I must admit to have been mistaken.... I did not know of the SPDIF receiver. Well... That's a plus.
Anyway... It just tells me, that time spend on impementing is even lower
And at that point, I really do not understand, why they did not spend some of the free time on making a better analog stage. Op-amp, op-amp and op-amp..... Just like anything else...
I'm sorry your veiw is very much a minorty veiw not shared by mesurment or the head engineers of all the large semi conductor companies developing high performance audio parts. Look at the aplication documents for top end ADC's from the likes of TI and you will see opamps in abundance!
A descrite IV stage etc. Is more costly than a few cheap opamps and will most likley have a worse SNR and THD. Real engineers mesure things. Also ceramic capacitors are fine aslong as they are operated with a DC bias that is >> than the AC signal. Under close to 0V DC bias they are awfull and especialy when large currents are passed through them, that has been mesured (Bad THD aproaching 2%).
I think this arrogant "we are the best" attitude and the bashing of the Buffalo DAC have now gone far enough. Yes, the comparison should always have been (only) with readily available DACs, not with something of which appearantly neither the schematics nor the BOM are final after more than four years of development.
Moderator, could you please close this thread.
Kurt
Moderator, could you please close this thread.
Kurt
We did start our own thread....
But, what's the point in having a thread, where you can only discuss the performance of one single product?? Yes it's good... How good?? Better than "biiiiiip".
You need some sort of reference, and mine just happen to be our own DAC, that we spend 4½ years of R&D/tweaking. When we started, no one had even though about making a "Buffalo design".
My point is, that the Buffulo is one of these mainstream DAC's, that any experienced designer can R&D in less than a week from the app note, which I also guess is the case. Just doesn't sound that enthusiastic, so let's focus on the 32 bit (Even though we feed it only 16) and let's tell that we spend years and years to R&D it (Even though the DAC-chip has just been released). That's more high end...
But OK.... Let's focus on the Buffalo:
- Does anybody know the considerations that have been made, that ended up in an op-amp based analog stage?? Where there ever any serious listening-tests besides... 2 min of listening, and then "Ohh... it sounds OK"??
- How about those nasty ceramic capacitors in the analog filter?? Where there ever made any listening-tests, that indicated that this excact type of capacitor is the absolute optimum for analog filtering?? I honestly cannot believe so....
Considering the well known fact, that the analog stage is the part of the design, where you really make a difference, I believe that the analog stage needs way more attention!
And if you don't believe that the analog stage is that important, then what took so long in making a DAC like the Buffalo?? Guess the digital part will take less than a day for an experienced engineer. And why pay $599 for a badly implemented DAC-chip (Of less than $20)??? Why not just buy the evaluation board? My guess is that the implementation is more or less the same, and eval boards normally do not cost $599.
At $599 I really believe you must come up with more than a DAC-chip and some op-amps. Such a project should be priced at around 299 USD including PSU.
So this is your thread?
Interesting way of promoting your own dac.
How can you say your dac is better than this one without listening to any implementations?
So you have a CS dac with a discrete I/V? wow, what next.
It's taken "4½ years of R&D/tweaking"? and no schematic or details so far?
Having a cheap shot at the Buffalo dac for using chip I/V's.
I don't have a Buffalo dac so I cannot say anything about it's sound or implementation.
The dac's I play with all use a discrete I/V or buffer. just my preference.
This thread so far does not help your creditability.
Flaming someone else's project is not a way of promoting your own.
Me too.
Actually, your product is "biiiip" too, it doesn't exist today. Nobody has heard it. We don't know anything about it except that it does not use ceramic components, and it is a discrete design of some kind (which actually means nothing as the devil is in the implementation).
It may have the world's best components, but that really means zilch unless we could look at some numbers, some topology details, and have some listening tests to show us where it stands.
And since you are openly competing with the Buffalo, it would do some good if you actually listened to it instead of looking at its pictures on the internet and guessing about its performance, and then we could have some interesting discussion, whether it be that yours was better, and by how many orders of magnitude. I assume you would be claiming it to stomp everything else into the dust, so let's see some proof already
I don't understand how you are claiming to be able to compare a DAC that you have never heard, to one that no one apart from you has heard. What exactly are you trying to say in this thread?
i say you guys is just making a big deal out of nothing. yes those 2 danish are arrogant, and do not have a lot to back their ideas, but how can anybody claim what they say about their dac being better than an other is wrong? i mean i expect that years of serious research and polishing will result in a great dac. if they say it is the single best dac in the world, fine that s cool, we can argue, but still in the end we wont be certain of anything. so lets just not stress, and wait for something tangible to happen.
i just dont see why it could not outperform a buffalo dac. dont get me wrong i like twisted pear audio s effort, i even ordered a buffalo24 recently. but i indeed feel it s not the best we can get out of the sabre yet, given indeed the timeframe tpa had to work with
i just dont see why it could not outperform a buffalo dac. dont get me wrong i like twisted pear audio s effort, i even ordered a buffalo24 recently. but i indeed feel it s not the best we can get out of the sabre yet, given indeed the timeframe tpa had to work with
What it boils down to is your individual answer to the age-old question: "would you buy a used car from a very glowing and ostentatious classified advert without a test drive?"
