Alex Yakovlev wrote:

Romy, would you mind elaborating on specifics of your power supply? My Bidat is going to John in a couple of weeks and I am finalizing my thoughts. Thank you.

I do not have any “specifics of my power supply” as I do not use any custom power supplies. I use the stock Bidat’s power supplies with two power transformers are taken from the Bidat’s chassis mounted in a separate box (the box is from EAR 824P) – you can see in on the picture above.

The Bidat’s caps where changed and the 4 Bidat’s rectifiers were changed. The most important the crappy ceramic green caps that were shunted the high-noise old rectifiers were removed, as the newer better diode does not need to be shunted. It is pretty much it. The DAC regulators were not changed, I feel that better audiocom discreet regulators would do better but I was afraid to jinx HF response, so I let the sleeping dog to lie…

Vance wrote:

Romy, it takes several months for those blackgate caps to fully calm down….

Actually I take more like several decades and then 5 years after you each time shut down the unit for 5 minutes. I am known to be not a huge fun of BG, in fact I religiously against them. The regular Rubicon caps are way better then those Hi-Fi “BG expediters”. The fully burned-in Black Gates might be more or less OK but the question why people shell be going over months and years of pain and suffering with BG if the very same (even better) result might be accomplished with other caps that have no ESR instability and no “artificial sound insemination.” Anyhow, based upon my attitude you understand that I have no BG in my Bidat, nor anywhere in my playback.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2123

Vance wrote:

I replaced the stock power cord with a ….. you're interested.

Hm, Bidat had a stock power cord? I would never thought so….: -)

Vance wrote:

I just commissioned Moray James to make a digital cable for the Bidat. You may or may not know that John Wright used Moray's digital cables to voice his mods and Moray uses John's modded bidats to make his cables. I've heard from others that the resulting synergy is amazing. I'd be glad to post results once I audition it if.

I am not familiar with what Moray James does. The name sounds familiar. There was guy in UK scene who was Moray James – sounded like an intelligent fellow. I have no frustrations with digital cables and have a solution that I very comfortable. I would be very interested in balanced digital cables though that would perform at the level of my Synopsis….

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=5323

Vance wrote:

The Shunyata cord PLUS the Hyrdra conditioner represent the single best upgrades to my system aside from John's mods. I was skeptical about power cords and conditioners, but I'm a bit of a fanatic about it now. The testimonials from major studios and audiophile producers on the Shunyata website are also make interesting worth reading.

Vance, I respectfully disagree with your regarding Hyrdra. I have the first version of it and then sent it back as it sounded very grotesquely. In a few years I was told that they “fixed the problems” and had the Hyrdra-2 version but it sounded to me too covenant to believe – so I did not try it.

However, the subjects of my post are not the level of Shunyata solutions and it might be even slightly off the Bidat subject. I will do it once and will not continue it. Vance, there is no needs to dispatch anybody to manufactures website to read the “testimonials from major studios and audiophile producers”. At this site was are all in our own and only your own words and thoughts are counted and valuable. There are no needs to bring other testimonials or prove anything to anybody…

Romy the Cat wrote:

Vance wrote: The Shunyata cord PLUS the Hyrdra conditioner represent the single best upgrades to my system aside from John's mods. I was skeptical about power cords and conditioners, but I'm a bit of a fanatic about it now. The testimonials from major studios and audiophile producers on the Shunyata website are also make interesting worth reading. Vance, I respectfully disagree with your regarding Hyrdra. I have the first version of it and then sent it back as it sounded very grotesquely. In a few years I was told that they “fixed the problems” and had the Hyrdra-2 version but it sounded to me too covenant to believe – so I did not try it. However, the subjects of my post are not the level of Shunyata solutions and it might be even slightly off the Bidat subject. I will do it once and will not continue it. Vance, there is no needs to dispatch anybody to manufactures website to read the “testimonials from major studios and audiophile producers”. At this site was are all in our own and only your own words and thoughts are counted and valuable. There are no needs to bring other testimonials or prove anything to anybody…

I have no idea why Bidat is so hipper sensitive to electricity. I thought to big up the PS caps and to put there instead 4kuF something like 60kuF -100kuF. I did not do it. Perhaps it would be worth to try…

BTW, my Bidat now entered the day 15 of the Nichicon Syndrome. Now the HF are done completely. It sounds like a gramophone with 5-7kHz max range. Taking about the good sounding digital…. Anyhow the HF should be back in 10-12 days..

