Combining Amp & Dac as One unit

Its been long since my last update.

Brought the headphone to my office since its very under utilised at home.

The following mod took place due to space constraint on my work desk, so the unit was to be mounted below the desk surface.

1. My idea was to mount them upside down to decrease the profile.
2. The heat sinks in each runs quite hot. So some form of cooling would be a great idea.

Its great that the Amp card has a 15V output. I could run a 12V fan with no problem.

Since i try not to buy new parts, i recycle whatever i could get my hands on. The CPU cooling fan was tested at first. The air flow is great! The only complaint was: its too noisy!

Here aluminium plates are introduced to bind the two separate units as one.

Here is the final product.

But its a tad too noisy still. My friend suggested to do without the fan, flip the unit on its side, allowing hot air to vent naturally upwards. It works.

Another mod was to protect the cables with the plastic braid sleeve which was surplus from my last trip to the audio cable shop. Now i found a good use for them!

Here you could see the unit sitting under the desk.

A final and last tweak: I updated the unit with a large fan with psychedelic colour leds. This was also from my computer parts.

The fan EXTRACTS the air from the unit. I found this to be a more efficient option. Previously i blew air into the unit. Probably choke and resonance from the air in vs air out, the CPU cooler fan was noisy. With Extraction, the unit's noise isn't really audible while listening.

The unit actually feels extremely cool to touch.

A success!

Enjoy listening ya....