Members Tomm Williams Posted October 11, 2013 Members Share Posted October 11, 2013 Quite a few years back when I considered myself an audiophile (of some sort). Amp mods were fairly common especially on David Hafler units. I don't see this mentioned in SR. Does this simply not take place as there is no need ? Perhaps warranty issues and folks experimenting was just a "tinkers" fad ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted October 11, 2013 CMS Author Share Posted October 11, 2013 The 5 year warranty on some amps would make me very reluctant to open the box. The fact that I can't think of anything that needs improvement (regarding circuitry) on 99% of the amps on the market makes this a complete non-starter for me.Some folks can't help but tinker. I'd hate to see the results of digging into a Class-D amp if you don't have extensive knowledge of the particular amp you're playing with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Shaster Posted October 11, 2013 Members Share Posted October 11, 2013 Like Craig, I can't imagine a decent modern power amp needing a mod, and if it did, you could just buy the appropriate amp - many amp costs are down from years ago.Actually, I can't even see the sense of most guitar amp mods. I'll see some guy with his Fill In The Blank guitar amp, and he's beaming with pride at the amp mod he had done. Most of the time, I can never hear the difference -and I play guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted October 11, 2013 Members Share Posted October 11, 2013 I used to mod everything in the old days. I wouldn't dream of it now. Multi layer PC boards and switch mode power supplies are for professionals only. Typically I would guess that you could get more benefit from performing a really good gain structure calibration and learning a good tuning program like smart or systune Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted October 12, 2013 Members Share Posted October 12, 2013 Don, how often have you been accused of being gentle??? Tomm, sometimes there are ways to beef up an amp but to outright change something meaningful is rarely a viable option. I did modify some crossovers in GX series amps to 800hz for a very specific application. I had the schematics and pcb layouts, calculated the necessary filter values from the existing topology and delivered to the customer with mfg. approval. Of course, I have also built more then my share of amps. With these, I can do anything I want. Then we build thousands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wesg Posted October 12, 2013 Members Share Posted October 12, 2013 I'm always hearing about guys changing op-amps on things like older mixing boards to quieter models. I'm always worried that if i do this that it will result I wierd things happening like Clip lights being inaccurate, or the amplifiers being susceptible to supersonic oscillatikon. Too bad, though, I would love to get my Simmons SPM:8 back into my rack...even set up perfectly, the noise floor is only about 72dB... Not good enough for me to take the time to troubleshoot the bad SMPS in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted October 13, 2013 Members Share Posted October 13, 2013 Problems with "upgrading" opamps include loop stability, layout stability, power line (vcc) stability, input impedance and noise figure, output drive currents versus frequency (pbw), supply current, etc. Better understand how these all interact as well as the "dope engineer" that successfully designed it before attempting to upgrade with other parts. For the folks that claim that a blanket has been removed from their modded device, prove it with a double-blind test or it isn't true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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