Schiit Wyrd mod...

I actually wanted to wait until I have more components coming in to take proper photos, but since Hands asked me about it, and I know a few folks have expressed interest in this, I'll post what I've done then.

I soldered 12-13 1pF ceramic capacitors in series (that's super high volt, and <0.1pF effective capacitance) into one array. More if you'd like more "clarity". Then I soldered that array in parallel to 2 1.0uF metal film caps, 2-3 (depending on how "thick" I'd like the sound to be) 0.47uF metal film caps, and 1 0.22uF metal film cap (for flavoring). All of those are in parallel to the 2 big capacitors in the middle of the board, which are parallel to each other anyway (so you can split the above out instead of soldering them all onto one of the caps).

Here's a photo of an early try. Note that I also tried adding more capacitance (more electrolytic caps) but that didn't really seem to change much... if at all?



Now, for some quick FAQs:

What will this do? If you find that the Wyrd is a bit thin-sounding, too sharp/razor/focused, and it's lacking a bit of "weight" to the sound, then this will give it just that, but without really sacrificing on anything else. Conversely, more ceramic caps of capacitance greater than 1pF can be used in series/parallel/weird combinations in order to make Wyrd brighter, which may benefit DACs like the Bifrost Multibit.

Am I yanking your chains? Does this really make a difference? I'll let others who have heard my little "experiment" at the last SF meet chime in on that. But to be perfectly fair and honest, all this could just be in my head, and I could just be crazy. Hence the poll above.

Is it adding distortion? Well... electrolytic caps will most likely out-distort the other types anyway, so... I don't know.

I did take some inspiration from this article regarding capacitor linearity and all that:
http://stiftsbogtrykkeriet.dk/~mcs/hkjsdh/sbench102/caps.html

If you scroll down to the end, there's measurement suggesting that when you put a better cap in parallel to a worse cap, their characteristics kinda... average or even out. It's pretty interesting how that happened, so... I just had to try and experiment. But hey, don't take me or that article as gospel. Both of us could be wrong, or missing something major.

If you have paper-oil caps, please feel free to try them out and report back, as I'm curious myself.

Anyway, that's it for the "voodoo". Slap a piece of adhesive felt on top if you would like. I think the felt piece helps "distinguish" a modded Wyrd from a stock one, at the very least.

P.S.: my apologies to Schiit Audio for "molesting" their child in this way. You guys can void the warranty of my Wyrd now.

 

I can sense Jason's headache through the Force

 

LOL shouldn't Mike also get a headache because this may interact with his DAC? I hope I don't get Force-choked any time soon...

 

We need to scrounge up a few NOS mil-spec PIO caps you see floating around in people's amp builds, those should elevate the sound to new heights.

 

Actually, in at least one configuration, yes it did. I sent him my Uptone Regen (Don't know why I bought it) to compare

Other aside: USB Cable/length mattered with the regen. That was weird.

 

Yes! Now I'm gonna have to try and see if I can make it sound "better" than an Uptone Regen!

We can try sticking ZD paper-oil caps into a Wyrd at December meet, I think. Saves on shipping.

 

I has spare wryds, maybe its time to give it a try....

 

I've got a spare I can donate for the greater good of needed.

 

This is a thing? How common? I may not have just bought two for two different setups if I knew this was a thing.

 

Years back one of the 'tweeko' things to do was to build a capacitor 'stack' out of several different sized caps as a way of insuring as rapid a response of the cap to the demands of whatever it was functioning as (power supply, speaker crossover, etc.) so that it had as minimal a sonic impact broadband for the entire (and beyond) audio spectrum.

I never did hear if there was a 'formula' or a set of guidelines were figured out, but the aim was to allow the cap to 'flow' based upon the circuits needs. This usually meant using a series of fairly high voltage rated decreasing value caps all in parallel.

I can see where this might also be a way of adjusting the sonic effects of adding these filter caps.

Just a thought.

JJ

 

Wouldn't a series sequence of capacitors have a blurring effect on the sound?

Like when a train engine is reversed from pulling a line of cars to pushing them. The slack inherent in the coupling results in a delay between each car actually being affected by the push, one after another, not all at once.

 

Idea was based upon the polar opposite of that thought.

Each capacitor has a response time and duration, based upon the circuit it is in.
The idea was to provide a response to the demands of the circuit such that there was no delay (within the audio spectrum) nor inability to meet the need for the duration of voltage and current of that circuit.

Big electrolytic's have much more energy storage but much slower response, while smaller caps respond much faster but have less total energy storage.
So finding a balance such that the totality of the response does not impact the needs of the circuit for the entire audio spectrum was the goal.

And these caps aren't in series but in parallel.

JJ

 

I totally understand and concur on the science when they are in parallel.

I left ambiguity in my original statement, by posting lower in the thread and not quoting the statement in the op. My post was in reference to this in the op: " I soldered 12-13 1pF ceramic capacitors in series".

 

I approve the mod! Bravo.

 

Oops, sorry, I didn't have much time to look at this thread until now.

And "blurring effect" isn't generally true. I think that will only apply to purely passive components (resistors), but capacitors are different.

Here's a (very poorly thought out) analogy:

When in parallel, they act like multiple guns firing together... so you can imagine the electrolytic capacitor acting like a big cannon... slow to fire, but a lot of brunt force and power (bass?). Smaller capacitors reduce the size of the bullet, but since they are firing smaller bullets at the same force, you can guess that the smaller bullets are going faster.

Essentially... use capacitors with big values for bass and blunt force, and capacitors with smaller values for treble and rapid firing.

But what about capacitors in series? Well... imagine the bullet just gets marginally smaller and smaller and smaller, and yet the force it's being fired at is about the same.

Of course, it's nice and all to visualize that, but whether that's really how it is in reality... I actually have no clue.

 

Has anyone else done this mod? I am still a bit unclear on eaxactly how to impliment this. To me looks like a ton of small caps in series, added in parallel to more new caps and existing ones. What type of caps did you use?

I am interested specifically for the quote from Bill below:

What will this do? If you find that the Wyrd is a bit thin-sounding, too sharp/razor/focused, and it's lacking a bit of "weight" to the sound, then this will give it just that, but without really sacrificing on anything else. Conversely, more ceramic caps of capacitance greater than 1pF can be used in series/parallel/weird combinations in order to make Wyrd brighter, which may benefit DACs like the Bifrost Multibit.

I have a Bifrost Multibit / HD650 and would like to see if I can push the brightness up just a bit. I am game for this mod and would be happy to see if results also come out positive.

 

Same here = I am interested in the mod too but unsure how to do it