I did find one image showing someone's mod that's pretty much exactly what I'm trying to do. Not flying completely blind, but it's a little less than I'm comfortable with.
If you guys with experience modding these units wouldn't mind giving me a double-check, I'll post some pictures later as I progress so you can stop me if it looks like I'm creating a smoke machine instead of bypassing the output stage
Edit: Here's my board so far.
Attachments
Last edited:
What I've been wondering for some time now, is are the AKM DACs in there fed regular I2S? [or not?] So could I drop in pre-made ES9023 boards [single-ended out] and SHARE the I2S signals with the AKM DACs? Say 50 Ohms R in each leg to the ES9023 {x3 DAC boards} I2S pins [SMD resistors]? Assuming I had the proper PSUs... maybe 3 of these:
Curryman DAC (ES9023) | MiniDSP
or 3 of the sub $20 cheapies from *Bay? I would probably use bits of wire_wrap wire pre-tinned to tack onto existing I2S pins on AKM DACs [or to: them].
Or Ti PCM5102A boards; they only need 3 of the I2S lines to operate [well, ES9023 can do that with a dedicated clock on MCK, on say the Curryman board] :
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm5102a.pdf
Someone may have replied to my query about that this implant idea, I forget.
384kHz/32Bit PCM5102A DAC, I2S input, Ultra Low Noise Regulator - DIYINHK
Then there is my other question about adding USB-to-I2S in on the DCX, NOT USB to S/PDIF. Hmm. At some point it gets to be pointless with all the newer technology that has emerged. But I have a DCX to play with... time? not so much.
Curryman DAC (ES9023) | MiniDSP
or 3 of the sub $20 cheapies from *Bay? I would probably use bits of wire_wrap wire pre-tinned to tack onto existing I2S pins on AKM DACs [or to: them].
Or Ti PCM5102A boards; they only need 3 of the I2S lines to operate [well, ES9023 can do that with a dedicated clock on MCK, on say the Curryman board] :
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm5102a.pdf
Someone may have replied to my query about that this implant idea, I forget.
384kHz/32Bit PCM5102A DAC, I2S input, Ultra Low Noise Regulator - DIYINHK
Then there is my other question about adding USB-to-I2S in on the DCX, NOT USB to S/PDIF. Hmm. At some point it gets to be pointless with all the newer technology that has emerged. But I have a DCX to play with... time? not so much.
Cool, thanks. That's sorta the same as the one pic I was able to find in this thread that looks like what I'm doing. The description of what pins to use is almost helpful.
I guess was I need most is a picture of that ribbon cable with the wires labeled, if anyone has that, my plan is to separate the ribbon cable and snip the wires about 3/4ths of the way to the board, so everything is reversible if I need to in the future.
Yeah, I've got an eagle eye on the dbx venu 360. I'll probably still use the dcx for subs at that point, though.
DCX passive out
http://www.hifiwigwam.com/showthread.php?82621-Behringer-DCX2496-mods-or-what-I-did-this-evening
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/15943-behringer-dcx2496-digital-x-over-346.html
I did find one image showing someone's mod that's pretty much exactly what I'm trying to do. Not flying completely blind, but it's a little less than I'm comfortable with.
If you guys with experience modding these units wouldn't mind giving me a double-check, I'll post some pictures later as I progress so you can stop me if it looks like I'm creating a smoke machine instead of bypassing the output stage
Edit: Here's my board so far.
http://www.hifiwigwam.com/showthread.php?82621-Behringer-DCX2496-mods-or-what-I-did-this-evening
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/15943-behringer-dcx2496-digital-x-over-346.html
Ha, that looks like an interesting read, I'll have to go all the way through that thread.
I glanced quickly though, the way he did his volume pots with the gears is pretty awesome.
my testing of the pcm5102 showed that it has some clipping issues near 0db and it makes the dac chip worthless, for anything that does not have digital pre-attenuation.
putting a 'dollar dac' chip on some nice gear is counter-productive.
