Hacking Schiit

A follow up to my bifrost 2/64 hacking

Do as I say, not as I do...

While it "kinda, almost" worked, in the end I had to concede defeat. There was not enough room on that board for 4 Burson opamps. I tried for several hours today, had intermittent signal, but there was enough strain on the soic to dip adapters that it would pop loose and pull pcb traces. Eventually after several connecting wires to re-do the traces, I called it dead and ordered a new output board.

To be fair, the rca plug mod and the first opamp in the u17 position did really help ease the bifrostbite. I shoulda left it there. Oh well. It cost me a couple hundred to try it out and had some fun and good practice soldering on pcb.

Maybe someday Schiit will make it easy for us and install opamps in a dip socket.

 

I have an older Modi Multibit that has distortion on the RCA digital input (USB sounds fine). The RCA input is loose and the distortion increases if I play with it. A friend offered to solder it for me and suggested I get a new female RCA connector in case that is the issue. Any suggestions on which one I should get?

 

WBT 0210, AECO, KLE. I’ve heard good things about Viborg too.

 

I don't know if there are any meaningfully better board mount options. Most of the nice stuff is chassis mount and much bigger than the stock. Given how tiny the chassis is, not sure if you have many options without real modification. Maybe this Cardas: https://www.moon-audio.com/cardas-grfa-prt-female-plug.html Depends on the board mounting holes. I'd just reflow the solder and see if that helps. Or pay a few cents to get a stock replacement.

Are you able to open the chassis and show pictures of the problem jack on the board?

 

Here are some pics:

 

Also I'd be happy to get the stock rca, perhaps I should email Schiit and ask which one they use? I'm hoping someone here may know in case they don't disclose that info.

 

Looks very similar to CUI Devices' RCJ-04X series connector:

https://www.cuidevices.com/catalog/interconnect/connectors/rca-connectors?q=_vOOa2ivOca3ov4Pa3qvzE

 

Looks like this one will work.

PJRAN1X1U01AUX Switchcraft | Mouser

 

@loadexfa, have you tried re-flowing solder on the existing plug connections onto the PCB? They don’t look too good and a cracked or dry solder joint can be a cause of such problems.

 

Thank you all, really appreciate the help! I'll get both of those latest suggestions, they're super cheap anyways.

This is outside my skill set unfortunately. A local friend is helping and thought it best to have a replacement RCA just in case. Hopefully your suggestion is all that is needed.

 

The likelihood of the RCA jack itself being a problem is super low. Have your friend reflow the solder connections and see what happens.

 

OK, I have gone a bit further down the rabbit hole and to got to a point where I wanted to power it up and make sure it was all still working, and here she lives.



The current setup has dual toroidal transformers and much more direct wiring as recommended by @Azimuth and @nlitworld.

All in all, things are looking up. The comparison of the dual mono Piety vs. the single Piety is not something I can speak too much about at this point but it is not insignificant of a difference. The Dual Piety setup expands the stage very nicely and is better defined in character. This has been a really fun project and still not complete as you can tell by the picture.

Next steps include casework that is going to be a woodworking project with my kids and their grandfather, but they are going to need some time!

 

loaner when?

 

The amp is all together and ready for some folks to give it a listen. I am sending it out to @Azimuth this week, but if anyone has some interest please let me know and I will set up a loaner thread.

One thing to note is that the volume pot is not super secure to the casework and I have not been able to get it tight for some reason. Dont worry about it, just let it wobble a bit and let the music flow!





Why not throw up some hearts if I should create a loaner thread.

 

Has anyone reading this done this particular opamp upgrade to the Gungnir MB? Or does it even need it?

Or, any other Gungnir updates I should be aware of or that you can point me to?

Thinking it would be good to go through and replace some of the electrolytics on the output board...

 

What we need to do is use this as a preamp to drive the DSHA-3FN...

 

Gungnir has a FET discrete output. There might be an op amp to change for DC servo, but that’s about it. Same for Yggdrasil, although LIM and MIL I think have op amp outputs.

 

Ok, this is in the house and holy Sch%&*@$t!

Everything on the Piety just went up a notch or two with gaining more power. Bascially, better width, better depth, more effortless presentation. The biggest wins though are not even those things - it also has better controlled lows that are slightly more defined, and smoother mids. I can't even hear the slight grain around the 2k area. You would almost swear there is a tube in the audio path, but it is not at all.

Now this is purely just a balanced in -> balanced out situation. So basically it is kind of like bi-amping headphones. Think of that way. Although this does have some different power transformers and upgraded power caps, and the volume was replaced with an Alps.

 

Probably too late to comment, but I’d simply reflow the solder joints before replacing the part. If that doesn’t work, changing the part is the next step. Anyway, any update?

 

My friend said the part itself was loose inside in addition to a questionable solder joint and ended up replacing it with this one:
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Switchcraft/PJRAN1X1U01AUX?qs=mcPJWgAPNreYXlGua1XJWQ==

Works perfectly now!