Check earlier in this thread for the eBay external cards. Veneet, for example, found a box on Amazon that works well and he cut out a couple of holes (contact him for help). That’s at…
Also look at the R47 desoldering photo in this thread (I think) for those cards, which is necessary to prevent the PS Audio dacs from throwing up a de-emphasis flag (suggest reading the entire thread).
For the Oppomod card, see gazjam’s thread for the result…
Its not difficult to fit the card.
The hardest part was creating a panel gap on the rear for the HDMI socket.
I did a photo installation thread over on a UK hifi forum I contribute to:
Again, which board are you talking about? In principle, I don’t see why not for the external eBay boards, since HDMI out is HDMI out. For the Oppomod board, ask the developer.
Both methods work. Each has minor advantages and disadvantages.
The internal board is cleaner in that you are do not need to connect a raw board in-between 2 HDMI cables. And building a well-fitting housing for the external card is trickery than it looks.
Also, the internal board, it is tolerant of a much wider range of settings on your bluray player than is the external card. With the external card you are required to set the settings on your Blu Ray player in just a certain way to make this board work fully, or various features will not work. And there is a possibility that one of these settings may be in conflict with how you may otherwise want to use your bluray player.
The external board should, in theory, work with more than just Oppos, although there are no directions on this forum for getting any of these players configured properly. It took me nearly a full day of fiddling with a ton of different settings on my 103 before I discovered the exact setting which made it fully functional. So you are on your own with that when it comes to non-Oppos.
The internal board, once it is installed, is a cleaner implementation than is the external board, because and it just adds one additional port to your Oppos outputs.
But in the end, I agree. The cheap card can be made to work just as well. I have not directly compared the sound of these two cards, but the difference was not large, if one exists at all.
I’m not clear about the basis for your last statement. I’m using the eBay card with one I2S-12 and one I2S cable and find it tonally balanced to the high end vs. a good s/pdif cable. I can’t tell if it’s the I2S cable, which I’ve read is made by Pangea or the board. However, one developer took a look at the eBay (cheap) card and wrote me that it could benefit soncially from an improvement in parts. I’m guessing from his other work that Jaehong does a good job on his (Oppomod) board, although I understand his tonal inclinations are “neutral” not my preferred warm.
For me and my upgrade dollar, it was the fact that the Oppomods board was designed (yup you guessed it) specifically for the Oppo that won me over.
Doesn’t hurt that hes a “little bit electonically qualified” (as they say) and a huge fan of Oppo players.
Passing this on purely as Im enthusiatic about the improvements his stuff does, not affiliated in any way.
Always been a modder hifi wise, bought a 203 as my “last disk spinner” and when I read online that MSB did their reference transport based on the Oppo I thought theres potential in this player.
First heard about Oppomod stuff on the DiyAudio forum, where Jaehong posted regularly, left with very good impressions.
Great communication with the guy for all my mods so far, feel he guves a damn.
More likely do deal with him than random Ebay seller from China.
I dislike “warm” cables. to me these just sound dull and often seem to be lacking in both ambience and detail. For warmth and color, I roll tubes.
My experience with both of the of the I2S boards is that these both sound relatively sonically neutral, exactly like my preferred (neutral sounding) SP/DIF cables do when fed from my Vanity HD card. And I have never attempted to find a dull sounding HDMI cable. Perhaps HDMI is less subject to characteristic impedance variations which can impact its sound than is SP/DIF. If so, then buy yourself a Vanity HD card. Then you can use your “warm” sounding SP/DIF cables, if that is indeed what floats your boat.
I’ve found that there are basically two types of listeners, those that like “neutral” and the appealing sonic effects that typically go with it, including what you refer to as ambiance and detail, and those that start with the natural warmth of live acoustical instruments and go from there. There are a number of factors that go into the differences in preference between us humans in this regard, and I no longer judge.
I found the Vanity card to be substantially tonally elevated. Pianos sounded almost like player pianos. I took advantage of the 30-day return. Stereo Dave’s mod at half the price (see Audiogon) was substantially better, with a warm and liquid sound (along with very good detail, staging, etc., at least given the limitations of a 203). If I buy Oppomod’s HDMI/I2S card and an LPS, depending on what I hear, I’d consider sending back it to Stereo Dave’s to look at improvements. They’re open to that.
Hey tarnishedears, I am not sure how you figured out that R47 led to pin 15 but is there a way to figure out what we could desolder to decouple pin 18? Ted has said that it could be interfering with the voltage that the DS is applying already (or something like that)
I haven’t investigate this at all yet. Most of the traces did not have any isolating resistors feeding the output pins, from what I recall. I felt like I really lucked-out when I discovered that they had put a resistor in series with the exact pin that I needed to isolate before.
If another series resistor cannot be identified, then a trace would have to be cut somewhere. This would be much more difficult considering that I seem to recall that these were multilayer boards.
No problem at all if you have some time to take a look that would be great. I tried to take a look, and honestly it is well beyond me, I may try to tape of pin 18 in the mean time and see if I can tell any difference.
Thanks for the original fix, that was a huge improvement!
Got pin 18 covered and there is definitely a difference: clearer, richer, more balanced, less diffuse sound. Almost indistinguishable from my Boomslang coax, except for still a tad more airyness, although I still suspect that’s a function of cables, specifically the current I2S one being used from box to dac, rather than the box itself. Have to see what the Oppomod board does.
This has been an interesting forum and I have some questions that I hope you can answer. I currently am running a Melco N1A server into the ethernet port (Bridge II) of my DS Sr. I also happen to have an Oppo 203. I mostly listen to CDs that I have downloaded into the Melco HD. My questions are:
How would the sound quality of the Oppo into the I2S (using the Oppomod card) compare to the Melco if I’m playing redbook?
I have never had the opportunity to hear a bridge. So I have no basis for direct comparison.
Installation depends upon your skills. It only requires 3 correctly spaced holes in the chasis. If you are experienced with drilling metal, then its not too difficult. But you have to be super careful not to get any metal chips onto any of the boards in the process, lest you release the smoke from your Oppo!