I still suggest going with spdif-out, using i2s to spdif transmitter chips (almost any one; I used wolfson but plan to try AKM next). then, you simply feed your spdif out into the 'dac of the day' (external boxes, so you can upgrade at will).
I've had my dual spdif-out modded dcx running over about 2 yrs now with great success and no issues. at some point, I may try to do a pcb layout. I just hate doing pcb's and most of my one-offs are all P/P wired on perf.
putting a 'dollar dac' chip on some nice gear is counter-productive.
I still suggest going with spdif-out, using i2s to spdif transmitter chips (almost any one; I used wolfson but plan to try AKM next). then, you simply feed your spdif out into the 'dac of the day' (external boxes, so you can upgrade at will).
I've had my dual spdif-out modded dcx running over about 2 yrs now with great success and no issues. at some point, I may try to do a pcb layout. I just hate doing pcb's and most of my one-offs are all P/P wired on perf.
SDIF vs I2S
I would only be using for home HiFi RCA jacks... everything looks like a FLAC-DAC to me. Well, that's not quite true, I have various stacks of amps to play with, from Carver cubes to Samsons to Behringer A500s [to MOD of course], some have differential in, but i think they use some iffy opamp to convert to single-ended. active cross would be for me to play with the many drivers I have, LRAD/ATC, Neo10s, Neo8s, Neo3s, various PE closeout moving coil drivers...enough to make one heck of a line-array, I would not passive cross. Oh I have a case of huge non-polar caps but. Maybe 60uF?
SO you have SPDIF coming out for 2 stereo channels? Are you sorta confirming if I tacked in a few ES9023 boards running asynch 50Mhz MCK, that I could pluck off 3-wire I2S per band and have RCA jacks....to my "stereo", would my simulcast idea work? 50Ohms per I2s leg to ES9023 [times 2-3 of those]? You may recall, I have oh, 100+ ES9023 laying around, and some blooper boards...100s of LT regulators, clocks, all that. Time? Not so much. drill a few holes for RCAs...
At one point I was psyched to drop on 3) Broskie Unbalancers implemented with 6n16B-V tubes, lotta work.
I would only be using for home HiFi RCA jacks... everything looks like a FLAC-DAC to me. Well, that's not quite true, I have various stacks of amps to play with, from Carver cubes to Samsons to Behringer A500s [to MOD of course], some have differential in, but i think they use some iffy opamp to convert to single-ended. active cross would be for me to play with the many drivers I have, LRAD/ATC, Neo10s, Neo8s, Neo3s, various PE closeout moving coil drivers...enough to make one heck of a line-array, I would not passive cross. Oh I have a case of huge non-polar caps
but. Maybe 60uF?SO you have SPDIF coming out for 2 stereo channels? Are you sorta confirming if I tacked in a few ES9023 boards running asynch 50Mhz MCK, that I could pluck off 3-wire I2S per band and have RCA jacks....to my "stereo", would my simulcast idea work? 50Ohms per I2s leg to ES9023 [times 2-3 of those]? You may recall, I have oh, 100+ ES9023 laying around, and some blooper boards...100s of LT regulators, clocks, all that. Time? Not so much. drill a few holes for RCAs...
At one point I was psyched to drop on 3) Broskie Unbalancers implemented with 6n16B-V tubes, lotta work.
If you would like to tap into I2S than you should think joining in one case DCX and your DACs, Most likely move DCX to a bigger case, or join two of them. I2S should transfer signals only on very short distance. If you do not want to do that than S/PDIF with appropriate transmitters is the way to do it.
posted here a few times already, but one more time (hope its ok):
wolfson transceiver chips (just 2; wanted to do 3 but ran out of motivation, lol) and some wire-wrap wire to tap into the i2s pads. was not really hard.
I plan to repeat this with AK transmitter chips. but its known to work (pretty well) with the wolfsons.
I would not put dac chips in the same box. I like this being a 'numbers box' (no analog at all, just digital in and digital out). the PSU does not matter (I know, its debatable, but my take is that the PSU does not matter at this level) and spdif 'exports' very well from one box to another. some people like exporting i2s. I'm not really one of them, but to each his own.
wolfson transceiver chips (just 2; wanted to do 3 but ran out of motivation, lol) and some wire-wrap wire to tap into the i2s pads. was not really hard.
