Phil,
I picked up a modded Havanna, based on Sean Caseys reommendaton after listening to yours last spring. This is a fantastic DAC. Mine has thefollowing mods:
1) The replacement of the two input capacitors with Jensen copper foil paper in oil in aluminum case ones.
2) The replacement of the cap behind the input caps with a Jupiter HT.
3) The replacement of the two output coupling caps with Jupiter HTs.
4) The conversion of the RCA coaxial input connector to a BNC connector for true 75 ohm compatibility (I will include a BNC to RCA adaptor).
5) The substitution of a Hi-Fi Tuning Fuse for the stock fuse.
6) The substitution of the stock tube with a Western Electric JW396A/2C51.
I did not do the mod's as the previous owner had it done. I am also now curious about the DAC chips. I need to pop the top and see which ones are in it.
In the positive feedback review they mention the following about replacing the dac chips with AD1856.
"Mhdt designed the Havana so it would delight tweakers everywhere: Jiun-Hsien told me that There is a secret that we only tell Havana users, that if they want to they can replace the stock PCM56P chips with AD1856 chips (which are pin to pin compatible), without changing any components in the Havana DAC. We assembled the Havana with IC sockets for the two PCM56P chips. We purposely installed these two IC sockets so that Havana users could experiment with further possibilities if they wished, like the AD1856 chip, or others."
Did you ever try the AD1856 in your Havanna? If no, do you know anythin about it?
Thanks
Todd
I picked up a modded Havanna, based on Sean Caseys reommendaton after listening to yours last spring. This is a fantastic DAC. Mine has thefollowing mods:
1) The replacement of the two input capacitors with Jensen copper foil paper in oil in aluminum case ones.
2) The replacement of the cap behind the input caps with a Jupiter HT.
3) The replacement of the two output coupling caps with Jupiter HTs.
4) The conversion of the RCA coaxial input connector to a BNC connector for true 75 ohm compatibility (I will include a BNC to RCA adaptor).
5) The substitution of a Hi-Fi Tuning Fuse for the stock fuse.
6) The substitution of the stock tube with a Western Electric JW396A/2C51.
I did not do the mod's as the previous owner had it done. I am also now curious about the DAC chips. I need to pop the top and see which ones are in it.
In the positive feedback review they mention the following about replacing the dac chips with AD1856.
"Mhdt designed the Havana so it would delight tweakers everywhere: Jiun-Hsien told me that There is a secret that we only tell Havana users, that if they want to they can replace the stock PCM56P chips with AD1856 chips (which are pin to pin compatible), without changing any components in the Havana DAC. We assembled the Havana with IC sockets for the two PCM56P chips. We purposely installed these two IC sockets so that Havana users could experiment with further possibilities if they wished, like the AD1856 chip, or others."
Did you ever try the AD1856 in your Havanna? If no, do you know anythin about it?
Thanks
Todd