DAC 2496 (AK4393) DAC KIT With CS8416+AK4393+5532

Jump to Latest
johnm

johnm

Member
Joined 2003
I got my AK4393 kit from zoe_tsang too and agree he was very helpful, just wondered if the designer also sold them direct.

Was thinking earlier it would be cool to have a slightly revised board to accommodate the AK4395 with it's different voltage requirement - general opinion would appear to indicate that the 4395 sounds slightly superior to the 93 or 96 so it would be nice to have a board that makes the most of that chip. I'd definitely order one ;)
 
G

georgebrooke

Member
Joined 2006
oaklodgeconsulting.co.uk
Hi,

I think this quote from the designer might interest you all . .. see

"
MINI2496 market some time , and sales is not bad. But it does not meet some of the Hi-end pursuit of friends who, but MINI2496 in the design, is to exhaust the capacity of the chip, and the price control was very close to the people.
Members of MINI2496 consensus that the best is the price of the DAC, but also arguments that fly in the ointment is not too high (in this era of Blu-ray). So we decided to make a new high-end DAC system. So that we can try a more high-end products, and we will try to compress the price so that we can accept. Now we need your views on the new DAC system!
New DAC is expected to sell between $ 200-300.
The current candidate configuration:
1 digital receiver, the use of more than DIR9001 excellent WM8805 as reception, equipped with high-precision crystal oscillator. JITTER <= 50ps
2. DAC chips, the candidate with CS4398 AD1852 AD1853, welcome to recommend a better chip
3. DAC chip count, one, two or multi-piece modular design? Hope that we can take part in activities to their own specific ideas put forward so that our development team can hope to find out what kind of heart we DAC? Thank you."
 
Y

YohY

Member
Joined 2009
New Design ?

georgebrooke said:
I think this quote from the designer might interest you all . .. see

....So we decided to make a new high-end DAC system -So that we can try a more high-end products,
The current candidate configuration:
2. DAC chips, the candidate with CS4398 AD1852 AD1853, welcome to recommend a better chip..."
Click to expand...


Ha ha - I've got the DUAL CS4398 dac kit coming as we read this ! :rolleyes:
(and I'm informed it's a tastey soundin' dac !)

[URL="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260715957772&ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260715957772&ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT :up::up:

CS4398_vfd.jpg

What I like about it also, is the VFD display that shows the input & sampling frequency :D

-Andy-
 
Last edited:
G

georgebrooke

Member
Joined 2006
oaklodgeconsulting.co.uk
YohY said:
Ha ha - I've got the DUAL CS4398 dac kit coming as we read this ! :rolleyes:
(and I'm informed it's a tastey soundin' dac !)

Dual CS4398 CS8416 24Bit/192KHZ DAC Kit, VFD Display-RC on eBay (end time 21-Jun-11 07:15:37 BST) :up::up:

View attachment 229367

What I like about it also, is the VFD display that shows the input & sampling frequency :D

-Andy-
Click to expand...

Hi Andy,

I agree ... it does seem to be very good.
My strategy... if you can call it that .. is to use 4396 DAC as a stop-gap. I plan to embed it in pre-amp chassis. In the longer term ... after the garden has stopped growing... the idea is to build a stand-alone DAC. Your model looks very nice, especially the display feature, and I note a nice box is available for it too. Another design under consideration is the new Buffalo 3 kit. Any comments on that (see The Buffalo II Digital-to-Analog Converter )

George
 
Y

YohY

Member
Joined 2009
George-

You've no doubt read the postings by Erin about using the Wyred 4 sound dac, but as I've found out for myself
after dem'ing some current £1k+ dacs there's a lot to be said for the build quality / costs / & relative sound quality.
I've lived with the Antelope Zodiac+ for a few weeks now, an as good as it
sounds (though, tbh, not really a million miles away from the 4396) barely looks the part of a £700 unit (!)
I'm prepared to spend the wonga, but what I've heard so far from the 4396 & 4395 unit I really couldn't sensibly spend
that money. To add, I really don't think the ESS 9018 equip'd dac is the way to go.
Like I said in a post previously, the 4396 shows more depth & detail to the proceedings than a mate's Dual S2 TDA1541 Nos dac !
-Andy-
 
johnm

johnm

Member
Joined 2003
G

georgebrooke

Member
Joined 2006
oaklodgeconsulting.co.uk
Dual CS4398

Hi Paul,

thanks for that link.. I have never come across that supplier before.
However, tempting as it is, I think I shall pass on buying one of these (very attractive) boards for now. I need to concentrate on the current project.. .and hopefully by the time that is finished there will be even better kits on the market at even better prices.

