Eliminating spade connectors, upgrading bits, soldering all of it in

Dear @decooney  :: I really appreciated an audiophile and MUSIC lover as you that look for a better quality system level performance to stay truer to the recording. 

As you I made several tweaks on my system speakers and electronics, next " something " of those tweaks:

" My speakers: are " heavy " tweaked to do that: first it has " three hands " ( internally ) of a insulation/antivibrational treatment ( like a white paint. I can't remember the ingredients. ) from Acoustical Magic Company ( it works marvelous ) inside all the box.

It is internally hard wired with Silver Oval by Analysis Plus cable and KCAG by Kimber Kable. 

I take out the crossover ( now is external ) and change all the parts: resistors ( Powertron by Vishay. ), all silver air core solid ribbon ( 5.5 cms. of pure silver. Almost 2kg. of silver in the bigest one. ) Alpha-Core inductors , WIMA FKP 1 caps  in the crossover, the speakers cables goes soldered directly to the crossover parts. This speaker crossover is tri-hard-wired from the  amps output to the 3-way crossover parts and speaker drivers. 

In reality are three separate/stand alone crossovers: one for the tweeter, one for the midrange and the other for the woofer, all these hard-wired directly to the amps ( no connectors. )

I'm only not biamp my system ( with the subs. ) but these ADS main/satellite speakers are true tri-wired in hard-wire directly from the amps to each crossover parts in the three way speaker design all the way down to the amplifier output.

I change the internal damping glass fiber by 10kg ( each one ) of long hair 100% virgin wool and change the fabric cloth of the grille for a " transparent one ".

Both speakers have at the rear-center the Antiresonant Vibration System by MICROSCAN model TM-8 that works from 20hz to 1.5Khz.

Back external tweeters:

These ones was a spare tweeters from a Dalquihst DQM-9 that I owned and already sold.

These tweeters are 1" silk dome ( same efficiency that the front ones ) and are connected in phase with the front ones and works with his own crossover at around 5k and up and have, too, an off/on switch. 

Subwoofers: These two self powered subwoofers are in front of the main speakers and in side firing position.

It crossover at 78Hz. I do some tweaks in the circuit for a better quality sound reproduction and I changed the internal wiring that connects the woofer to the internal amplifier ( 50-60cm ), the original is a very bad zip cord one that I changed with Kimber Kable KCAG that I soldered directly to the woofers and directly to the amplifiers: with no connectors in between.

The power cord comes from Analysis Plus and is soldered directly to the inside subwoofer switch on/off with out no single connector kind ( at both sides/ends of the power cord ) and the IC cable is the Silver Oval by Analysis Plus too.

I change too the internal electrical power wires that goes from the subwoofer switch on/off to the Subs amplifier, I'm using KCAG by Kimber Kable.

NOTE: I'm not using the subwoofer internal high pass crossover or an external electronic crossover to send the signal to the ADS L 2030.

The crossover function happens inside the two modified Levinson 20.6 mono-blocks at its input through a WIMA FKP1 cap and a single nude 0.001%  Vishay 2575 resistor.

In this way the signal from the preamp goes normally ( pure and clean ) to the 20.6s and to the loudspeaker with out any additional electronic stage or cables/connectors and the signal was taken directly from the Essential 3160 by the Velodynes.

I modified the original Levinson circuitry where the signal at the input only " see " one tiny value WIMA FKP1 cap ( crossover. ).

I made it other amps internal modifications.  

The amplifiers power cords are hard wired KCAG silver wires by Kimber Kable all down the amplifiers circuit boards with no single connector of any kind between both ends of the power cords.

I change too some internal critical place cabling using now KCAG by Kimber Kable. 

I use two independent 30amp dedicated electrical line and the power cords go conected directly to the electrical box ( no power connector/plugs ). 

These electrical power lines has ( each one ) two 3.6Kw full regulators to mantain 120v. with RFI/EMI supresors and surge protection with additional 90db of noise supresor.

