D.I.Y Power Cord Upgrade by Kevin M. Donlon

1. Remove 7 screws that hold on the outer casing and remove top.

2. Remove 2 screws that hold the 2 piece strain relief in place, then pull the U shaped piece of metal off the plastic strain relief and this will free the cord from the back of the unit.

3. Unplug the white two pin connector from the main power board, easily located by tracing the power cord,

4. Remove the gray TDK ferrite clamp from the power cord and slide the old cord out the hole where the strain relief was. On the new cord I DID NOT re use the ferrite, too much high pass filtering IMHO.

5. With a soldering iron, gently heat up the back of the female 2 pin power connector and wiggle it free.This should leave you 2 holes where the connector was, try to remove as much solder as you can after the connector is freed leaving 2 clean holes in the power board.NOTE: make sure you remember which was white and black(hot & nuetral). From the rear of the unit, looking down and in, the white wire goes to the right hole and the black lead to the left.

6. I choose 14 x 3 Carol brand wire, OFC 600V stranded, available at my local Home Depot.

7. Strip about 6 inches of the outer rubber jacket away from the new cord exposing the 3 leads

8. Bore out the holes VERY CAREFULLY on the power board, I used a tiny rat tail file, until the new larger wire will snuggly fit thru.

9. Solder in the new wire (I used WBT brand solder, it has a high content of silver in it), just the white and black, put a small wire nut on the end of the green(earth) lead since you don't connect it inside your DA777ES. This will act as a drain wire, getting rid of EMI/RF.

10. Feed the new cord out the back of the unit thru the old strain relief hole and fit the plastic portion of the strain relief back on the cordjust where the jacket ends and the 3 leads are exposed. To neaten up the job you can also put a small piece of shrink wrap over the jacket where the three lead are exposed at the point of entry into the unit, right where the strain relief is going to clamp down on the wires, I did this.

11. With alot of muscle, force the strain relief back into the U shaped piece of metal in order to screw it back into the unit. Replace the 2 screws and be carefull not to loosen the wires you just soldered to the power board.

12. Figure out how long your cord needs to be and terminate it with a high quality AC plug, I used a Pass & Seymour 5266. On the plug side DO connect the green (earth) lead to the ground terminal.

13. I also treated all connections with Craig's Pro Gold after using DeOxit to clean them. Treat even the solder joint for best conductivity.

14. Re connect the unit and let warm up, you should notice a lower noise floor, wider sound stage, more air, vocal will blend better and a smoother midrange. Your milage may vary since my unit is used as a pre/pro only. A total of about 3 hours was spent and about 20 dollarsUS, very worth while for the effort.