Behringer Amp Mod

[Maxxwire]

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On 2006-06-30 21:55, RickeyM wrote: The Gold-plated FI-10(G) sounds a bit warmer and is especially suited for digital or solid state equipment."

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Does this mean that you will go for the gold?

~Maxx~

[RickeyM]

Yeah, that is unless I go totally in the other direction and hardwire it.

[Maxxwire]

If you know what Power Cord you want to use and don't care to experiment with different kinds of power cords you might as well straight wire a power cord into the Amp and skip the added hardware and expense of the IEC plug and socket.

~Maxx~

[RickeyM]

That's a good idea with upgrades looming for my receiver and CDP as well.

[Maxxwire]

Straight wiring the Power Cord would not only be a more direct connection, but it would also save you money on all of those extra IEC parts and you would be able to as the late Benny Hill use to say "Cut out the Middle man".

~Maxx~

[RickeyM]

Copper PC wins! To satisfy my own curiosity, I compared a power cord of silver plated copper vs all copper. The silver plated/teflon coated was from Ebay and the copper was the Carol brand they sell at Home Depot. Terminations were the same, Hubbell plugs & Marinco IEC's. The 'plated did have a little more "air" and "detail" but the copper only had better dynamics and a fuller sound. Since I have about 10-ft of Carol wire left, I'll wire my receiver and CDP with it and see how it sounds. Higher quality power plugs are in the plans too.

Also previously I had wired the amp outputs to the speaker x-overs with 12ga Romex wire and noted an improvement over the stock wire/circuit board/ multi terminal setup. Well, just for grins, I unwound some wire from a 15ga air-core inductor and replaced the Romex with it. Despite being slightly smaller in guage the bass got better! Definatly more kick. Deeper & cleaner too. I'll just have to see how it sounds when I install the upgraded speaker terminals and wire them with the better wire.

I continue to be amazed at how good this "low priced" pro-audio amp sounds in my system. These inexpensive amps are perfect additions to a receiver with pre-outs who's owner wants BIG power without breaking the bank . The great thing is, there are more mods to come for even better sound .

[Maxxwire]

RickeyM- Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear that the Carol SJ00W copper wire works so well in your DIY power cords.

I also compared 10 AWG copper conductor against 10 AWG Silverfuse conductor power cords and found that there ws always a distinct difference between the two only some components prefered the copper wire and while others prefered the Silverfuse wire while neither worked as well on my Digital front end equipment as copper conductor Network Filtered powered cords.

Its great that you can hear the difference between power cords and then make up the right cords for your equipment.
I've gone back and switched power cords after a few months and after hearing the degradation in sound quality it immediately became clear how much of an important difference having the right power cords make to the overall sound of the Audio system!

~Maxx

[Maxxwire]

RickeyM- I transfered the following question from Elderon from another Thread because it better fits the context of this Thread-

Elderion-

RickeyM, did you replace your stock fan in the EP1500?  I replaced the fan in my EP2500 from Digikey http://www.digikey.com/scripts/dksearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=P9739-ND and it was a huge improvement.  Did you get a chance to try the Auricaps for by-pass duty by any chance?

[RickeyM]

I replaced my stock fan with one I ordered from NewEgg.com.  It's acutally installed on the outside of theamp housing, drawing air from front to back. Quieter this way.

[Elderion]

Wow, nice looking mods, RickeyM.

I will have to check to see which direction my fan is blowing, but it does make more sense that the air should be flowing from front to back.   It is very quiet now, but any noise reduction is good.

Did you settle with the Carol cables for your power cord and what kind of binding posts did you use?  Also, can you give me a heads up on what gasket you use to hold the power cord to the amp chassis?

Thanks,

Eld