I plan to repeat this with AK transmitter chips. but its known to work (pretty well) with the wolfsons.
I would not put dac chips in the same box. I like this being a 'numbers box' (no analog at all, just digital in and digital out). the PSU does not matter (I know, its debatable, but my take is that the PSU does not matter at this level) and spdif 'exports' very well from one box to another. some people like exporting i2s. I'm not really one of them, but to each his own.
fitting ES9023 boards to DCX
I was thinking take RCA jacks off of cheap ES9023 boards and get them to fit as close as possible. I would probably not ever change DACs.
Some of the PSU mods I have considered would be very cheap for the stock DCX, and for the ES9023{s} I could insert a better dedicated 5V.
Alternatively, yes, I see that I could make SPDIF DAC-amps too, I somehow thought keeping leads short and using straight I2S would give me the cleanest sound?
Interesting thread:
Ergo Audio :: Stock vs. modded
another:
DCX2496 ƒtƒ‹ƒAƒEƒgƒvƒbƒg ƒPƒ“‚̃I�[ƒfƒBƒIƒ�ƒ‚/ƒEƒFƒuƒŠƒuƒ�ƒO
and
????? : ??????????????????????
^^^ so in the same way the Katyan4 images show SPDIF outs? I could fly over 5-6 I2S wires or I2S micro-coaxials and have a board or stack of boards or bank of boards that does single-ended DACS-OUT?
I HAVE some of these on hand:
24Bit/192KHz ES9023 DAC, I2S input, Ultra Low Noise Regulator - DIYINHK
50mm x 50mm that site has all sorts of boards that might fit.
I have completed Curryman boards too. I have numerous PSUs...
Then I saw:
ES9018K2M XMOS DSD DXD 384kHz USB DAC with Bit-perfect volume control and SPDIF input - DIYINHK
which seems to take SPDIF in so those could be at the other ends of LinuxWorks SPDIFs [thanks for the repost!! Looking slick!!]
I was thinking take RCA jacks off of cheap ES9023 boards and get them to fit as close as possible. I would probably not ever change DACs.
Some of the PSU mods I have considered would be very cheap for the stock DCX, and for the ES9023{s} I could insert a better dedicated 5V.
Alternatively, yes, I see that I could make SPDIF DAC-amps too, I somehow thought keeping leads short and using straight I2S would give me the cleanest sound?
Interesting thread:
Ergo Audio :: Stock vs. modded
another:
DCX2496 ƒtƒ‹ƒAƒEƒgƒvƒbƒg ƒPƒ“‚̃I�[ƒfƒBƒIƒ�ƒ‚/ƒEƒFƒuƒŠƒuƒ�ƒO
and
????? : ??????????????????????
^^^ so in the same way the Katyan4 images show SPDIF outs? I could fly over 5-6 I2S wires or I2S micro-coaxials and have a board or stack of boards or bank of boards that does single-ended DACS-OUT?
I HAVE some of these on hand:
24Bit/192KHz ES9023 DAC, I2S input, Ultra Low Noise Regulator - DIYINHK
50mm x 50mm that site has all sorts of boards that might fit.
I have completed Curryman boards too. I have numerous PSUs...
Then I saw:
ES9018K2M XMOS DSD DXD 384kHz USB DAC with Bit-perfect volume control and SPDIF input - DIYINHK
which seems to take SPDIF in so those could be at the other ends of LinuxWorks SPDIFs [thanks for the repost!! Looking slick!!]
my audio path is to go from a pc to spdif, then into a deq2496, that receives my 96k or less spdif and creates a constant 24/96 in aes format going out. that feeds into the dcx2496 with its aes-in (and I have them stacked, so you need only a very short xlr/xlr cable).
