I'd get that one if it didn't look so ugly
I am just gonna sit the dac on top of my silver preamp (which is on the shelf above the silver aluminum lm3886 enclosure) I have a linear regulated 13.8v power supply (shown in previous photo on top shelf). I think I'll just buy an adjustable regulator to bring that down to the 9V the DAC needs and feed it with that.
yeah, its not that nice looking, get some camouflage vinyl wrap from ebay
LOL!
My preamp is the top smaller silver enclosure in the following photo:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
It's the 2205 all aluminum enclosure off eBay (from China for $40 free shipping).
Using two vintage knobs from an old 1960's HP vacuum tube multimeter -- I like em and gonna keep em
Black Diamonds are stickers I made -- printed on my color laser printer.. font is actually silver in attempt to give the stenciled / painted on look
Inside the preamp right now is just a Greyhill 4 position switch and an ALPS 10k blue (or was it black) Rk27 or whatever pot.
So it's just a stupid passive attenuator at the moment. BUt has two pairs of rca outputs (Y'd together inside with direct solder). One set of rca go to the LM3886 and the other goes to the Polk Powered Sub.
So yeah I have impedance matching issues most likely.
So I have the Nelson Pass DIY B1 Buffer Board I bought from Pass Labs along with 4 matching jfet transistors. Getting the rest of the parts from digikey in a couple days (ordered yesterday).
I'll be putting the B1 buffer PCB in the preamp case using all the extisting pots,, knobs, selectors and rca's.
I really hope this B1 buffer will improve things.
Also in a couple days I'll have the silver SMSL M8 sabre 9023 DSD DAC.. hoping that will improve sound as well.
If those both go well.. then I'll just have to look at new monitor speakers down the road I guess. But I don't know what I can buy that sound much better than these for not too much money. I can't ever see myself spending a grand on monitors.. perhaps I can DIY better ones for 1/2 the price or less? I have no clue about speakers.
B1 gets reviews, it should sound good, and its no stress to get it going. There are a few good kit loudspeakers. They make the biggest difference to a system, but are expensive or can be hard to make.
Zaph has a good reputation around here:
Zaph|Audio
But there is a whole forum here with helpful speaker people that know more.
BTW, I think your dac has es9018 not 9023. This is the high end chip. I have a buffalo dac that uses this chip, and its a very good dac.
Zaph has a good reputation around here:
Zaph|Audio
But there is a whole forum here with helpful speaker people that know more.
BTW, I think your dac has es9018 not 9023. This is the high end chip. I have a buffalo dac that uses this chip, and its a very good dac.
Here is a favorable review of the SMSL M8 DAC I just ordered from Amazon:
SMSL M8 – A True Reference DAC on a Shoestring Budget – Music Server Tips
SMSL M8 – A True Reference DAC on a Shoestring Budget – Music Server Tips
I think its similar but lower cost implementation. Someone described it as 90% the quality of the better dac for a lot less money. I think the chip alone $50-60 and not sold to public. I could be wrong, but dacs with this chip typically cost alot. Implementation has alot to do with the sound quality, for example, the I/V conversion should be really low impedance, short tracks etc.
Reading this review again.. looking good from what he wrote. Good board layout, nice op amps. Sucky switching power supply though -- wall wart.
Could I temporarily run one (or two or more in parallel) 9v batteries to feed this? Would that sound better?
that review has a link to another power supply, better looking, lower price. Double win
Would like to hear one now, I wonder how it stacks up compared to my buffalo.
I could of got the SMSL M8 for $175 plus $8 shipping from Massdrop.com instead of $249 from Amazon. The drop just ended an hour or so ago. But I wouldn't have it until June 20th and then if I didn't like it I couldn't return it I'm sure. So I figure just pay the $249 and have it in 2 days and have up to 30 days to return it no questions asked.
If I had around $300 to spend I would be inclined to go for the full JLSounds combo, their I2SoverUSB, AK4490 and LME4910 fully soldered combo will set you back about $170 (less if you assemble the LME board yourself);
Products - I2S over USB Audio
That will give you a very good PCM and DSD capable DAC. For an extra $18 you can get the control board too;
LCD - I2S over USB Audio
Assuming you go for the DIY version of the LME board and the LCD board the total would be around $175, leaving £125 for power supplies and a chassis, plus some metalwork.
For power supplies, I would suggest powering at least the clocks and DAC (which are after the isolation mentioned earlier) with something like this;
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendors-bazaar/263618-tps7a4700-low-noise-ldo-regulator-pcb.html
a second one would be good for the USB input section but you could power this via USB, at least initially.
For the LME board I suggest a couple of LM317 type supplies (it needs +/-15V).
Small toroidal power transformers won't cost the earth and there are lots of suitable chassis available from Chinese sellers on ebay.
Oh, and you could upgrade later with the separate high quality clock board.
Ray
Products - I2S over USB Audio
That will give you a very good PCM and DSD capable DAC. For an extra $18 you can get the control board too;
LCD - I2S over USB Audio
Assuming you go for the DIY version of the LME board and the LCD board the total would be around $175, leaving £125 for power supplies and a chassis, plus some metalwork.
For power supplies, I would suggest powering at least the clocks and DAC (which are after the isolation mentioned earlier) with something like this;
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendors-bazaar/263618-tps7a4700-low-noise-ldo-regulator-pcb.html
a second one would be good for the USB input section but you could power this via USB, at least initially.
For the LME board I suggest a couple of LM317 type supplies (it needs +/-15V).
Small toroidal power transformers won't cost the earth and there are lots of suitable chassis available from Chinese sellers on ebay.
Oh, and you could upgrade later with the separate high quality clock board.
Ray
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The critical things are the opamps and the power supply right? I bet with all that you mentioned, that'd make for one nice sounding DAC. Better than ones costing like a grand? How would it compare to the SMSL M8 which has a Sabre 9018
How does the Curryman (with integrated DAC chip & filter) sound compared to the AK4490 + LME4910?
Seems like I2SoverUSB is definitely the way to go for the link. I can use I2SoverUSB with Curryman with no problems right? The Curryman would save me some $.
EDIT: wow they actually have a kit combo for $139 (where you solder the filter board parts on).. but it's the filter, dac and the i2usb card.
Seems like I2SoverUSB is definitely the way to go for the link. I can use I2SoverUSB with Curryman with no problems right? The Curryman would save me some $.
EDIT: wow they actually have a kit combo for $139 (where you solder the filter board parts on).. but it's the filter, dac and the i2usb card.
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The SMSL M8 has the budget K2 version of the ESS9018, which I've never heard.
I do have a DAC with the full-spec ESS9018 (Buffalo DAC IIISE) and another with the JLSounds AK4490; they're very different implementations/builds (ESS9018 is all solid state whereas AK4490 uses a tube output stage) but both produce excellent sounds.
Yes, the Curryman DAC will work with the JLSounds I2SoverUSB. I have a Curryman DAC in a DIY headphone dac/amp and it sounds very nice. The Curryman uses the ESS9024, which is less capable than the AK4490 (as I recall max PCM rate is 192KHz, no DSD, no on-chip digital volume).
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
That is the combo I suggested. JLSounds prices are in Euros so the $USD price will be around 10% more.
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