Engineers aren't the most charismatic bunch
I think it's almost a rule that the more competent you are, the more easily you become aggressive - if you don't try to be niceMaybe you could get the boards from cab and use those as loaner test boards to whomever is interested. Can't see how it would hurt your business.
I was rather impressed how long Soekris kept his cool.Engineers aren't the most charismatic bunch
I have no problem with critical input about this DAC but not if it is expression of personal frustration or anger that is presented as if it is all about the DAC but in reality it is about something else.
Just a reminder of the LVC595 electrical properties. Those are all in the nanosecond range. None of it seems to show up on any of the tests, does it?
I wonder what happens in delta-sigma systems. They use terrestrial transistors like anyone else I suppose. I don't know whether any of this is audible, but it sure feels nice to have a system that is pretty transparent to our understanding - maybe it's a luxury
I wonder what happens in delta-sigma systems. They use terrestrial transistors like anyone else I suppose. I don't know whether any of this is audible, but it sure feels nice to have a system that is pretty transparent to our understanding - maybe it's a luxury
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I'm not personally angry with Soren, at least not right now... But I can understand cab's frustration. I read through LOTS of pages in this thread and I think he has some good reasons... Maybe not enough to go to court with, but enough to have my sympathy
ynmichael, remember last time you went bananas in this thread - take you meds mate!
//
That hurts my feelings - i don't even take caffeine
I'm just pointing out the facts that everyone seems to be forgetting. I admit it's easy to get obsessed, but sticking one's head in the sand isn't that admirable eitherBy the way, when is it ever a bad idea to get a good laugh out of the $9,950 MSRP FemtoSecond Galaxy Clock?
P.S. This flyer makes me miss the actual concert halls
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For clarification, my complaints were "all about the dac", and started with the technical shortcomings of this dac- it had issues from the start with Vref that were well documented. I purchased 4 boards after being told directly that this dac could be used in a multichannel configuration. Subsequently it has been shown that there are issues with the clocks synching properly. The dac was advertised (read the thread title!) as a "reference" quality dac and sold as being suitable for multichannel use- both false claims. There has not been a single report on this forum that I have found of anyone successfully using the dam1021 in a multichannel configuration. Any legitimate vendor would have actually configured this dac in a multichannel set up and tested/measured it properly before making claims that have proven to be false. In truth, this was a beta test, not a "reference" quality finished product that had been properly tested, and everyone who bought it were lab rats who did all the development and improvements that showed up in later revisions. It was telling that the manual came out like a year after he started selling boards.
It's called "false advertising" when a product doesn't meet the claims made when put on the market. It becomes fraud when such products are sold and money is not refunded.
My complaints escalated to include the business ethics of the vendor when the vendor, Soekris Engineering, refused to not only acknowledge the shortcomings of this dac, refusing to take responsibility for the misleading and false claims made about it's performance and capabilities, but then deflected from these legitimate complaints by insulting people's intelligence and technical ability. This is not the behavior most would associate with a high quality, legitimate merchant. Can anyone imagine such behavior from Hypex, for example?
I apologize to the forum for the dirty laundry but I believe it is important for potential buyers of Soekris Engineering products to know of the issues with this dac and the kind of person they are dealing with when they consider Soekris engineering products.
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Engineers aren't the most charismatic bunch
I believe that's exactly the opposite, the less competent the more aggressive.
I don't remember John Curl ever being aggressive, but evidently someone here is more competent than him.
The funny thing is, people who know me, view me as a very laid back person. But I admit, I do not have very much tolerance for incompetent idiots....
And that's not you Andrea, you seems to know what you're doing about clocking.... But as I have said earlier, I don't over design, my clocks just need to be good enough for the application.... Remember, R-2R DACs are also more tolerant of clock jitter than Delta-Sigma DACs, over time there have been many great R-2R DACs using a standard SPDIF receiver, those have about 50 pS of jitter....
Anyway, the reason why I'm still here is all the positive feed back I get, thanks for that.
Soeren,
I have a totally different idea about R2R DAC but I respect yours, and I believe you should respect mine, and finally we should discuss our different aproach in a civil way, there is no reason you become immediately aggressive.
This is a DIY forum where people debating audio devices and many people has much to learn (including me), so I think you should tolerate the members who don't have your skills because I assume they are here to learn.
This said, I have experimented a lot with the King of the R2R DAC, the TDA1541A (and also with the AD1865, AD1862, PCM63 and so on), and every time I improved the timing section the sound has improved dramatically, more relaxed, voices more natural, deeper soundstage and so on.
And in the so called "ultimate" thread a lot of people reported the same improvement.
Nobody can mathematically demonstrate the relation (until now as I know) but it was empirically demonstrated several times.
I respect your approach where the flexibility is a must, but IMHO the maximum flexibility does not agree with the best performance.
I believe that the timing of the DAC is much more important than its THD.
My 16W single ended amplifier with the 845 DHT has more than 1% THD, but it sounds much better than the most amplifiers claiming 0.00000... THD.
I have a totally different idea about R2R DAC but I respect yours, and I believe you should respect mine, and finally we should discuss our different aproach in a civil way, there is no reason you become immediately aggressive.
This is a DIY forum where people debating audio devices and many people has much to learn (including me), so I think you should tolerate the members who don't have your skills because I assume they are here to learn.
This said, I have experimented a lot with the King of the R2R DAC, the TDA1541A (and also with the AD1865, AD1862, PCM63 and so on), and every time I improved the timing section the sound has improved dramatically, more relaxed, voices more natural, deeper soundstage and so on.
And in the so called "ultimate" thread a lot of people reported the same improvement.
Nobody can mathematically demonstrate the relation (until now as I know) but it was empirically demonstrated several times.
I respect your approach where the flexibility is a must, but IMHO the maximum flexibility does not agree with the best performance.
I believe that the timing of the DAC is much more important than its THD.
My 16W single ended amplifier with the 845 DHT has more than 1% THD, but it sounds much better than the most amplifiers claiming 0.00000... THD.
If this have to stay civil, will you please stop calling me aggressive, because I'm not, and have never been, like you I just have my opinions.
There is only one person here I don't tolerate....
I sounds like we can agree to disagree, so lets stop beating each other....
I had some design goals, and selected what in my opinion was the best way to meet them cost effective, I can't use a fixed clock to meet hose goals.... I did use two fixed xtal oscillators on the dac1101, but neither me nor anybody else heard any magic compared to the dam1021....
And I'm sorry, but the tda1541 is made in a pretty old and slow cmos process with probably way more jitter internal than the clock you feed it....
No one competent ever let others walk all over their strongly-held opinions
I wouldn't rail him for the Vref flaws... It certainly wasn't nice, but it is DIY and we wouldn't blame Soren for a bug in the firmware that needs reflashing, would we?... I know he charged you for repairs but everyone else here who got in on rev1 seemed to have no problem making those changes themselves. He's not a native speaker so I don't think we must take it at face value when he uses the word "idiot"...
You've clearly been waiting for him to implement multi-channel features all this time. I have no idea if it's technically impossible as Soren claims it is now, but it's obviously a real bummer. To be fair, Soren has done a pretty decent job on other aspects of engineering. I don't know if this DAC sounds better than the Apple 3.5mm dongle (or if any DAC does), but at least it's a reasonable attempt at R2R when there is nothing else affordable out there. If he's ethically corrupt, there would be no word left for MSB and the like, except maybe "idiot".
To be very blunt, I don't think leveling accusations at Soren will be of any use in your case. I think he's a very competent engineer, and maybe even extraordinary in the company of other "audiophile engineers"; many have been much more lavish in their praise of the soekris DACs. If he were to do anything right now, he would be admitting to his "ethical corruptions". Even a full refund can't offset that image.
I certainly don't think it's a happy situation that Soren told everyone multichannel crossover or something like that would work with dam1021 but later claims it to be impossible or in any case never going to be implemented. You probably got the worst of it out of everyone on this thread. I think anyone who isn't infatuated with the Soekris DAC can sympathize with you to some degree. We might take it for granted when all the large retailers have generous return policies nowadays, but it would still be kind of him if Soren ever decides to take your boards for his experiments in exchange for some amount of store credit, especially after all this time and many iterations in the product line. It's a damn shame that your boards have been sitting around for all those years
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I don't believe so, I think that the TDA1541A nowadays is the best DAC chip ever built (togheter with the AD1862).
BTW I have just ordered your dam1021-12 so I will do some listening comparison and then I will measure the phase noise of the LRCK.
Please, let me know about a standard configuration to implement, I have not the time to read the whole thread to understand what is the best configuration of your DAC. As the source I will use S/PDIF and I2S.
Imho the standard configuration cannot compete subjectively with a properly tweaked out dac. The very least i would do before listening:
- remove opamp output buffers
- remove Vref 5v preregulators and use something decent like Salas with a dedicated transformer.
- remove or replace ceramic cap from the output analogue filter
- install better filters
Maybe a stupid question, if this tweaking is mandatory why the designer have not implemented the update as a standard?