I did catch this in the other thread yes.. 
But Leon, is your BII Dac "stock"? I can only afford to build a single BII for stereo use, no dual mono's - I just hope this will present the same difference.
I want to build one myself, but as far as I see, only the BII itself comes completed, the IVY stage and both power supplies must be soldered. I have little or no experience soldering on PCB (although I practiced a bit on old stuff...) - is this possible to do for a soldering beginner, or will it be over my head?
If I start it, I'm going for a single SPDIF in (squeezebox)
edit: removed receiver questions
But Leon, is your BII Dac "stock"? I can only afford to build a single BII for stereo use, no dual mono's - I just hope this will present the same difference.
I want to build one myself, but as far as I see, only the BII itself comes completed, the IVY stage and both power supplies must be soldered. I have little or no experience soldering on PCB (although I practiced a bit on old stuff...) - is this possible to do for a soldering beginner, or will it be over my head?
If I start it, I'm going for a single SPDIF in (squeezebox)
edit: removed receiver questions
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Does anyone using LiFePO4s for AVCC have photos of how you set this up? Compared to the price of a Hynes regulator they seem like a somewhat inexpensive way to try alternate power strategies. Do you pull the batteries to charge, or leave them in-circuit and just shut off the charger to listen?
It looks like I may actually take my BII out of the box this weekend and start getting it set up. Since it's still the same calendar year that I bought it, for me this qualifies as 'pretty quick'
I was worried about the soldering part when I first got started. If you buy the proper iron (get a temperature regulated one like the Hakko or Aoyue) and use some nice flowy solder (I use the spendy cardas stuff) it makes a big difference. Just watch some how-to video's online and give it a shot!
It's a stock dual mono with separate PSUs for L/R (so 4 in total). I'm using the IVY3.
A dual mono setup is an improvement over the stereo configuration, but this is something you can change to later on in the game.
Soldering is quite easy, building the boards is very straightforward. Connecting them in a dual mono config was much more challenging due to the lack of documentation at the time.
I agree about the iron & solder, I'm using an Ersa soldering station with Stannol solder and esp. the right solder makes things very easy. Work fast and neat, and before you start populating the boards shortly tip the opamps' legs on the boards. Their solder can develop fractures during (rough) shipping, and it's not easy to correct this after building the boards.
P.S. You can reach me on the other board also, and I'm less than an hours drive away.
For a soldering beginner, I would highly recommend NOT doing this. While you may have received a board with a bad solder joint, 99.99% of the boards (many hundreds) have no issues, and you are more likely to cause damage than anything else.
If you are just getting started with soldering, I recommend a cheaper soldering station, like a Weller WLC-100. I used one for many years for everything, including SMD work. I only stopped using it when the iron finally died.
For solder, I highly recommend Kester no-clean 63/37 .015" (24-6337-8806 Kester Solder, Fluxes & Accessories). Great stuff, use it on everything, small enough to easily solder SMD by hand, and no clean so you don;t need to worry about the rosin eating holes in your work.
For a beginner you may be right. Unfortunately 0.01% (or rather 0.12% as I had a total of 12 PCBs) is more than enough for me to get a bad one. I'm just that lucky. Knowing it (or rather realizing the risk) beforehand would have saved me quite a few weeks of waiting. And money.
A no-clean type solder certainly is a good idea, even though isopropyl alcohol isn't that expensive. I always clean the PCB anyway as it does look better after a good cleanup.
A no-clean type solder certainly is a good idea, even though isopropyl alcohol isn't that expensive. I always clean the PCB anyway as it does look better after a good cleanup.
It is the same XO. However, the next batch of Buffalo-II will use 100MHz instead of 80MHz.
Oh, It's simply a good news for SDTrans192 users those who want to try 352.8 kHz/ 24 bit DXD WAV files with Buffalo II DAC. They will not need to replace the oscillator device on the new Buffalo II board.
Please remember that my experience on 352.8 kHz/24 bit I2S source device is only limited to Chiaki's SDTrans192 and "Over sampling mode" is selected on ES9018 chip. For the I2S signals from the source, both TPA Buffalo32s & Buffalo II and ESS ES9018 Evaluation Board suffer continuous noises with the master clock of 80 MHz. When we use 96 MHz or 100 MHz one, we can eliminate the noise.
Of course, you may think the quality of I2S signals of SDTrans192 on 352.8 kHz/24 bit play is not good enough. We are not sure on this point.
Hi Russ
Came across this, posted by a user of Sabre chips-
posted here-
At last...................... - Page 30 - pink fish media
Is this true, and were you aware of it? Apologies if this is well known to all, except me
Paul
Came across this, posted by a user of Sabre chips-
posted here-
At last...................... - Page 30 - pink fish media
Is this true, and were you aware of it? Apologies if this is well known to all, except me
Paul
Hi Russ
Came across this, posted by a user of Sabre chips-
posted here-
At last...................... - Page 30 - pink fish media
Is this true, and were you aware of it? Apologies if this is well known to all, except me
Paul
I use 192khz 24bit from SPDIF regularly, but it may be that my sources have fast enough edge transitions. I have *never* had a problem with that.
I would never suggest SPDIF for high speed in any case. I2S is much better suited to the task. This is the reason we use it on our new USB module.
As for the 80mhz vs 100mhz. I have used both successfully with 352.8khz signals. But those were generated signals, not from any music source. Because some folks have noted that the ESS chip is more forgiving at high sample rates with a fast clock we decided to increase the speed. There is not really any good reason not to move up in speed, so we did it.
There is nothing more too it than that.
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