Putting it all back together

Put board back in the chassis

Putting the board back in is a reverse of the disassembly process. The only thing you really need to watch out for is the power supply cable. Make sure the clamp is in the up position. Look at the end of the cable, all the "pins" should be straight and evenly spaced. If on or more is a little crooked they will not go into the correct socket hole and you will have a short (which is NOT a good thing!). Once the pins are straight carefully place the cable over the socket and lower the pins into the holes. You shouldn't feel much of any resistance, if you do,  something isn't straight, pull it out and straighten the bent pin. Keep at it until the whole cable "slips" into the connector. Tighten the clamp by using the flat blade screw driver to push down on the two "tabs" on the end of the connector.

Bent power cable

Bent pins

Connect the twisted pair

In my case I ran the wires out through the tiny hole at the corner of the top cover formed when the metal it bent over. This hole is big enough for the wire wrap wire but might not be for CAT5 or other larger wires. If this is the case with you, you will have to drill a hole somewhere to get the wires out. Where is left to you.

Use an ohm meter to determine which of the wires is connected to ground (zero ohms between a wire and the shell of one of the RCA jacks on the back). These wires get connected to the shell of your new RCA jacks. The other wires connect to your new coupling capacitors. The other end of the caps get soldered to the central connection for the RCA jacks.

Connect the 300pf caps across the ground and signal wires. These caps cut down on residual high frequency noise from the DAC.

All done

All done!

Hook it up to your preamp and listen. Many caps take quite a while to really "break in". The easiest way to do this is put a CD in and put it on repeat and let it run all day (or two). To put the player in repeat, using the remote, press stop twice. Then press the PLAY MODE button (on the bottom of the remote) twice, then press Play within 5 seconds. You probably won't see any indication that's its in repeat mode, but it should repeat the disc over and over. When breaking in you don't have to have anything else turned on. (unless you want to burn in other parts of the system as well)

Mechanical dampening and isolation

These players are really helped by being placed on a good isolation system. Some like roller blocks or sand boxes. I put mine on sand bags. I filled some ziplocs with sand and placed four under the player, and three on top. This really helps a lot. Even if you don't do the electrical mods, the isolation improves the sound a lot.

Variations

You can put the RCA jacks in the back panel if you don't want them hanging out the back. On the 3950 the space to the right of the board is very tight, so you might want to put them on the left of the current connectors. On the 3960 putting them to the right of the current connectors is fine. The Jacks should be insulated from the chassis. You will need plastic washers and shoulder washers to keep them from touching the chassis. On the 3960 the chassis is plastic, but you still need to insulate the jacks from the shielding metal.

Attach the coupling caps to the center of the jacks and run the twisted pairs to the ground and input lead of the caps. The 300pf caps can be soldered between the ground and center connection of the jacks.

ENJOY!


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