Hi Guys,
I just recieved an email from Doede that he has stopped with his web shop today.
Fortunately he has found some Dutch friends that will continue to sell the DDDAC designs, these are the guys from Audio-Creative: Dick van de Merwe and Marco Bouwer. Dick is famous for his diy tube audio website where he has published a lot of nice tube designs.
You can find the web shop here: Audio Creative Shop
For international customers it can sometimes be difficult because the web shop is not completely in English (but I think they will work on this )
I hope, and trust, Doede will now have more time to concentrate on making more nice audio designs for the diy enthousiasts! 
Regards,
I just recieved an email from Doede that he has stopped with his web shop today.
Fortunately he has found some Dutch friends that will continue to sell the DDDAC designs, these are the guys from Audio-Creative: Dick van de Merwe and Marco Bouwer. Dick is famous for his diy tube audio website where he has published a lot of nice tube designs.
You can find the web shop here: Audio Creative Shop
For international customers it can sometimes be difficult because the web shop is not completely in English (but I think they will work on this
)I hope, and trust
, Doede will now have more time to concentrate on making more nice audio designs for the diy enthousiasts! Regards,
24 hours have passed and the Tekdevice series regs have had some time to burn in now.
Bass is phenomenal, almost malevolent, think I need to adjust the positioning of my speakers now. Top end has softened considerably too, with cymbals sounding even more real and spacious. So in general dynamics have improved quite obviously, and there seems to be a little less background noise in the dac now.
Before this upgrade I felt that the dac sounded a little thin even with a super regulated linear psu, and had considered a tube or two somewhere in the signal path but now the music has got another step closer. I look forward to a direct comparison with a dac sporting the tent labs shunt regulators.
Bass is phenomenal, almost malevolent, think I need to adjust the positioning of my speakers now. Top end has softened considerably too, with cymbals sounding even more real and spacious. So in general dynamics have improved quite obviously, and there seems to be a little less background noise in the dac now.
Before this upgrade I felt that the dac sounded a little thin even with a super regulated linear psu, and had considered a tube or two somewhere in the signal path but now the music has got another step closer. I look forward to a direct comparison with a dac sporting the tent labs shunt regulators.
Hi Guys,
I just recieved an email from Doede that he has stopped with his web shop today.
Fortunately he has found some Dutch friends that will continue to sell the DDDAC designs, these are the guys from Audio-Creative: Dick van de Merwe and Marco Bouwer. Dick is famous for his diy tube audio website where he has published a lot of nice tube designs.
You can find the web shop here: Audio Creative Shop
Prices have risen considerably, €50 added to the price of the basic kit.
Anything is better than the regs supplied
After all, here in the US you can buy them for forty four cents!
I hope no one thought I was saYing the BELLESONs are the best. I thought I had been honest in my reason, I know Brian Lowe and felt these would work just fine.
Did you see the article in the analog audio journal whose name I cannot remember - published in Europe. the Netherlands? - I have them at home - but they did a test of various power supply regulators with a somewhat suspect circuit as the baseline (a version of an Erno Borbely circuit which was a littel strange in some respect, I forget but it is not that important to the point, they tried to find a correlation to regulator type and sound. The biggest problem with the test, of course, is that it only meant something for that ONE circuit, but nonetheless their results were interesting. The participants are all names you would recognize with their own various axes to grind, I suspect, but their favorite was the old Jung super-regulator, a series regulator. They had the SALAS among the devices auditioned.
The reason for bringing this up is that one cannot be sure of anything. Certainly not of the conclusions of this test, either!
No one thinks more of SALAS than I. I was shocked at the placement of the SALAS reg in the test. For that matter the BELLESON did not place well either. Brian has made improvements since which shows the value of these things when it motivates folks to find better solutions.
I think it has been many folks experience that series regs are superior in the bass. The shunt type are superior in the high frequencies but nothing is ever quite that simple, ever.
Nonetheless, local regulation isolates the components from each other which is why I would be shocked if a single close to perfect regulator would be better than many locals.
Another thing to be concerned about is cascading regulators. Akin to multi pole filters (which of course regulator are filters) unless very carefully conceived you can end up with a mess. I was concerned about the shunt reg feeding those series regs in the original setup.
I have found that if using a full wave rectifier, as opposed to a bridge rectifier - you do not lose the voltage consumed by the two extra rectifiers (which helps a little to make up what is lost with the choke input), one can use a choke input filter after the rectifier and then RC filters and have an excellent raw supply to feed the regulators of your choice. You virtually eliminate the diode spikes with the choke input configuration. Just be sure to use bleeders at the output, I am using 5kR. You want the raw supply to be slightly inefficient and draw extra current through that choke for best regulation. Using the RC filters on the DAC board the model yields extremely low ripple.
The LUNDAHL chokes SUPERSURFER is using are probably the best that can be got easily. I am too cheap at the moment to get them and using the far more modest TRIADs for the time being. I really like the LUNDAHLs common mode connection but that would have to be used as a second stage.
Again, one needs to be careful about having too many stages of filtering even in the raw supply. Again, just as there is great sonic difference between a Bessel alignment and a Chebychev one has to be careful how you place the time constants. Sometimes less is more.
