For those that are concerned about the stereo separation on early Mk 2 players (Rio-branded players are not affected), you can identify if you have the fault by visual inspection.

Open up the player and remove the drive tray (follow the guide in the drive upgrade article at riocar.org if you haven't done this before).

On the left of the mainboard is the DSP (it has a Philips logo on it). To the left of that is a small blue resistor pack. You want the resistor next to that, shown in the blurry picture below (finally the camera in my phone is useful for something!).

If it has '000' printed on it, you're ok. If it has '1000' or '100' printed on it, then you are affected and have the following options:

1. If you're competent with a soldering iron (that is, you've worked with SMT components before), remove the resistor and either bridge it over with solder or fit an 000 resistor.

2. Send the player in for repair. All affected players are out long since out of warranty, but I will carry out the repair free of charge, provided you pay for shipping.

Again, with the resistor marked...

Thank you very much for the great information.

I didn't know there was a such thing as a "0 ohm resistor". Interesting.

Can either you or Hugo explain exactly what one would expect to hear out of the player in this situation? Would a reduction of stereo separation be the only thing we'd expect to hear, or would there be other things we might notice? How much of a reduction in stereo separation would there be?

I didn't know there was a such thing as a "0 ohm resistor". Interesting.

If you build by hand there's no trouble fitting a short piece of wire to bridge over another conductor, but pick-and-place robots used in automated assembly can't handle wire as easily as a component -> 0 Ohm resistors. They exist not only as SMT components, but as through-hole too...

/Michael

I figured that in that situation they'd just make a circuit trace there instead of a pair of pads.

Okay, I've added an entry in the troubleshooting FAQ about this, basically paraphrasing what you said, and resizing your photograph. Let me know if the text needs any corrections.

Yeah, usually called "Jumpers". Some thru-hole look like honest-to-gawd resistors ('cept they have ONE black line on them, for "0". Or, in the case of early 90's pinballs, white round ceramic looking things.
Of course, us techs called 'em "Wyre" (in a souther, hillbilly accent), because that's what we replaced them with if we ever had to adjust settings or some such junk. :> (In those earlier games, some reall-custom settings were enabled/disabled by use of those jumpers..)

Me.

The only difference is ~20dB difference in stereo separation. You can hear this on affected players if you play a track with full-scale on left and nothing on the right (and don't encode it as joint stereo!) and you can still faintly hear something on the right channel (and vice-versa).

You can't tell by fading using the balance control, as it doesn't do a full channel cut.

Hugo

Thanks, I'll add that information to the FAQ entry.

Okay, I did this on my player (the resistor on mine said "1000" when I looked) and have lived with it for a few days.

Because there's a circuit trace running beneath this resistor, I didn't want to take the chance of accidentally shorting it, so I left the "1000" resistor in place and just solder-bridged over the top of it (with the help of a small bit of wire). Only took a couple of minutes. The most time-consuming part of the job was disassembling and reassembling the player.

I did not perform any empirical tests either before or after the modification. I could have pumped it through SpectraLAB just for detailed info, but I didn't bother. I figured, regardless of any testing, I would be doing the mod anyway, so what's the point.

Now that it's done, I believe that I can hear a significant improvement in the overall sound of the player. It could just be my imagination, but it feels like there's more than just better stereo separation. The music just seems to have more presence and punch.

Has anyone else done this yet? Any comments on perceived improvement?

Thanks again, David and Hugo, for the information.

Double blind testing! Can't trust a plain before and after

- Trevor

Agreed. I will concede it might be my imagination.

Maybe instead of a wire, you could have installed a switch. Then you could flip the switch back and forth and see if it sounds better with the 1000 ohm resistance or with no resistance!



I just got another hard drive for my player so I will be checking the resistor later this week...

David, do you know of the range of affected serial numbers for such units? I'd like to avoid having to open my Mk2 up if it's definitely too recent for the problem.

Thanks

Send the player in for repair. All affected players are out long since out of warranty, but I will carry out the repair free of charge, provided you pay for shipping.

I'm not affected, this this just proves again that you guys are the best.

Thanks.

Ahh.. Dana Scully (as in X-files), rather than John Scully.. I was trying to figure out that T-shirt of yours..

Ahh.. thanks. And no, I never did see the back of the Tshirt, damnit!

Cheers

And no, I never did see the back of the Tshirt, damnit!

I couldn't risk turning my back on you?

Shrug. The 2001 Scully Marathon shirt didn't have anything on the back, and the picture was on the front. I think truthfully I like the 2001 shirt a bit better; I had one on the day before you got there.

Oddly only one person ever commented on the 2001 shirt (when I was flying to Sweden on like 9/22/01, as I boarded the flight to Arlanda at O'Hare) but lots of people wonder "What Would Scully Do?" and I have to turn around so they can see.

Players with serial numbers beginning 06 are likely to be affected. We have also found 08 players with the problem, but I'm not sure how many of them are affected. I've not come across any 09 players with the fault.