DAC development has been going on for a long time now. Does anyone in the forum think that it is running out of steam.. that it is about as good as it is going to get, at least for reasonable money. I guess there will always be room for tweaking, but basically are the current DAC chips all we need for high quality stereo?. Personally I am not concerned about anything more than 2-channel sound.:worried:
 
E

erin

Member
Joined 2006
georgebrooke said:
DAC development has been going on for a long time now. Does anyone in the forum think that it is running out of steam.. that it is about as good as it is going to get, at least for reasonable money. I guess there will always be room for tweaking, but basically are the current DAC chips all we need for high quality stereo?. Personally I am not concerned about anything more than 2-channel sound.:worried:
Click to expand...

Since writing previous comments on this thread I have hooked up a DEM reclocking circuit to my TDA1541 DACs. I now think that the TDA1541 is quite convincingly better than the AK4393. Having said that I also think that there is really not a lot between "well done" implementations of all DAC chips, and assuming the limits are pushed with power supplies, and the most appropriate capacitors chosen, and the circuit is tweaked to give the best performance in a given system, then enjoyable high fidelity sound is available from most "flagship" DAC chips, and in the end comes down to personal sonic preference. What I think about the TDA1541, no doubt someone will disagree with, but I still think that this little AK4393/6 kit will give sound which punches way above its price point, and is still the benchmark in sound quality vs price.

I think that getting "better" sound will come down to record companies releasing albums in 96khz sample rate or greater which will give greater frequency response, more accurately reproducing the natural frequency response of voice and instruments, irrespective of whether these frequencies are outside of human hearing. I believe that the interaction of frequencies outside of human hearing, modulating the frequencies that we can hear does affect the perception of reproduced sound.

There probably are enough DAC chips currently made that should satisfy most people interested in digital audio, so are they "good enough" for high quality sound? Yes absolutely, IMO the limitation is the sampling rate, not the available DAC chips.

Although I am waiting to see what this ARDA DAC chip sounds like:
Arda Technologies - AT1401 Flagship Audio D/A Converter
 
Last edited:
G

georgebrooke

Member
Joined 2006
oaklodgeconsulting.co.uk
Future

Hi Erin,

I agree pretty well with everything that you wrote... especially about the use of high-resolution lossless formats for recording. As an aside from the building of amps/dacs/cd players/speakers I am just completing a computer based music center with around 6 TB of storage (total). The sound card in teh PC has AK4396 chips so I am looking forward to the comparison with the mini DAC. Eventually the cds will be nothing but strips of bits on spinning disks.Once they are all gone I shall start downloading high quality formats ... this is a long-term hobby (for the retired of course). By then I shall probably need a hearing aid... now is there a forum for tweaking of Hi Fi hearing aids.... anyone want to start one?:)
 
P

paul_peraic

Member
Joined 2008
georgebrooke said:
Hi Paul,

thanks for that link.. I have never come across that supplier before.
However, tempting as it is, I think I shall pass on buying one of these (very attractive) boards for now. I need to concentrate on the current project.. .and hopefully by the time that is finished there will be even better kits on the market at even better prices.

DAC development has been going on for a long time now. Does anyone in the forum think that it is running out of steam.. that it is about as good as it is going to get, at least for reasonable money. I guess there will always be room for tweaking, but basically are the current DAC chips all we need for high quality stereo?. Personally I am not concerned about anything more than 2-channel sound.:worried:
Click to expand...

Your welcome George

I guess there are only so many DAC's one person can buy :)
 
terranigma

terranigma

Member
Joined 2007
Burn in time

Alex Peychev from AplHifi comments about AK4396's. Despite it's 5 years then, observations seem noticable anyway.

07-26-06: Aplhifi
....AKM is one of the largest suppliers of DACs and ADCs for the Professional and Broadcast quality products. There is no ADC like their AK5394A and no DAC like their AK4396, IMO

"I have AKM DACs" don't really mean anything. You really need to have the AK4396 because this DAC, being the AKM flagship, is much more advanced than any other AKM DAC. What they have done in the AK4396 is revolutionary in terms of Digital Filtering, Delta Sigma modulator and output stages. This DAC has up to 10 times less out-of-band noise compared to anything similar on the market today, as well as the capability to accept 216KHz sample rate while keeping the same digital filter oversampling rate and the same speed of the modulator.