One of the best things about so many working on the same circuit is that many things are tried and there is a better chance of finding what is best for the circuit in question.
After all, here in the US you can buy them for forty four cents!
I hope no one thought I was saYing the BELLESONs are the best. I thought I had been honest in my reason, I know Brian Lowe and felt these would work just fine.
Did you see the article in the analog audio journal whose name I cannot remember - published in Europe. the Netherlands? - I have them at home - but they did a test of various power supply regulators with a somewhat suspect circuit as the baseline (a version of an Erno Borbely circuit which was a littel strange in some respect, I forget but it is not that important to the point, they tried to find a correlation to regulator type and sound. The biggest problem with the test, of course, is that it only meant something for that ONE circuit, but nonetheless their results were interesting. The participants are all names you would recognize with their own various axes to grind, I suspect, but their favorite was the old Jung super-regulator, a series regulator. They had the SALAS among the devices auditioned.
The reason for bringing this up is that one cannot be sure of anything. Certainly not of the conclusions of this test, either!
No one thinks more of SALAS than I. I was shocked at the placement of the SALAS reg in the test. For that matter the BELLESON did not place well either. Brian has made improvements since which shows the value of these things when it motivates folks to find better solutions.
I think it has been many folks experience that series regs are superior in the bass. The shunt type are superior in the high frequencies but nothing is ever quite that simple, ever.
Nonetheless, local regulation isolates the components from each other which is why I would be shocked if a single close to perfect regulator would be better than many locals.
Another thing to be concerned about is cascading regulators. Akin to multi pole filters (which of course regulator are filters) unless very carefully conceived you can end up with a mess. I was concerned about the shunt reg feeding those series regs in the original setup.
I have found that if using a full wave rectifier, as opposed to a bridge rectifier - you do not lose the voltage consumed by the two extra rectifiers (which helps a little to make up what is lost with the choke input), one can use a choke input filter after the rectifier and then RC filters and have an excellent raw supply to feed the regulators of your choice. You virtually eliminate the diode spikes with the choke input configuration. Just be sure to use bleeders at the output, I am using 5kR. You want the raw supply to be slightly inefficient and draw extra current through that choke for best regulation. Using the RC filters on the DAC board the model yields extremely low ripple.
The LUNDAHL chokes SUPERSURFER is using are probably the best that can be got easily. I am too cheap at the moment to get them and using the far more modest TRIADs for the time being. I really like the LUNDAHLs common mode connection but that would have to be used as a second stage.
Again, one needs to be careful about having too many stages of filtering even in the raw supply. Again, just as there is great sonic difference between a Bessel alignment and a Chebychev one has to be careful how you place the time constants. Sometimes less is more.
One of the best things about so many working on the same circuit is that many things are tried and there is a better chance of finding what is best for the circuit in question.
The same idea had crossed my mind..., a slippery slope.
Since you are using local regulators. Which of the caps are you planning to leave in? Say left channel: C18,C21,C22,C32 (on the analogue side), and C27 on the digital side? The rest is obsolete right?
Have you concidered the Blackgate PK 47uf 25v's, there are still some around?
Does anyone dare to comment on how these compare to the Silmic's?
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Hello,
I can not decide myself. Need help
I have a single deck version stock
I am looking for improvements.
My current output capacitors are Jantzen Superior Cap (which I believe average).
What would be the best upgrade of the output stage:
1) CINEMAG 15/15B (POS / NEG)
2) Mundorf Silver Gold Oil (POS / COM)
3) Mundorf Silver Gold Oil (POS / NEG)
4) Change Dale I/V resistors for Vishay Naked or something fancy (in addition of another tweak)
Additional question: Where can I find the power supply tweak?
I can not decide myself. Need help
I have a single deck version stock
I am looking for improvements.
My current output capacitors are Jantzen Superior Cap (which I believe average).
What would be the best upgrade of the output stage:
1) CINEMAG 15/15B (POS / NEG)
2) Mundorf Silver Gold Oil (POS / COM)
3) Mundorf Silver Gold Oil (POS / NEG)
4) Change Dale I/V resistors for Vishay Naked or something fancy (in addition of another tweak)
Additional question: Where can I find the power supply tweak?
@Touister:
IMO direct output from pos and neg is superior to Cinemags and Mundorf silver /gold from any outputs. Mundorf ZNs are cheaper and perform better than silver /oils as they are film /foil. I did some comparison with the standard Dales and Audio Notes and ANs are a very worthwhile upgrade.Others may disagree of course
IMO direct output from pos and neg is superior to Cinemags and Mundorf silver /gold from any outputs. Mundorf ZNs are cheaper and perform better than silver /oils as they are film /foil. I did some comparison with the standard Dales and Audio Notes and ANs are a very worthwhile upgrade.Others may disagree of course
With no caps in your chain I would use Mundorf ZNs personally, but you may get away with it if your DC offset is low......The difference between ZNs on pos output with phono beg connected to DDDac neg (NOT COMMON!) is small. Silver /golds have an upper mid emphasis I don't like. ZNs are very neutral