the modded dcx2496 splits the band into 2 spdif streams and those go into 2 outboard dacs (for now, cheap ebay china kits, akm4399, iirc). now, the part that gets a bit harder to do - doing ganged vol control of those 2 dac line-outs. I designed and built my own arduino preamp using a cirrus 8ch vol control chip and that does my analog vol control. since I only have 2 spdif streams, I only needed 2 stereo gangs on my vol control, but if/when I do the 3rd, I'll add the 3rd to the cirrus DIY build.
next, vol control/preamp out to 2 pairs of DIY chip-amps. nothing really special here, just lm3886.
finally, into 2-way spkr pair, obviously NOT using passive XO and all wiring and paths are straight to each speaker driver, direct.
it didn't cost an arm and a leg, it was fun building it all and I think it gets pretty good results.
it IS a lot of complexity, no argument there but since you split the band 'early on', I find it makes the most sense to keep things separate all the way to the end.
the modded dcx2496 splits the band into 2 spdif streams and those go into 2 outboard dacs (for now, cheap ebay china kits, akm4399, iirc). now, the part that gets a bit harder to do - doing ganged vol control of those 2 dac line-outs. I designed and built my own arduino preamp using a cirrus 8ch vol control chip and that does my analog vol control. since I only have 2 spdif streams, I only needed 2 stereo gangs on my vol control, but if/when I do the 3rd, I'll add the 3rd to the cirrus DIY build.
next, vol control/preamp out to 2 pairs of DIY chip-amps. nothing really special here, just lm3886.
finally, into 2-way spkr pair, obviously NOT using passive XO and all wiring and paths are straight to each speaker driver, direct.
it didn't cost an arm and a leg, it was fun building it all and I think it gets pretty good results.
it IS a lot of complexity, no argument there
but since you split the band 'early on', I find it makes the most sense to keep things separate all the way to the end.
Maybe - in stock format. Maybe. But the DCX has far more potential. Make your own analog section, the DCX digital section is fine. Upgrade the PSU and you're golden.
Invest the price difference between the two into the DCX and you will be handsomely rewarded.
Hey,
Follow Sendler's post about ribbon cable. Works perfectly.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/15943-behringer-dcx2496-digital-x-over-294.html
I managed to get the paths I had burnt fixed and also swapped AK4393 with AK4396. Bypassing the output takes DCX from 2 to 7 on 1-10 sonic scale. Upgrading the chip moves it to 8. Still, DEQ using AK4393 with tube psu and and output by Lampizator sounds better.
I am not sure I would give well implemented es9023 even 6. It is just not natural enough for me.
for the most part, I have had good success with the 'hiface2' usb/spdif dongle. only problem is: latest intel chipset (haswell) has MAJOR usb bugs that show identical problems (stuttering) in both linux and win7. very disappointing. previous intel chipsets (ivy bridge, etc) were fine.
so, I can recommend the hiface2 but only if you run generation-1 of intel's motherboard chipset. not sure why its a problem, but it is, and so far, no fix exists that I know of.
also, that hiface2 outputs something close to 5v than .5v and that's GOOD for the dcx input (it wants high voltage spdif in).
I had good luck with a modded ebay Tenor TE7022 board, after slight modification to the voltage divider on the spdif output to make it run at logic levels. The DCX will run at normal SPDIF levels, but seems far more stable with a higher voltage.
Your Sendler link takes me to post3681.
I tried searching the Sendler posts but can't identify which ribbon advice There are 8 Sendler posts mentioning ribbon..
Last edited:
Sorry, I thought it was taking you to page 294, precisely post #2935. Here is what he wrote about the ribbon cable:
"The ribbon wires between the digital and output boards are cut to get the audio signal before being polluted by any cheap coupling caps,balanced to single ended conversions, active filters and single ended back to balanced conversions with servo shifting output. This eliminates a series of 4 opamps and countless capacitors and resistors which yields unbelievable sonics with a slight loss of gain. If you want to try it yourself, the wires that you need starting from the red are 3-14 for the outputs from 6- to 1+ in that order. Note that counting from the red is the opposite to the way the wires are numbered on the schematic."