DIY DAC

[Guest " "]

Anyone have any experience with DIY DAC's such as the monica2?

http://www.diyparadise.com/products.html

[Rivendell61]

I assume you know this--but in case not: the Monica is an NOS/Filterless DAC. So there are some exchanges being made between signal accuracy and audiophile sonics.....something to consider.

Mark

[Guest " "]

Their seems to be great intrest in true NOS DAC's.

I havn't decided the best method to compare the various DIY kits yet.

It seem like all the different DIY kits are comapring different features.

Ultimately I'm looking for a DIY tube DAC.

[Audio Flynn]

Not a bad idea to try.

I am hoping sometime in
2007 to find a deal on a used Meridian DAC. Seem slike most of their
owners upgrade to a newer Meridian. Read Bob Stuart of Meridian if you
get a chance; he is ultimately knowledgeable being invoved in DVD-A
standard.

The site is down of this small company called virmode

www.virmode.com

These guys put out a white paaper of EMI and RFI prevention of jitter.

-case dampening

-transport mechanism deadening

-capacitor dampening

-power supply sheilding

-DAC shielding

I have done it to mine and I like the less jittery cymbals and voices.

e mail me if you would like me to find a copy.

[consistent]

Have a look at this http://www.mother-of-tone.com/attraction.htm it may give you some ideas or this http://www.mother-of-tone.com/lacquer.htm if you believe!

Cheers

[Guest " "]

consistent

Nice looking spread.

Looks like the full boat comes out to 1750 us dollars.

Maybe a US made unit would be less pricy.

[consistent]

It is a nice little unit. I'm posting a review tonight (my time) or this time tomorrow morning for most of you.

Cheers

[Guest " "]

looking forward to it.

[jcmjrt]

Here's a kit to take a look at:

http://www.hagtech.com/chime.html

[whamo]

I've been interested into entering the forray of dac's. I do need a

better source to start with but as an entry level unit I was

considering the Entech number cruncher that they've been raging about

over at audiokarma. You can find them on E-bay for $49.95 plus

shipping. That's dirt cheap but I'm not sure right now there's so many

things I want it's hard to prioritize sometimes. I know it's not diy

but I figured I might mention it. Mark

[Guest " "]

The ENTECH 203.2 or 205.2 are intresting.......if I got one....I would only want to fiddle with it to by pass the op amps some how.....another tinker point might be to boost the clock speed simular to how the old 386 and 486 computer mother boards had crystals that could be replaced to boost their clock speeds.  96khz would be ideal.

[Guest " "]

I took a look at the Chime...another pricy one.  But it is a complete tube unit.

[jcmjrt]

If you diy then it's only $825 with recommended parts...that's not cheap but it's pretty cheap for a complete tube unit. I also like the fact that you can pick what parts you want (other than the hagdac version which is already built) and not be stuck with someone else's idea of what good parts are...and if you have a parts box, you can use some of what you already have. The reviewer got a bone stock one and loved it so just the suggested parts are good.

I haven't built this one but have built his Bugle and Clarinet and am happy with both of those.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

I didn't read teh entire thread but can give you some input. I have both an upsampled AH CD player with Amperex White Label PQ's and a Benchamrk DAC1. The upgraded AH is so close to the Benchamrk you would be very hard pressed to tell the difference (blind test I'd bet that you cannot tell). Realy nice bass on the benchmark, really full.

If you are going to spend $800+ on a kit, take a hard look at a used benchmark. They can be had for about $700 now.

My 2 cents.

[Guest " "]

So many DAC's, so little time.

I currently have a Cary Audio tube CD with a 20 bit Burr-Brown DAC in it, which I paid 400 bucks for.   I'm looking to run my media server thru an after market DAC, or maybe even thru the DAC in my tube CD, if I can figure out the signal matching requirements...seems like everyone uses their own internal ribbon cable config.  My goal is to use a DAC and a tube line stage pre-amp circut on the media server using either the spdif or optical outputs and by pass the media servers internal DAC and line level op amp drivers.

In 1999 a PCM1737 24 bit 192khz sampling chip only cost 5  bucks each in lots of 1000.   Why a small board with a DAC chip, and a handful of parts cost mid way to a thousand  dollars and above is beyond me, espeacially since todays DIY offerings are only 24 bit 96khz and use oversampling to get to 192khz.

There are a few Asian suppliers of DIY DAC boards that are pretty price competitive...but the chip sets look like older generation chips, evident by the way they use them in parallel on one board.  Next month, there will be a 3rd generation DIY DAC  board which uses more advanced 24 bit chips at 192khz available thru Asian suppliers....price about 250 with optical, spdif, and 6 on board power supplies.....prehaps....that would be a good starting point.

You are correct about used equipment.  There's equipment out there with very good DAC boards in them that can be had for a few hundred bucks, if you can match the wiring config's and get them wired to optical or spdif connectors.

There are also a lot of used DAC's out there.  Most of which are very old chip sets in the 18 to 20 bit 44khz range and do not perform as well as the internal DAC's of todays ditigal equipment that meet the 24 bit 96khz standard.  A DAC produced in the early 90's was a 1800 ticket, used today folks expect to get 400 bucks for it, but a 100 DIY 24bit 96khz  DAC board will beat it hands down.  There are folks trying to sell non-functional 15 year old DACs on ebay for 300 bucks......I'd buy a defective one for 50 bucks just for the case and power supply and rip out the board and replace it with one of the 100 DIY 24 bit 96khz DAC boards.   But hey, never thought of just sitting it on top of my entertainment center using a car battery to power it....maybe I don't  even need the case with power supply.

Manufactures are taking advantage of consumers lack of product knowledge in this area and are not providing spec's to make purchasing decisions.  It looks like the chips have been available for about 5 years to produce 24 bit 192khz non-oversampling DACs, but manufactures are still trying to deplete their supplies of older 20bit 44khz chips and 24bit 96khz chips which rely on over or upsampling to get to 192khz.

Where is all this heading....it looks like as DAC become more advanced...and CD transports remain at their current technology level....and media servers are creeping into the market....going with an external DAC that you can replace every few years may  be the way to go.  Especially if you use DIY DAC boards which seem to be more advanced than the DAC's that are in consumer electronics......mainly due to manufactures having to go thru their stock piles of thousands of chips they have to exhaust before moving forward (or behind) into more advanced chipsets.