- You can not turn off all upsampling. The R-2R ladder must always be driven at ~2.8MHz.
- No, you can not, but you can get around most of the digital filtering by feeding the DAC with material that is already upsampled to ~384KHz.
If you don't mind me asking, why are you considering tubes as output stages? The DAM doesn't really need an output stage for most setups and I've yet to find an output stage for it that does more good than harm.
- No, you can not, but you can get around most of the digital filtering by feeding the DAC with material that is already upsampled to ~384KHz.
If you don't mind me asking, why are you considering tubes as output stages? The DAM doesn't really need an output stage for most setups and I've yet to find an output stage for it that does more good than harm.
I heared many dacs and i understand, that i cant hear DACs without tubes, because they have not energy, emotions. I like Audio Note (model 2 and up), Lampizator 6.
And i need 2V rms output (soekris have 1.4V). opamps is evil))
Last edited:
Awesome. I vaguely remember you mentioning about it being possible to do a switched capacitor C-2C ADC board using similar design principles. This could be useful for audio analyzing among other things one uses a filtered ADC for. I'm not sure if the interest would be your worthwhile however, I'd be interested nonetheless.
SOEKRIS,
You are not the only one confused by that strange article.
6moons can be verbose and ridiculous but rarely are they this opaque. Reviewing a product that as far as I can tell does not exist - the SD card player. And then, all of a sudden, there is mention and a photograph of another SD card player but as quickly as it appeared it was dismissed and one wonders what was that all about?
I look at the magazine for one reason - they take pictures of the inside of gear and I like seeing what folks are doing.
I do not think there is any question that SD card readers are the way to go. I am using the SDTrans (as I have mentioned a hundred times) and I am very pleased with it. But I doubt I am missing much for the $89,500 I did not spend.
From what I could surmise I think they thought the DAC sounded good.
Take care,
You are not the only one confused by that strange article.
6moons can be verbose and ridiculous but rarely are they this opaque. Reviewing a product that as far as I can tell does not exist - the SD card player. And then, all of a sudden, there is mention and a photograph of another SD card player but as quickly as it appeared it was dismissed and one wonders what was that all about?
I look at the magazine for one reason - they take pictures of the inside of gear and I like seeing what folks are doing.
I do not think there is any question that SD card readers are the way to go. I am using the SDTrans (as I have mentioned a hundred times) and I am very pleased with it. But I doubt I am missing much for the $89,500 I did not spend.
From what I could surmise I think they thought the DAC sounded good.
Take care,
I guess you realize that your question is silly. Like asking what is so special about R2R dacs?
The essential aspect of the SD card is that it is dumb. There is no moving of the data from one spot to another. When you write to an SD card the file is placed where it always will be, intact.
This aspect will probably frustrate many since you must place your files on the disk exactly as you want them. There is no manipulation available after writing, other than pushing the next folder button.
One of those things you must hear for yourself and then decide.
Now if someone could come up with a way to couple an HDD to a dac without all of that computer stuff in the middle, I do not doubt it would be very good. You cannot compare an HDD or SSD directly to an SD card reader because there is a big noisy computer involved. With the SD card readers there is a toaster oven sized processor and an FPGA.
That is the crux.
The essential aspect of the SD card is that it is dumb. There is no moving of the data from one spot to another. When you write to an SD card the file is placed where it always will be, intact.
This aspect will probably frustrate many since you must place your files on the disk exactly as you want them. There is no manipulation available after writing, other than pushing the next folder button.
One of those things you must hear for yourself and then decide.
Now if someone could come up with a way to couple an HDD to a dac without all of that computer stuff in the middle, I do not doubt it would be very good. You cannot compare an HDD or SSD directly to an SD card reader because there is a big noisy computer involved. With the SD card readers there is a toaster oven sized processor and an FPGA.
That is the crux.
My opinion is based upon my experience and not what I think.
I had a highly refined computer playback setup with plenty of expensive accessories. Linear power supplies for all components. Took up a corner of my listening room.
There is no comparison in the sound quality. It is obvious to all who hear it.
If you get a chance to hear one properly implemented you will be in for a pleasant surprise.
I had a highly refined computer playback setup with plenty of expensive accessories. Linear power supplies for all components. Took up a corner of my listening room.
There is no comparison in the sound quality. It is obvious to all who hear it.
