Taking the Output Modification plunge.....

I just finished it up. Put in 220k resistors all around. I wonder what I can do to my spare S950 now...

haha! that's great

Done with the S950. Its a little different than the 60/3000/2000 since the outputs use a voltage controlled amplifier (fancy op amps) instead of the normal op amp configuration. I went with the 220k resistors again and the gain was stepped up quite a bit. When I get situated I'll make a beat with the 60/950 setup and record it.

Yeah, increased gain at DC (or lower freqs like drums) will make things louder but will lower the effective bandwidth (i.e. roll-off). This is a common trade-off in electronics. I haven't done circuit analysis in about 4 years, but I'm pretty sure that's what I remember.

tbiggz wrote:Yeah, increased gain at DC (or lower freqs like drums) will make things louder but will lower the effective bandwidth (i.e. roll-off). This is a common trade-off in electronics. I haven't done circuit analysis in about 4 years, but I'm pretty sure that's what I remember.

Yeah you are absolutely right about that. On the 60 you can hear the high end drop off with the increased output. If you pull up the data sheets for the op amps used in the Akai stuff you can see a chart that shows you this. As the output voltage increases the bandwidth lowers. Almost like a low pass filter curve. The S950 is not as bad. I'm into the dirty heavy low end drums anyway plus I got schematics and I can always go back to the origional configuration.

Well, I think you'll be inspired with the *new* sound, but I think you would agree that you can obtain a similarly satisfying sound with an outboard lowpass filter plus gain. If you use a moderately good mix board for instance, you can achieve very similar results and the attendant noise floor increase should be negligible (i really mean nonexistant.).

In other words, the mod is not necessary. But I'm sure it's fun to be inspired. Better music is often inspired music.