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Musiland Monitor 01 US - more mods

Posted by Thorsten (M) on December 27, 2009 at 22:47:29

Folks,

A few days back I commented on the Musiland Monitor 01 Devices and some mods for the 01 US specifically:

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/6/66891.html

Here a pic of the modded 01, stage 1:



Since then I got a little time to do some more work. As I had a request for a unit that remained easily portable and USB powered with a good quality line out I did not try separate supplies, super-clocks and all that.

Instead I focused on the two main weaknesses in the DAC section that are easly addressed, namely the filter capacitor for the reference voltage pin and the Op-Amp.

After changing the reference capacitor to 220uF/16V Elna Silmic (feel free to try other too, I just like that particular one) with an SMD film bypass I also changed the Op-Amp to AD8620 (at +/-5V it sounds pretty good).

The result of these two fairly minimal added mods (after the big round of power supply cleanups) is to turn the Musiland 01 US into a fairly capable solid state DAC, running directly from the PC with 192KHz 24Bit (and anything below) capability.

I don't much play around in the world of Solid State DAC's. I am listening routinely to an non oversampling TDA1541 Double Crown with tube analogue stage (fed directly from a Motherboard SPDIF output which is quite a bit modified) and next to this the modded Musiland sounds a little white, not as harmonically rich and a little constrained and not as spacious. The GF observed the same, as it happens, from the side, curled up on the sofa, her first remark was "This does not sound quite so impressive.".

That said, I would say when comparing it to much of the mainstream (non usb) all solid state DAC's out there, this modded Musiland sounds suprisingly resolved, detailed, spacious and smooth. It is definitly very listenable.

And it will do 192/24 for the latest High Rez Downloads.

Now.

So if you can mod your own stuff the Monitor 01 US (or the Monitor 01 Mini as remarked elsewhere) is not a bad starting point, even using the on-board DAC, just sort out the basic problems (powersupplies, nondescript op-amp in the Analog Stage) and it will sing quite well.

But it does make me wonder what a fully "pimped out" version with a linear supply for the digital section, a really good clock and a tube analogue stage (of course disabled switched supplies) would sound like.

Could be a killer tubed 192/24 USB DAC for very little money. If I use what I can readily get from diyhifisupply and know well, it looks like around 750 US in bits and bobs, including the musiland, a case and all, some assembly required, but all the hard work already done.

With more DIY (assuming one is capable to do it) the cost could be quite a bit lower than that.

Ciao T
Thor

At 20 bits, you are on the verge of dynamic range covering fly-farts-at-20-feet to intolerable pain. Really, what more could we need?

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Kimber Kable

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