If you get a chance to hear one properly implemented you will be in for a pleasant surprise.
I can tell you that Amanero's really aren't all that great compared to the newer XMOS XU208/216 based boards. The dam1021 has a lot more to give.
I've used an Amanero with my setup for almost 2 years before switching as I never believed it would ever make a difference before. If anything when comparing the SDTrans against other sources one *should* be comparing it to something like a Singxer SU-1 instead.
If computers were unable to read digital information from a disc we wouldn't be able to run any programs.
If computers were unable to safely send data over a network, the internet wouldn't exist.
The only thing that matters is getting the information safely to the DAC in a timely manner, after that it's all up to the DAC. That means reading a small amount of data and maybe sending you t over the network at a leisurely pace. Reading music files from a disc and sending it to a DAC can hardly be considered straining the average computer today.
If computers were unable to safely send data over a network, the internet wouldn't exist.
The only thing that matters is getting the information safely to the DAC in a timely manner, after that it's all up to the DAC. That means reading a small amount of data and maybe sending you t over the network at a leisurely pace. Reading music files from a disc and sending it to a DAC can hardly be considered straining the average computer today.
spikestabber,
I do not doubt the USB thing will improve. It certainly needs to. I have not heard the new XMOS chip so I cannot compare. From my experience USB was the problem. The difference in sound from making an SD disk with a USB interface vs a SATA interface was confirmation. With USB one wondered where did the mid-bass go?
... in a timely matter. That is the key. And therein lies the difficulty when using a computer as a transport. I did not notice anyone saying a computer is strained doing this duty. In my opinion the computer is ridiculously over-specified for the duty and that is a large part of the problem. Always got the best sound out of my setup running slow and with lowest possible voltage within the CPU. If there was a system where all of the components ran at the same speed I think this would improve one's chances of getting some coherence in the sound. But that is not going to happen.
I hope the computer based transports become extremely good because they are extremely convenient. But, too often in audio, convenience carries a sonic cost. They would have to become much better for me to want to deal with the clutter again! I went at it for ten years getting excited at the many tiny steps forward only to listen to a record on my turntable and wonder if I got anywhere at all?
I do not doubt the USB thing will improve. It certainly needs to. I have not heard the new XMOS chip so I cannot compare. From my experience USB was the problem. The difference in sound from making an SD disk with a USB interface vs a SATA interface was confirmation. With USB one wondered where did the mid-bass go?
... in a timely matter. That is the key. And therein lies the difficulty when using a computer as a transport. I did not notice anyone saying a computer is strained doing this duty. In my opinion the computer is ridiculously over-specified for the duty and that is a large part of the problem. Always got the best sound out of my setup running slow and with lowest possible voltage within the CPU. If there was a system where all of the components ran at the same speed I think this would improve one's chances of getting some coherence in the sound. But that is not going to happen.
I hope the computer based transports become extremely good because they are extremely convenient. But, too often in audio, convenience carries a sonic cost. They would have to become much better for me to want to deal with the clutter again! I went at it for ten years getting excited at the many tiny steps forward only to listen to a record on my turntable and wonder if I got anywhere at all?
It's everything to do with how the audio data from the sound device provided by the OS driver is converted into I2S over USB. Are you saying that the timing of the data (including word select) are going to be exactly the same between two entirely different DDC devices? If they were truly identical then there wouldn't be any difference whatsoever in dam1021 playback but that isn't the case! There's a lot more going on here than merely correcting for jitter.
Last edited:
The dam1021 reclocks the incoming digital signals, as long as they arrive in right sequence and meeting setup and hold timing, and it will in most case, and things are otherwise the same, the dam1021 will sound exactly the same no matter the source.
That said, there could be other factors, like difference in grounding or noise bleeding in or who knows. If anything sounds different it will be because of that, not the digital signals themselves....
End of this discussion.
That said, there could be other factors, like difference in grounding or noise bleeding in or who knows. If anything sounds different it will be because of that, not the digital signals themselves....
End of this discussion.
+1
To get the best out of your Amanero or Xmos you need to power it separately with something low noise like the LT3042
also isolate the power and ground from the pc with a device like the Intona.
This way only the signal arrives at the Soekris and not the noisy ground and power from your PC or any other device that is connected.
When I had no ground/power isolation I could hear the noise of the switched power supplies of my network routers that were connected to my computer.
Last edited:
