely disappeared. Again, a silence to the background allowing for excellent definition of image placement and depth into the soundstage. That feeling of "you are there" has been dramatically enhanced. There is an effortless quality that has permeated the entire picture at this point, the fabric of the music is very natural and engaging, real, focused, more colorful and liquid.
Anyway, enough with the audiophile stuff. This upgrade was well worth it, the Auricaps sound fantastic and I wholly endorse them. They seem to balance detail and resolution with liquidity and neutral tone. The improvement is stunning. If you like these amps already, for $40 you can make them even better. The key here is to give the Auricaps break-in time, a good 60-75 hours or so before getting too critical. Anything short of that and you might be mildly impressed. I strongly suggest the Svetlana 6BM8's, they too improved the Wave 8's- again rounding off those rough edges the stock Wave amps exhibit. And I use good Belden power cords with them too, with good connectors (Marinco/Furutech). The cap mod, the Svet tubes and good after market power cords can really transform these amps. It would be interesting to hear other caps too, like some Jensen's, Hovelands or Angela's. Another Inmate is trying Jensen's. But I know you can't go wrong with Auricaps.
For reference if anyone is curious:
ASL Wave 8's (Svetlana 6BM8's)
Wheatfield Audio HA-1 tube preamp (Brimar 12AU7, Amperex PQ 7119's)
Art DI/O DAC modified by The Bolder Cable Company (oh mama!!!)
Axiom Audio Millenia 3 Ti's
Modified Paradigm powered sub
The Bolder Cable Company signal, digital and power cables
Monster HTS-2000/ACME Audio outlet