Experience with this DIY DAC ?

[shuggi67]

Originally posted by legarem



Let your dac on with this transformer for at least one day and give me some news.

Another trick: polarize your AC powercord plug correctly

How to do that ?

- Turn on your dac without interconnects to the system and without the third ground pin connected to the 120 or 220 V (Use a cheater plug if the dac is grounded to the third ground pin

- Take an Ac voltmeter and connect a probe to the wall ground outlet pin, Connect the other probe to a ground of the dac (outer pins of RCA outputs are ok. Not digital RCA plug)

- Read the voltage you get on the AC voltmeter and reverse the power cord in the wall outlet
(with cheater plug) Read again the voltage with the reversed plug in the outlet .

- The position of the powercord in the outlet that gives less AC voltage is the right way to connect the power cord of the dac.

Make that to all your gear in the system and you'll be amazed.

Ok I get the gist that in most cases there can only be one! i.e one ground who rules them all and if you have 7 devices all with 3rd prong on plug for ground they all fight over it, I probably have it all wrong so please feel free to correct me.
But what if you have all of your audio video devices connected to a RFI surge protector and that board also has ground to the wall should that not win by default ?

[McGyver]

Originally posted by shuggi67

Mcgyver in the end how did your test's go with Solid state amp, did you find the sound better with Transformer, or tube or even opamp.

I tested with budget s.s. amp (Marantz PM7000, I didn't have nothing else at hand).
Observations:
-opamps give dynamic, fast sound with wide soundstage, but the depth has been reduced, acoustic aura mostly has gone and there was something synthetic in the sound, especially the highs was noticeable dry.

-transformers alone give very clean, open and natural sound reach of details and acoustic aura. In comparison with opamps some dynamic and bass speed has gone.

-transformers followed by cathode follower sounded best. Like transformers alone, but without loss of dynamic.

Observations with tube amplifier (6B4G DHT PSE):
transformers alone are best. Transformers followed by cathode follower losses some fine details and (very, very slightly) reduces depth and acoustic atmosphere.
Opamps are unlistenable for me, although they sounds better than Meridian 506.24 CD player

I'm still deciding if this is the fix for me.:confused

I'm sure this DAC can outperform a lot of expensive players. I listened CEC DX51 and didn' like it. I'm going to compare my DAC with trafos to Audio Note CD3 and report it here.

I apologize for the same 2 reply's but I'm having problems with the quote options

You may use edit function.

[legarem]

Originally posted by shuggi67



Ok I get the gist that in most cases there can only be one! i.e one ground who rules them all and if you have 7 devices all with 3rd prong on plug for ground they all fight over it, I probably have it all wrong so please feel free to correct me.
But what if you have all of your audio video devices connected to a RFI surge protector and that board also has ground to the wall should that not win by default ?

What I do is grounding in the wall outlet only one device in the system. Preferably, you take the center device which all others are connected to (eg: preamplifier) All the devices are grounded by the shield in the interconnects. If you keep all the 3 prong plugs grounded, threre's ground loops and often hum in the system.

With my dac, the ground that goes from the board to the IEC socket is there because all my powercords are shielded and this means that the powercord shield goes to the dac ground.

There's a cheater plug at the end of the powercord so the ground is lifted.

[legarem]

I received the UTC HA-108 today

They are big and heavy transformers

I listened them for a short period of time and I can tell that the bass is terrific and listening piano reveals probably the best mids I never heard

More on that later

Last night I took the three dacs with different transformers to one of my friend's system ($$$$$) and we done some testing.

As soon as I will finish to compare the UTC to others, I'll give you the results (shootout)

So the shootout was partially done in two different systems with 4 peoples.

Here are the UTC monsters

[shuggi67]

McGyver thats Brilliant!

I don't suppose you have a "how to" posted on your web page, I'm not sure what I'll use for the case, I have a non-functioning set-top box I could use.
another wee things is if you lost the highs with the OPamps did you try them with the lampizators Snipit and bypass i.e remove the OUTPUT FILTER CAPS as this apparently brings back the High's or does this DAC kit have none, as I could not see any on the pictures posted unless the RED things are the filter caps?

[shuggi67]

Originally posted by legarem


What I do is grounding in the wall outlet only one device in the system. Preferably, you take the center device which all others are connected to (eg: preamplifier) All the devices are grounded by the shield in the interconnects. If you keep all the 3 prong plugs grounded, threre's ground loops and often hum in the system.

With my dac, the ground that goes from the board to the IEC socket is there because all my powercords are shielded and this means that the powercord shield goes to the dac ground.

There's a cheater plug at the end of the power cord so the ground is lifted.

I don't hear any Hum so does this mean no benefit by using cheater plugs

[legarem]

Originally posted by shuggi67



I don't hear any Hum so does this mean no benefit by using cheater plugs

Best is trusting your ears and listen what gives you the best sound.

My system is biamped and some amps are monoblocks. This means a lot of stock,

It is a 100 db/1w/1m system so noise can easily be a problem with this kind of system.

[McGyver]

Originally posted by shuggi67
McGyver thats Brilliant!

I don't suppose you have a "how to" posted on your web page, I'm not sure what I'll use for the case, I have a non-functioning set-top box I could use.
another wee things is if you lost the highs with the OPamps did you try them with the lampizators Snipit and bypass i.e remove the OUTPUT FILTER CAPS as this apparently brings back the High's or does this DAC kit have none, as I could not see any on the pictures posted unless the RED things are the filter caps?

I didn't lost highs with opamp, but I didn't like them. The highs was dry, unnatural, synthetic, I don't ktow how to say it...

[legarem]

Originally posted by McGyver


I didn't lost highs with opamp, but I didn't like them. The highs was dry, unnatural, synthetic, I don't ktow how to say it...

Don't search any other way to say it. Your description is dammned right

[adamus]

the sowters are in....


organic is the word. The highs have gained a realism that was never there with the opamp.

I am giving it a good listen now.