One of my two DACs is an Entech 205.2. Love the little bugger- great sound, easy to use, diminutive in sound.

However, mine would emit a slight hum- barely audible- but indeed there.

Simple fix- I isolated the power supply better.

Seems the casing of my amplifier was picking up "hum" from the power supply.

Moved it a bit, and it transferred to my CD player.

Moved it again, and I think the interconnects (or a power cord?) was picking it up.

Finally got wise and moved it about 14-16 inches away, and problem solved.

Works quiet now, no hum.

Thought I'd share.

Yeah, power cables and interconnets don't like to be closer to each other.

And with the outboard power supply wart of the Entech, it makes a very big difference!

Paul,
have you compared your Entech with your PS Audio dac? i didnt do a direct A/B comparison with my Entech 203 and my EAD, but the improvement with the EAD was obvious. i'm wondering if the 205 is close enough in performance to make it a better value over the PS Audio or EAD. it can be had (if you can find it) for around $100 or less, while the EAD and PS Audio dac's go for considerably more.

You guys sure are fascinated with them there number crunchers.

The PS Audio is a great unit, and detail is impeccable.

The problem arises with it being a bit bright at times- bringing out the worst of bad CDs.

The Entech is easygoing in this regard, and a truely smooth DAc, still retaining plenty of detail and to my ears never sounding harsh.

This hasn't been a direct swap, but I still feel it holds merit.

The thing with the Entechs now, is they're climbing once again in price. $125-$175 and up, as of late.

So, not quite the bargain they once were.

That said, they still are worth every penny, as far as I'm concerned.

I've got a little Entech 205.2 that I'm also very happy with. I recapped the board wth better quality panasonic caps and swapped the OPA2134 opamp with a socket so I could roll some various opamps and see what I like best. Right now, the LM4562 seems like the best option. All of the attributes of the OPA2134 with more detail. Need to buy 2-3 others and play, then report back. I also have plans to convert it from half wave rectification to full wave and do that on an external chassis.

Hello...

I have also got one of these 205.2 dacs.... love it

I have swopped the original diodes for a couple of MUR860's, main smoothing caps are Panasonic ECA's.. dac decoupling caps are BG-NX Hi-Q, all others are Rubycon ZA...not done the op-amp yet... built a BIG psu for it... may swop out the dac chip for the 4390 as its pin compatable... I will do the regs soon...probably do some shunts for the dac chip and the output stage.

I really love the detailed, fast, dynamic sound that this thing produces...

Regards

JC

Please, can you put some pics of your mods in "Tweaks and DIY" topic ?

Re Pics....

I will put some up over the course of the next couple of days...

Regards

JC

Tanx JC.