My Dynamat/Blu-ray Player Art Project
Hermitism
Posts: 4,262
Intro To The "Audiophile" World For The Bargain Shopper...
As some of you know, a month and a half ago I started buying a new audio system. I was replacing a twenty-some year old JVC receiver, Pioneer and Optimus speakers. The surrounds had rotted in my Optimus-120s, so I started shopping for Polk speakers. I already had a PSW125 that I had bought new. I bought two fronts, a center, two surrounds with stands and a sub for $400 on Craigslist. I also bought a used Denon on eBay which didn't work out...long story. At that point, I knew nothing about YOUR world. I thought the brand of the speaker wire didn't matter, only the gauge was important. That's when I started reading the threads in this forum.
I bought some used speaker cables from DSkip and immediately could hear more bass in my speakers. And believe me, as great as my fronts are for home theater purposes, they lack bass for listening to music, so the cables were a great improvement. I have to give DSkip mad props for not changing his name and email address due to my constant barrage of questions on almost a daily basis.
Originally I was going to buy an entry level receiver but all of you steered me away from that decision. The "D" man found me a used Pioneer Elite receiver on Craislist. Under DSkip's tutelage, I began some inexpensive upgrades/modifications to my Pioneer BDP-51FD Blu-ray player which I bought from the same guy that I bought the receiver from. I was skeptical, but thought it was worth my time and trouble if I could keep the dollar value low. I found a box of Xtreme Dynamat on eBay and won the auction for $1.29 plus shipping. It contained two 10" x 10" sheets. I also found a used (1 meter) Pangea AC-14 power cable for $22/shipped on a different forum.
They both arrived the same day. I took one sheet of Dynamat and cut one-inch strips for the top cover. The second sheet I used to make cuts to fit the bare sheet metal for the base. I didn't cover any of the numerous holes on the unit. I covered the top of the optical drive encasing and cut around the circular removable cap and label. I put a narrow strip on the back of the drive and some on the brace on one side, the other side had cables anchored to it. There was a large space underneath the drive and I was able to cut a five to six inch long strip and slide it underneath the drive without having to remove it. I was lucky enough to get the strip to slide underneath without the sticky side making contact with the base. I then took a short seven inch plastic ruler and bent it enough to slide in between the drive and the frame and used it to apply downward pressure to get the Dynamat to adhere to the base unit. I applied some to the back bezel of the base unit, and the front bezel that hides the front circuit board. I then applied the one inch strips evenly spaced to the lid. I applied a strip to each side of the cover, keeping in mind how it fits together and overlaps the base. All the leftover pieces were used to fill in between the strips on the lid. I used every scrap.
I put it back together using the Pangea power cord and hooked that puppy up. I was dumbfounded. It really made a difference. I haven't learned the audiophile lingo yet, but the picture and sound both showed improvements. $30 well spent. I'm sure anyone that tries this will have varying degrees of improvement depending on how close their player is to a vibrating speaker/sub and whether their component stand is shaky or sturdy. I also suspect the bigger your TV and better your speakers are, the bigger the improvement. Since I did both improvements at the same time, on the same day, I can't contribute the changes I hear/see to one or the other...or both.
I also found a used power conditioner that arrived yesterday. It has an old retro-style power meter on the front that lights up blue. I keep catching myself listening to music while staring at the hypnotic blue meter and smiling. Maybe I'm just easily amused. Every time I make an improvement, I immediately see or hear the results. Then two hours later I start thinking of what I can do next. I can see where the addiction comes from for always wanting to upgrade and modify.
I know I'll be shunned for admitting this, but I do still listen to MP3s via thumbdrive on this system, sometimes. Only because some music I don't own on CD. There is a difference in sound between MP3 and CD, but the MP3s sound better than CDs did on my older system. I see myself buying a lot of new CDs and Blu-rays in my near future.
As some of you know, a month and a half ago I started buying a new audio system. I was replacing a twenty-some year old JVC receiver, Pioneer and Optimus speakers. The surrounds had rotted in my Optimus-120s, so I started shopping for Polk speakers. I already had a PSW125 that I had bought new. I bought two fronts, a center, two surrounds with stands and a sub for $400 on Craigslist. I also bought a used Denon on eBay which didn't work out...long story. At that point, I knew nothing about YOUR world. I thought the brand of the speaker wire didn't matter, only the gauge was important. That's when I started reading the threads in this forum.
I bought some used speaker cables from DSkip and immediately could hear more bass in my speakers. And believe me, as great as my fronts are for home theater purposes, they lack bass for listening to music, so the cables were a great improvement. I have to give DSkip mad props for not changing his name and email address due to my constant barrage of questions on almost a daily basis.
Originally I was going to buy an entry level receiver but all of you steered me away from that decision. The "D" man found me a used Pioneer Elite receiver on Craislist. Under DSkip's tutelage, I began some inexpensive upgrades/modifications to my Pioneer BDP-51FD Blu-ray player which I bought from the same guy that I bought the receiver from. I was skeptical, but thought it was worth my time and trouble if I could keep the dollar value low. I found a box of Xtreme Dynamat on eBay and won the auction for $1.29 plus shipping. It contained two 10" x 10" sheets. I also found a used (1 meter) Pangea AC-14 power cable for $22/shipped on a different forum.
They both arrived the same day. I took one sheet of Dynamat and cut one-inch strips for the top cover. The second sheet I used to make cuts to fit the bare sheet metal for the base. I didn't cover any of the numerous holes on the unit. I covered the top of the optical drive encasing and cut around the circular removable cap and label. I put a narrow strip on the back of the drive and some on the brace on one side, the other side had cables anchored to it. There was a large space underneath the drive and I was able to cut a five to six inch long strip and slide it underneath the drive without having to remove it. I was lucky enough to get the strip to slide underneath without the sticky side making contact with the base. I then took a short seven inch plastic ruler and bent it enough to slide in between the drive and the frame and used it to apply downward pressure to get the Dynamat to adhere to the base unit. I applied some to the back bezel of the base unit, and the front bezel that hides the front circuit board. I then applied the one inch strips evenly spaced to the lid. I applied a strip to each side of the cover, keeping in mind how it fits together and overlaps the base. All the leftover pieces were used to fill in between the strips on the lid. I used every scrap.
I put it back together using the Pangea power cord and hooked that puppy up. I was dumbfounded. It really made a difference. I haven't learned the audiophile lingo yet, but the picture and sound both showed improvements. $30 well spent. I'm sure anyone that tries this will have varying degrees of improvement depending on how close their player is to a vibrating speaker/sub and whether their component stand is shaky or sturdy. I also suspect the bigger your TV and better your speakers are, the bigger the improvement. Since I did both improvements at the same time, on the same day, I can't contribute the changes I hear/see to one or the other...or both.
I also found a used power conditioner that arrived yesterday. It has an old retro-style power meter on the front that lights up blue. I keep catching myself listening to music while staring at the hypnotic blue meter and smiling. Maybe I'm just easily amused. Every time I make an improvement, I immediately see or hear the results. Then two hours later I start thinking of what I can do next. I can see where the addiction comes from for always wanting to upgrade and modify.
I know I'll be shunned for admitting this, but I do still listen to MP3s via thumbdrive on this system, sometimes. Only because some music I don't own on CD. There is a difference in sound between MP3 and CD, but the MP3s sound better than CDs did on my older system. I see myself buying a lot of new CDs and Blu-rays in my near future.
Post edited by Hermitism on
Comments
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Thanks for sharig the results of your tweaking.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
I only cut my fingers three times. Once on the sheet metal while removing the top, once on the jagged aluminum layer edge of the dynamat as I rubbed downward to get it to stick, and once as I passed the x-acto knife past my finger as I sat it down. I looked like Rambo after I was done due to all the cuts and scars. Nice.
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Thanks for the pics Hermit and the prompting Dskip. I'll have the same player shortly and will be doing similar mods.2-ch System: Parasound P/LD 2000 pre, Parasound HCA-1000 amp, Parasound T/DQ Tuner, Phase Technology PC-100 Tower speakers, Technics SL-1600 Turntable, Denon 2910 SACD/CD player, Peachtree DAC iT and X1asynchorus USB converter, HSU VTF-3 subwoofer.
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Thanks for the pics Hermit and the prompting Dskip. I'll have the same player shortly and will be doing similar mods.
Need to open mine up as well.... give me another project as my HTPC will soon be fully employed at work since the last part I need is being shipped to me as we speak...
Travis, you and I should take pics and of ours and post em here...."....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963) -
It's difficult to get decent placement on the base of it. If I had it to do over again. I would have set the base on it's side before sliding the long piece underneath the optical drive. That way gravity wouldn't have been working against me. Once the sticky side touches the base, it's probably there for good, unless you removed the drive. I highlighted the piece in this picture. I think if you turn the unit on it's side, you can make it reach the neighboring circuit board.
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Skip, I thnk it's time for you to take up a few more notches. Replace those power supply and signal path caps with audio grade versions. Also, replace the power supply diodes. Replace the audio out RCA's with WBT Nextgen's and use high quality chassis wire in place of the board mounted connections. If you can replace the clock, it will make a noticeable improvement as well.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Oh, I see how you are. You kept a few tricks up your sleeve for yourself. You didn't share those tips with me. You thought it was beyond my skill set, didn't you? Skip gives me no respect
The Phillips head screwdriver is the one with the "x" on the end of it, right? -
Finally got around to adding more dynamat to this player. In addition to the areas hermit hit, I also removed the power supply board and got a nice layer under it.
I got some large strips under the power supply board and was also able to get the part underneath the optical drive that I was unable to get before with the power supply removed and out of the way.
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Immediate results include longer decay, better details, and better image separation.
What does longer decay mean? -
What does longer decay mean?
How long a note sits in the air until gone.
You didn't think he was referring to gum disease did ya ? lolHT SYSTEM-
Sony 850c 4k
Pioneer elite vhx 21
Sony 4k BRP
SVS SB-2000
Polk Sig. 20's
Polk FX500 surrounds
Cables-
Acoustic zen Satori speaker cables
Acoustic zen Matrix 2 IC's
Wireworld eclipse 7 ic's
Audio metallurgy ga-o digital cable
Kitchen
Sonos zp90
Grant Fidelity tube dac
B&k 1420
lsi 9's -
Nice! Skip's dental hygiene hasn't come up in conversation during our correspondence.
I've done all I'm going to do to this player. I'm too scared to remove the analog board. The ribbon cable connection looks delicate. My luck, I'd somehow damage it. I'm happy with what I accomplished. Done. Now on to other pieces.