Okay, my Mk2 s/n 080000316 has a 1000-ohm resistor there, which I'll replace with a 0-Ohm wire shortly. Do you also have advice for the 18Khz rolloff fix? Hugo suggested removing two capacitors somewhere, but didn't specify which?

Thanks

For clumsy people like me you can go and pick up a SILVER SOLDER pen it allows you to lay down condutive tracks with out soldering... I bet you could just draw a path over the resistor you were going to short across to fix the stereo seperation issue

To improve the rolloff in earlier units, remove the two caps *right next to* the rear panel phonos (between signal & ground - they are unnecessary EMC measures). You should be able to tell which ones with a multimeter.

Hugo

Are the caps not present at all in later units?

Are these the caps in question?

And... Since these caps are next to the home outputs, does that mean that the rolloff is only a problem on the home plugs (i.e., car plugs are not affected)?

Since I don't use the home outputs hardly ever any more, there'd be no sense in going to the trouble of making the fix if that were the case.

Yes, the 18KHz rolloff is only on the home RCA outputs (actually, I think Hugo said it's even worse than just 18KHz).

The Search function is your friend.

Cheers

I have an 08 player, and it has a 1000 ohm resistor in there. Am about to go and visit Rob Schofield today to fix it (his soldering iron is smaller than mine )

Am about to go and visit Rob Schofield today to fix it (his soldering iron is smaller than mine )

I feel it is wrong to comment on the size of a man's tool, especially in a comparative manner...

pca

Thank you sir, it ain't what you've got, it's the way you use it that counts!

Okay, so then can anyone confirm that the caps in the illustration above are the correct ones?

Well, we've just taken them off, so tally ho! Tell you in about an hour.

They do look to be right (they go between centre conductor to ground) but be cautious on the right hand one (as you look at the case back from inside) as there is also an 804 sized resistor mounted on a pad adjaecent to the capacitor. The resistor is black and numbered, the cap is tan-coloured and has no numbering.

Yeah, I couldn't get a good picture with the resistor in it, too...

Yes, these are the correct ones; they will have a slight effect on the front car outputs too as the car outs are the home outs amplified further.

Hugo

Thanks! Creating FAQ entry now.

Do these caps exist on the 2a units or only the 2's? Or only some of the 2's?

We can confirm that the two small, tan capacitors to the right hand (as you face the back of the case, looking inside from the display end to the back panel) of the audio connectors are the correct ones to take off. We have been doing the mod on Derek's early (series 08) Mk2, and I opened my later 2 to find the same pads were there but with the caps already desoldered. Don't confuse the cap with the resistor adjacent to it on the right hand connector.

The way to identify the cap is that one end is earthed, the other connects to the centre contact of the RCA connectors on the board. There is a thin track running from one end of the cap to the connector, the other end is connected to a "fat" earth track.

I opened my later 2 to find the same pads were there but with the caps already desoldered

Desoldered? Or simply not installed to begin with?

Well the guys in Cambridge have "looked" at Robs empeg a couple of times so probably they were desoldered one time it was in there. From what he said to me last night it looked like they had been desoldered rather that the pads never having been populated

PS have blue LEDs looking though really fine holes drilled in the buttons on my empeg now - looks *really* cool

PS have blue LEDs looking though really fine holes drilled in the buttons on my empeg now - looks *really* cool

JPG! JPG!

Oh if you insist ;-)

Actually someone has actually done this before. I just wanted to see the LEDs until I get something better sorted out. I would like to try cutting holes in the buttons to look like FF, REW symbols and the likes and then fill them with white translucent epoxy.

I have an original empeg blue face plate on - the one without the anti-reflective coating (I reckon it looks better). The buttons actually look a lot bluer and the display a lot greener than the pics show.

The dimming on the button illumination is really cool - when you switch the unit onto standby the illumination dims right down for example. The also dim with the display when you switch the headlights on. The LEDs are also visible in daylight, which I also quite like. Anyway, the pics! :-)

and another one:

Considered doing a similar hack to the rotary selector?

Yep, I'd like to drill a really fine hole in the centre of each of the bumps. It's actually really surprising how much light comes out of such small holes. I should be able to drill the centres out but still have a reasonable amount of the bump left over. I need a knob illumination board first though.

If I can get a variable voltage supply for the drill I'm going to be having a go at this: the button holes are 0.4 mm, and I can get a smaller bit at 0.25 mm. For this to work (as we found out) I'd really need to run the drill slower though.

Correct, none of the Rio-Car players have them. I suspect that the 0900 batch may also not have them fitted.

Hugo

To improve the rolloff in earlier units, remove the two caps *right next to* the rear panel phonos (between signal & ground - they are unnecessary EMC measures). You should be able to tell which ones with a multimeter.

Hugo,

All three of my Mk2a units have those capacitors in the positions indicated. Should I remove them? Or do they only affect Mk2 (not Mk2a) units?

Thanks

Very interesting. I thought those spots were supposed to be empty on 2a units.

The word from Hugo on this is:

I believe (hazy memory) that the value was changed on the mk2a to a lower capacitance, hence they didn't cause the rolloff problem (but did still attenuate EMI, which is what they were there for).

Hugo

Gotcha.