All these power cord goes directly soldered inside the electronics audio items ( amps, preamps, subs, etc, etc. ) with no male/female connectors in between.  All system power cords are pure silver KCAG by Kimber Kable ( no cooper wire down there and anywhere. )

The electrical power " signal " goes straight from the electrical power source " box " to the audio item power supply with out any single " obstacle " that can " disturb " it.

I by-passed all the internal fuses in the electronics that comes with any single audio item/device in the system .  The best fuse is NO fuse at all. 

The audio signal that goes from the Essential 3180 to the Levinson amplifiers goes directly soldered to the Levinson input boards, so there is no RCA or XLR connector in the audio signal here that can degrade in anyway the audio signal integrity..

Part of my philosophy is that : " less is more " trying to add and lost the less. ""

Congratulations for your success.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

@sns,  care to share more about the streamers you build and some advice and tips?

I didn't personally build my present streamer although I've customized it further from point I purchased. This particular streamer was built by one of the leading members over at audiophilestyle forum. Generally you'll find custom build streamers using some kind of atx motherboards, most of them will have upgraded internal switching power supplies powered by external linear power supplies. ATX motherboards require a number of different voltages for various components which complicates the power supply. Most builds incorporate upgraded internal switch mode power supplies powered by external linear power supplies. I upgraded this power supply via JCAT Optimo ATX full linear power supply, this over $6k so you get the idea of complexity. So power supplies keep noise down. Next you'll generally find modified Windows or Linux operating systems to  disable many functions of a general purpose computer, again this to minimize processor work load and minimize noise. My build uses Euphony operating system which goes even further than the modded Windows or Linux in disabling various functions. Euphony also incorporate a Stylus proprietary music player or one can use Roon, and both can be separated for a two streamer setup, which means Cores for the first in line streamer, this now becomes a server, second in line streamer is the Endpoint for Roon or Stylus. Euphony OS also has option of incorporating on board HQPlayer if one has need for DSP engine. ATX boards also incorporate pcie expansion slots which allows for things like customized usb, I2S, network cards, these from companies like JCAT, Pink Faun. I incorporated JCAT XE network card which offers superior network filtering and clocking, this also powered via external lps vs powering off motherboard. All these various cards can be powered externally. And then we have RAM mods, these generally going to Optane industrial grade RAM, Euphony also incorporates full RAM play in which one can fully buffer music files to RAM so direct play from RAM. Generally you'll find fairly powerful processors in these builds in order to maintain a lower level usage of processor resources, this for seamless experience and lower self generated noise. I generally see less than 1% use on 7 threads in my processor, this with Roon.

And the above may have neglected some things, so as you can see complexity abounds. With these custom builds one take it further than most off the shelf streamers, My particular build was directly compared to many off the shelf, this up to Aurender W20SE and found to be superior to all, this prior to my mods. Custom builds can go further than mine via Taiko Extreme clone mods, 

Previous to this streamer I went through a series of modified Mac Minis, each one going further than previous build. This simpler path than ATX builds, and these can provide excellent streaming sound quality. The problem with these is no longer much support for  audiophile mods with Minis.

@sns 

My build uses Euphony operating system which goes even further than the modded Windows or Linux in disabling various functions.

Euphony is in fact Linux, a modded version of Arch Linux to be precise.

Arch, like all Linux distros, is open source software - you can download it at no cost and install it on your system.

Euphony is a paying product with a subscription business model like roon.

The Linux license allows modifying the Linux kernel as long as modded versions are posted. Euphony failed to do that, presumably to protect their paying model. There is no organized enforcement of GPL (see below) rules, therefore the open source ecosystem largely relies on the honor system.

You could look at it like Euphony ignored open source rules and leveraged the work of others for its own profit. Whether a person condones such behavior and enables it with their financial support is their decision, although to be fair Euphony never exactly highlighted any of this in its marketing materials.

More on open source licensing:

GPL stands for the GNU General Public License, which is a widely used open-source software license that guarantees users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software. It is a "copyleft" license, meaning any software modified or distributed under the GPL must also be licensed under the GPL, ensuring it remains free and open for all. This protects the software from being made proprietary and promotes community collaboration and innovation. 

Euphony offers more than the OS via interface, Stylus player.