Cheap CD5 Upgrade
Posted by: bazz on 04 January 2003
Since I got my CD5 a few months ago I have been lusting after a separate power supply for it, after hearing in dealer demos the very unsubtle improvements brought about by adding a Flatcap 2.
Browsing the forum a few days ago I was reminded that older Hicaps, such as my chrome bumper model, have a second, 4 pin single rail power outlet to accommodate old single rail preamps and/or Snaxos. I also recalled that going from single rail 32 to dual rail 32.5 was the most underwhelming Naim upgrade I ever made, and that the single rail input is still usable, provided pins 1 & 5 of the dual rail input are bridged.
So there was the germ of an idea. If I could use both outputs of the the Hicap, maybe going back to a single rail preamp wouldn't be too much of a disaster and I could power the CD5 as well.
A hunt around in the used parts bin produced a grey 5 pin Snaic and two old-style 4 pin Naim din plugs. Half an hour with a steady hand on the soldering iron (jeez I hate soldering those things) and I had a 4 pin Snaic. I made one of the left over 5 pin plugs into a shorting plug for the 32.5 & that was it.
I plugged everything in, using my black Snaic between Hicap and CD5 and, bingo, it works perfectly. The improvements are at least as great as those I recall from the FC2 in shop demos, maybe better but it's hard to tell without direct comparison. The overall effect is very similar to the difference between using Snaps & Hicap on the preamp. With the inferior PS the sound, comparitively, just collapses into a fairly undynamic heap in the middle.
The Hicap doesn't appear to suffer from having to supply two outputs, if a Snaxo was used as origainally intended it would be anyway. In any case, my 32.5 has most of its boards pulled, so it wouldn't be drawing much current and only the analogue section of the CD5 is supplied from an external PS.
There's very little degradation on other sources, only about what I'd normally expect going from black Snaic to grey. All in all a great improvement for virtually no cost, certainly worth a try for anyone with similar equipment. Best of all there's no internal wiring mods. If you don't like it you can put everything back the way it was in a minute or so.
I certainly won't be going back. I'm still on the lookout for a s/h Hicap, but for now a black 4 pin Snaic has gone to the top of the shopping list.
Browsing the forum a few days ago I was reminded that older Hicaps, such as my chrome bumper model, have a second, 4 pin single rail power outlet to accommodate old single rail preamps and/or Snaxos. I also recalled that going from single rail 32 to dual rail 32.5 was the most underwhelming Naim upgrade I ever made, and that the single rail input is still usable, provided pins 1 & 5 of the dual rail input are bridged.
So there was the germ of an idea. If I could use both outputs of the the Hicap, maybe going back to a single rail preamp wouldn't be too much of a disaster and I could power the CD5 as well.
A hunt around in the used parts bin produced a grey 5 pin Snaic and two old-style 4 pin Naim din plugs. Half an hour with a steady hand on the soldering iron (jeez I hate soldering those things) and I had a 4 pin Snaic. I made one of the left over 5 pin plugs into a shorting plug for the 32.5 & that was it.
I plugged everything in, using my black Snaic between Hicap and CD5 and, bingo, it works perfectly. The improvements are at least as great as those I recall from the FC2 in shop demos, maybe better but it's hard to tell without direct comparison. The overall effect is very similar to the difference between using Snaps & Hicap on the preamp. With the inferior PS the sound, comparitively, just collapses into a fairly undynamic heap in the middle.
The Hicap doesn't appear to suffer from having to supply two outputs, if a Snaxo was used as origainally intended it would be anyway. In any case, my 32.5 has most of its boards pulled, so it wouldn't be drawing much current and only the analogue section of the CD5 is supplied from an external PS.
There's very little degradation on other sources, only about what I'd normally expect going from black Snaic to grey. All in all a great improvement for virtually no cost, certainly worth a try for anyone with similar equipment. Best of all there's no internal wiring mods. If you don't like it you can put everything back the way it was in a minute or so.
I certainly won't be going back. I'm still on the lookout for a s/h Hicap, but for now a black 4 pin Snaic has gone to the top of the shopping list.
Hi Bazz,
Great post. I've got a black 4 pin snaic that you could borrow. I've never swapped back to my old grey one.
I'd love to "hear" your handiwork. I've often wondered if naim could make a hicap 2. Do you have a black 5 pin?...mine is a home made job that came with the hicap.
Dave
Great post. I've got a black 4 pin snaic that you could borrow. I've never swapped back to my old grey one.
I'd love to "hear" your handiwork. I've often wondered if naim could make a hicap 2. Do you have a black 5 pin?...mine is a home made job that came with the hicap.
Dave