- Sep 5, 2012
- 113
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- 10,710
Hi, I will show you how to modify a cheap eBay sound card, remove DC offset and get a very good sounding card for one and a half dollar sound card. You will need a soldering iron, a knife and two capacitors (see below for details).
Here is the link to the divice:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/330929288633?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2648
DC offset is dangerous for headphones,
it may damage it by making them melt and that a terrible engineering mistake...
First pop out the plastic cover, it is not glued nor screwed, then unsolder the to jacks (input and output). Next, find the following traces (yellow and green on my pictures) and cut the red traces from my pictures using a knife:
Now you must choose your capacitors, I used two 100µF but I can't put the cover back, you may be able to put the cover back with some 10µF but you may loose some bass while using headphones. If you use high impedance amplified speakers, you can put ceramic capacitors like 100nF, maybe, but bigger is better since this sound card is pretty powerfull on its own and can easely drive small speakers. You must solder the two capacitors in the two free holes below the jacks taged wit a "+" and a "-" like it was a polarity for future capacitors. WARNING! Do not listen to this polarity, the capacitor must be installed in the opposite way since the "-" side of the capacitor will go in the earphone. So, this is counter intuitive but put the "+" side of the capacitor in the "-" tag on the chinese board.
The finished product should look like this:
I hope it will make it way through google search and it will help a few motivated people.
Here is the link to the divice:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/330929288633?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2648
DC offset is dangerous for headphones,
it may damage it by making them melt and that a terrible engineering mistake...
First pop out the plastic cover, it is not glued nor screwed, then unsolder the to jacks (input and output). Next, find the following traces (yellow and green on my pictures) and cut the red traces from my pictures using a knife:
Now you must choose your capacitors, I used two 100µF but I can't put the cover back, you may be able to put the cover back with some 10µF but you may loose some bass while using headphones. If you use high impedance amplified speakers, you can put ceramic capacitors like 100nF, maybe, but bigger is better since this sound card is pretty powerfull on its own and can easely drive small speakers. You must solder the two capacitors in the two free holes below the jacks taged wit a "+" and a "-" like it was a polarity for future capacitors. WARNING! Do not listen to this polarity, the capacitor must be installed in the opposite way since the "-" side of the capacitor will go in the earphone. So, this is counter intuitive but put the "+" side of the capacitor in the "-" tag on the chinese board.
The finished product should look like this:
I hope it will make it way through google search and it will help a few motivated people.
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