I'm slow. What's your view on the moray james cable? Heard about it? Do you have a bidat? What digitial cable have you found to work best with it.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Bidat, for whatever reason is remarkably sensitive to electricity, probably it is more sensitive than any other my priced of equipment. What however is ugly is that during different time, during the different problem with electricity the different methods to cure electricity had different impact to Bidat. Sometime sound dies and using a regenerator or balance isolator on Bidat it is possible slightly to reanimate the DAC. Another time no matter what you do it does not help – sure there is not known to me universal solution that does not crap sound and helps all time. I have no idea why Bidat is so hipper sensitive to electricity. I thought to big up the PS caps and to put there instead 4kuF something like 60kuF -100kuF. I did not do it. Perhaps it would be worth to try… BTW, my Bidat now entered the day 15 of the Nichicon Syndrome. Now the HF are done completely. It sounds like a gramophone with 5-7kHz max range. Taking about the good sounding digital…. Anyhow the HF should be back in 10-12 days.. The Cat

Generally the search functionality works, anyhow….

The thread about my digital cables:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=5323

The thread about electricity:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2931

The Bidat’s volume control must not be used under any circumstances…

Form email I got from John Wright

“PS, In case you care, the Bidat gets better all the time with fresh updates ….I mean it will sound broken in comparison. I have made some very good changes to the power supply and the output stage that have made it more transparent and with real bass now.  It's even more musical.  And no, I didn't just change the op-amps and caps.  I made some actual circuit changes and further simplified things.”

That is tempting and I would probably go for it. Bidat does have own unique sound that woks in my view remarkably well with very aggressive had-reading CEC TL0. Having Pacific and Lavry Gold I still have Bidat paired with TL0 and frankly no motivation to change anything. The lowest bass was always Bidat’s weakest point and if John found a way to get more or it then it might be very good. Did anybody exposed recently own Bidat to the most resent modification and can corroborate on John comments?

Romy the Cat wrote:

Form email I got from John Wright “PS, In case you care, the Bidat gets better all the time with fresh updates ….I mean it will sound broken in comparison. I have made some very good changes to the power supply and the output stage that have made it more transparent and with real bass now.  It's even more musical.  And no, I didn't just change the op-amps and caps.  I made some actual circuit changes and further simplified things.” That is tempting and I would probably go for it. Bidat does have own unique sound that woks in my view remarkably well with very aggressive had-reading CEC TL0. Having Pacific and Lavry Gold I still have Bidat paired with TL0 and frankly no motivation to change anything. The lowest bass was always Bidat’s weakest point and if John found a way to get more or it then it might be very good. Did anybody exposed recently own Bidat to the most resent modification and can corroborate on John comments?

From an email I just got from the site’s visitor:

"I got my bidat re-modded by John about three months ago and a friend of mine had his done last month. We are both pleased with the changes. Mine already had the super mod package and his had no previous mods. The latest mods strike me as more "analogue." Break in continues to be lengthy for John's mods. The unit didn't settle until about 150 hours. During that time, it was very disconcerting. Some recordings sounded like they'd been "re-mixed." Fortunately, everything returned to normal but with improvements in bass (more tautness and more extension), less digital harshness and an even wider and deeper soundstage...."

Spoke with John last night. It seems that the comments of the folks who did the modifications recently are not relevant and the new 2010 modification were not yet implemented on any DACs out there. The new modifications are mostly in PS and analog stage, not the parts swapping but actually circuit change. John very positively commented about his new changes. It is hard to say. We never met him and we never were listening the same sound and correlate our notes after all. From different perspective 3 modifications that John did on my Bidat over the year never took me to the direction that I did not like. So, I decided to try and to see what would happen - the Bidat will riding to Canada next week…

I have a very good grip what Bidat does in my playback as it runs parallel to Lavry Gold and I know very precise what the difference is. It would be very interesting what the Bidat 2010 would do. If John will be able to get out of Bidat the same quality of bass that Lavry Gold has then it will be fantastic.  Let see how it goes….

miab wrote:

Do you think the Bidat will be back before the move for impressions on the mods? It might be hard to tell what/if the mods make a difference in a positive directions if you throw a whole new room into it. Your experimental control group will be dismantled. If it hasn't gone yet it might be wise to hold off on the mods until you get a thorough idea what your current Bidat does in new room. That is if you think the Bidat won't be back before the move and you don't have a second Bidat that sounds identical to the one you want to send to John.