I too am now finished with this thread - which should be closed by moderation or barred to those who have abused it.
I too am now finished with this thread - which should be closed by moderation or barred to those who have abused it.
We did start our own thread....
But, what's the point in having a thread, where you can only discuss the performance of one single product?? Yes it's good... How good?? Better than "biiiiiip".
You need some sort of reference, and mine just happen to be our own DAC, that we spend 4½ years of R&D/tweaking. When we started, no one had even though about making a "Buffalo design".
My point is, that the Buffulo is one of these mainstream DAC's, that any experienced designer can R&D in less than a week from the app note, which I also guess is the case. Just doesn't sound that enthusiastic, so let's focus on the 32 bit (Even though we feed it only 16) and let's tell that we spend years and years to R&D it (Even though the DAC-chip has just been released
But OK.... Let's focus on the Buffalo:
- Does anybody know the considerations that have been made, that ended up in an op-amp based analog stage?? Where there ever any serious listening-tests besides... 2 min of listening, and then "Ohh... it sounds OK"??
- How about those nasty ceramic capacitors in the analog filter?? Where there ever made any listening-tests, that indicated that this excact type of capacitor is the absolute optimum for analog filtering?? I honestly cannot believe so....
Considering the well known fact, that the analog stage is the part of the design, where you really make a difference, I believe that the analog stage needs way more attention!
And if you don't believe that the analog stage is that important, then what took so long in making a DAC like the Buffalo?? Guess the digital part will take less than a day for an experienced engineer. And why pay $599 for a badly implemented DAC-chip (Of less than $20)??? Why not just buy the evaluation board? My guess is that the implementation is more or less the same, and eval boards normally do not cost $599.
At $599 I really believe you must come up with more than a DAC-chip and some op-amps. Such a project should be priced at around 299 USD including PSU.
The ESS9018 is pretty expensive for a dac chip
Also those are not ceramic caps used in the output stage, they are SMD PPS
Heres proof I DO have a Buffalo32s
I also have original Bufallo which I modified adding separate Paul Hynes
shunt and series regs, I intend on rigging the Buffalo32s with the same type regs sometime soon
I was hoping these would be the final dac I buy (I've already spent far too much on various others) and tried a very wide selection of ready built commercial and diy types
Anyway what is the rough price for your pcbs? I may be tempted to build your dac and give it a non biased comparison against the Buffalo32s at some stage
Be aware though I'm honest, if I feel the dac sounds poor I will say so
BTW IMHO the Buffalo32s is sonically superior to the Buffalo24
Seriously I've been down this path so many times, already spent far too much
If I have the parts to hand I used to be pretty quick at building things up and trying it, I've calmed down a lot lately, we'll see how much the thing costs.
Problem is with threads like this you see pages of arguments without any actual sound impressions or comparisons
Are those signal (AC) coupling caps or power supply bypass caps?
I was under the impression the signal is DC coupled.
I'm not going to give too many details on here about the Buffalo32s circuit , those caps are for supply bypass, theres no coupling caps that I know of
It works a treat. $DAYJOB had me working on dither a couple of years ago, as a matter of fact, and just for kicks & grins I limited the output wordlength of a work system to something absurd like 6 bits. The test signal sounded like hell at that length, of course, but dither cleaned it right up with only some background noise as penalty. I haven't tried shaped dither yet; perhaps in my copious spare time.
Nice Job! Heres my original Buffalo with Paul Hynes regs (leads now much shorter, pic was during evaluation), can't wait to try some on the Buffalo32s
I've tried standard LM317/337, LT317/337, ALW super regs, Teddy regs, Burson regs, Audiocom super regs, various diy TL431 shunt jobs, zener + transistor with current sources etc
IMO Pauls regs bettered any of these, I only consider using his regs if wanting best sound performance now
It will be interesting to try TP's Placid to see how it compares
Maybe, I'l have a look for it, things are harder to find on here now
Edit found it, will have a good read through it, quite a big thread
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