11-9-2017: Taken awhile but finally did even more terrific mods to the LKS and it is now simply stunning! The mod list below contains the latest info on the mod.
5-15-2017:
I have a friend in Pocoima who has one of these and we have been tweaking them at the same time. He has a great turntable system ($20,000 worth) and he says that playing 16/44 from his Beatis server through coax and then through modified IFI spdif Ipurifier and then through modded LKS is at least as good as his turntable system!! No upsampling....nada....just great sound.
The Basic mod I have worked out is
$500 plus return shipping
and makes a serious improvement in involvement, reality, dynamics, low level detail, imaging, depth, air, lower distortion......well, basically everything. I do mods to the AC power, the DC power, output stage filtering, all output stages, the spdif type inputs, etc.:
1. Remove fuse distortions.
2. Twist AC wires from IEC to power switch
3. Hard wire all AC connections to IEC inlet
4. Re-ground the shield wires from the transformers and hardwire.
5. Remove all steel from around the transformers and remount transformers on pieces of wood.
6. Twist secondary AC wires.
7. Apply Graphene contact enhancer on AC connectors on board.
8. Damp all rectifier diodes with constrained layer damping material
9. Damp all heatsinks with constrained layer damping material.
10. Remove all coupling caps on the spdif inputs and replace with custom pure copper wire in cotton (listened to for directionality).
11. Shorten the signal path on the unbalanced outputs and use our custom wire here.
12. Eliminate one pole of filter caps in output stage.
13. Change all 16 compensation caps in all output stages to better ones.
14. Damp certain power supply caps
15. Change metalized polyester caps on 3.3V power supply to DAC with modified polyprop caps.
16. Properly orient poly caps on output of regulators for output stage.
17. Change IV resistors to high quality ones.
18. Eliminate distortion producing parts (3 of them)
19. Remount output transistors in IV stages and bend them forward so they are no longer close to the power supply caps and put a very thin piece of cardboard between the transistors and caps to further reduce their temperature. The transistors in the stock LKS are too close to the caps and can cause them to burn up within a year if left on all the time. The very latest LKS DACs have the transistors mounted underneath the chassis to eliminate this problem. My solution works as well.
If you are not using the usb input then it will sound better if you either disconnect the power supply from the more expensive board or remove the board all together if you have the cheaper usb board.
NOTE:
The battery for the remote (does not come with a battery) is a CR2032 battery. You can also use a CR2025 but will not last as long.
5-10-2017: For those that are using coax input on anything.....you must use a modified IFI SPDIF Ipurifier. Simply amazing what this modded thing does. Stock, it gets nothing but rave reviews.....modified it is another thing altogether......incredible! The mod consists of damping, removing two LEDs (toslink output and frequency/lock indicator, and hardwiring/shortening the power cable from the power supply. The price of the mod is $65 plus return shipping .
The IFI spdif Ipurifier has an unpolarized AC plug on its power supply. Please try the power supply both ways into the AC socket. It sounds very much better in one direction. Please experiment for best sound.
Please go to this page for more info on how install a modded unit.
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F***in amazing how good my system sounds with the modded iFi !
You hear the change in the recording acoustic (whatever the CD cut has for that) soon as you play cut from the start with the iFI added.
The non specific feeling is that whatever is played sounds more ‘right’.
With one cut from a Peter Wolf CD, I turned the volume control on Gustard down to - 21 db, as that CD is recorded at higher gain than
many I play, to hear everything but not overly loud. After switching in the iFi and starting cut from beginning after a minute I felt as if
the volume had been increased by a db. But I wasn’t inclined to back it off by another db to get it back to original level.
I think because whatever things in the mix that become a little too much with the bit of higher volume were now less irritating to me.
Definitely a home run for $200 bucks. I think this level of improvement are what many think warrant moving up a step or two in DAC cost.
Of course that step up would likely cost 1 or 2K.
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