I feel that Slim Devices made a very good choice selecting AK4396 DAC for their new "Transporter".

Note: The AK4396 DAC sounds lean when brand new. It gains bass, richness and fullness in about 200 hours, so be patient.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Y

YohY

Member
Joined 2009
Radian said:
Even if one was able to fix all those issues, the TDA 1541 couldn't touch the AKM AK4396.
John I am convinced that with your expertise and empirical approach you will finally extract the last bit of performance out of
the TDA chips but they will still not be able to reach a decently implemented 4396.
I strongly suggest that anyone who wants to build something that
deserves the word "ultimate" give this Dac a try.
Until I discovered this chip I thought NOS was definitely the way to
go. After my lightly modified cheap Soundcard blew my DDDac with all those expensive caps and resistors out of the water I decided not to waste any time with any other chip anymore. Alex Peychev
of APL says that there is no other Dac on the planet that can touch
it. This is the guy that build players that are reportedly better than any Wadia.
I was so proud of the sound of my DDDac. It had the natural organic sound I was missing with other digital sources.
But when the soundcard with the passive out mod sounded even more natural I knew that oversampling by itself can not the problem. AKM seems to have found a way to overcome the
shortcomings of oversampling. What you get on top of the natural presentation is a wealth of detail and a 3D soundstage that is way above my DDDac.

John, I did not write this to criticize your work but to encourage you
to try something new.

Here is a quote from Alex Peychev about the superiority of the AK 4396:

"07-26-06: Aplhifi
....AKM is one of the largest suppliers of DACs and ADCs for the Professional and Broadcast quality products. There is no ADC like their AK5394A and no DAC like their AK4396, IMO

"I have AKM DACs" don't really mean anything. You really need to have the AK4396 because this DAC, being the AKM flagship, is much more advanced than any other AKM DAC. What they have done in the AK4396 is revolutionary in terms of Digital Filtering, Delta Sigma modulator and output stages. This DAC has up to 10 times less out-of-band noise compared to anything similar on the market today, as well as the capability to accept 216KHz sample rate while keeping the same digital filter oversampling rate and the same speed of the modulator.

I feel that Slim Devices made a very good choice selecting AK4396 DAC for their new "Transporter".

Note: The AK4396 DAC sounds lean when brand new. It gains bass, richness and fullness in about 200 hours, so be patient. :)

Regards, Alex"



Greets,
Klaus
Click to expand...





erin said:
...and in the end comes down to personal sonic preference. What I think about the TDA1541, no doubt someone will disagree with..
Click to expand...

Note the wording in the former post above - "John, I did not write this to criticize your work but to encourage you
to try something new "

Sometimes, I wonder if it comes down to personal taste, or whether we have the appropriate partnering equipment to show what a product can really do..
Suffice to say, I would not wish to offend anyone on their choice - My goal is only to extend the pleasure we all draw from this hobby of ours! :)

-Andy-
 
E

erin

Member
Joined 2006
There is unlikely to be any consensus on the matter of which DAC chip sounds "best", they all present sound slightly different to the other. I believe that even if there was a DAC that 100% perfectly reproduced the incoming digital signal (something no audio DAC currently does 100% of the time) there would be someone who would prefer the sound of something else.

I will provide a link to a thread on another forum which involves a discussion between Thorsten Loach (Engineer - AMR TDA1541 CD Player) and Dustin Forman (Principle engineer on the ESS Sabre DAC) Audio Asylum Thread Printer It makes for interesting reading.
 
terranigma

terranigma

Member
Joined 2007
YohY said:
Note the wording in the former post above - "John, I did not write this to criticize your work but to encourage you
to try something new "

Sometimes, I wonder if it comes down to personal taste, or whether we have the appropriate partnering equipment to show what a product can really do..
Suffice to say, I would not wish to offend anyone on their choice - My goal is only to extend the pleasure we all draw from this hobby of ours! :)

-Andy-
Click to expand...

I thought that only matter of my previous post was that pointing to AK4396's at least 200 hours burn-in time rather than a foolish "my dac beats yours" attempt. "200 hours" should be an useful info for new dac owners imho.

Regards.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom