ezkcdude said:
Elsewhere, somebody said you could get small quantities (5) at $49 per chip. Both you and I are in the UK, so that's about £125 at current exchange rate, which I consider reasonable for the performance on offer. Certainly a DIY unit of £200-500 pounds that competes with multiple thousand £ designs is still worth pursuing? Besides, I am sure that eventually somebody somewhere will sell the chips in single units. I usually get my chips from Farnell who do not have any from ESS at present. Besides, I have a wedding to pay for, and a DAC project based on dual mono PCM1794 to do first.
There are threads on here for DIYers using surface mount components. There are a few ways you can deal with this. Personally I find them all a pain except the expensive routes. I find the best thing is to invest in a (T)SSOP to DIP adapter which gives you a chip-pin footprint similar to that of the TDA1541 which gives you plenty of room - and no soldering woes. The same sort of adapters are available for 64LQFP - they are marketed specifically for prototyping and facilitate chip swapping on pin compatible designs like when a manufacturer makes a part obsolete and replaces it with the latest model, which enables you to look at the datasheet to see if there are any issues, and if not, unplug the old chip and plug in the new one and see what difference it makes. Anyway, once your prototype is working and you wish to keep it and stick it in a unit, I think getting the PCB made and SM components put in by a company who will do that is worth the outlay. I know it means that for us brits, our good looking finished products tend to end up being more costly, but it beats retail. I should know... before DIY I spent £25k on a single stereo hifi system.
As I replied to somebody else on here, 6dB is a doubling or halving of performance depending on which direction the dB difference is in because it's a logarithmic scale as I bet you already know. A few dB can make a lot of difference. Just because 128 and 134dB do not look far apart numerically does not mean a thing. One is nearly twice as good as the other.
InfiniteGain said:
I made the point about the 3dB gain as someone else had suggested the figure was 6dB, I wasn't commenting on whether the figure itself was significant. Having said that, I have doubts that any improvement past say 120dB is audible.
As for SM soldering, http://www.tirnaelectronics.co.uk/ will help, and are very good.
Spartacus said:
Precisely, and an ASRC which should be much better than anything else currently available. The price will likely come down to when they get production into full swing. At least I keep telling myself this (hope springs eternal).
Even at its current cost, its a good deal if it delivers the goods. I have no reason to think it won't based on feedback about the eval board.
Thanks everybody for the fantastic discussion! I apologize for not being involved; I was very busy after I started this thread. For now I just went with a commercial solution; the Bel Canto DAC3. As far as I know it's the best measuring DAC currently on the market, and it's a fine preamp as well. I paid $1600 for it.
Stereophile's Bel Canto DAC3 Measurements
As is shown in the link, THD+N for instance is <0.0005%, and that's for a DAC+preamp.
I do plan on building a DAC eventually, probably based on the Sabre DAC, but I've got other projects at the moment. I'm building a Beta22 headphone amp, and after that I'm going to build the ExtremA power amp the DAC I started this thread about will be used with. After I finish the amp I'll start on the DAC.
Thanks again, guys! It was very helpful.
Stereophile's Bel Canto DAC3 Measurements
As is shown in the link, THD+N for instance is <0.0005%, and that's for a DAC+preamp.
I do plan on building a DAC eventually, probably based on the Sabre DAC, but I've got other projects at the moment. I'm building a Beta22 headphone amp, and after that I'm going to build the ExtremA power amp the DAC I started this thread about will be used with. After I finish the amp I'll start on the DAC.
Thanks again, guys! It was very helpful.
The name of the web site is diyAUDIO.com
I don't see how is your of-the-shelf commercial DAC purchase relatad to DIY... maybe if you modify AND manage to improve the sound.
This thread may be old, but it talks about DIY designs - pretty good ones as well.
Congratulations on your purchase.
Boky
I don't see how is your of-the-shelf commercial DAC purchase relatad to DIY... maybe if you modify AND manage to improve the sound.
This thread may be old, but it talks about DIY designs - pretty good ones as well.
Congratulations on your purchase.
Boky
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