Ashdown Rm500 Evo III mods

[mickbellinello]

Hi to all!

I bought an Ashdown RM500 evo III Head and looking inside i see that all the OPAMP are socketed. It reports TL072 in most of them. I see also that there are cheap ceramic caps. Could be a worth thing upgrading the opamps with some better sprec (like opa2134) or its only a waste of time? Same things with ceramics.. swapping for MLCC could improve something? Thanks

 

[DWBass]

@agedhorse please be kind with your response! (wink wink)

 

[Jeff Scott]

Hi to all!

I bought an Ashdown RM500 evo III Head and looking inside i see that all the OPAMP are socketed. It reports TL072 in most of them. I see also that there are cheap ceramic caps. Could be a worth thing upgrading the opamps with some better sprec (like opa2134) or its only a waste of time? Same things with ceramics.. swapping for MLCC could improve something? Thanks

Are you happy with how the amp currently sounds? Is there something you don't like about it, thinking perhaps that different components will make it sound more to what you want?

 

[Lammchop93]

Absolutely not. Leave it as-is.

 

[agedhorse]

Absolutely not. Leave it as-is.

Totally agree.

There are a lot of attributes of the TL072 that make it uniquely good for MI audio applications. Some of these attributes show up under certain circuit applications, or when driven hard. There are potential pitfalls to "upgraded" parts as well, some are more sensitive to capacitive loads, or in filter circuits can sometimes oscillate if the circuit wasn't designed around the "higher performance" parts. An oscillation can ultimately cause damage in other parts of the circuit too.

Any place where a ceramic cap is used isn't going to benefit from MLCC in the slightest.

It's not the parts themselves, but how they are used and the circuits they are used in that matters.

 

[mickbellinello]

Thanks so much to all! In a lot of pedals that I mod an upgrade in components (like better opamp) give me better results so i asked for my head. The amp works well (except the noisy di out) so no issue ..i asked for a “theoric upgrade” but your answer are so clear. Thanks