A New Take on the Classic Pass Labs D1 with an ESS Dac

[qusp]

hehe, I guess you havent seen the inside of the denon cable. recabling headphones is one of the main things I do for my day job. if you can bare to be without them for a while and will cover postage, as appreciation for the work you have done for the community, i'll recable them with a balanced 6' cryoparts TWcu UPOCC 7N copper cable. on the house. 250 dollar value

now of course that would require a new front end for the headphone rig, but I think you've got that under control. you might look at EUVL's X'd circlotron jfet voltage follower. apparently it rocks with the denons

its just not right that with your rig you use the stock Denon cable the D7000 stock cable is quite good, but the D2000/5000 cable ermm...not so much..

and if you wonder about my work, i'll send you some pics, you can also check out a long and very positive feedback thread on headfi. shipping wont be cheap, but still cheaper than the cost of materials for someone who isnt an OEM

[qusp]

combined above

[flocchini]

qusp

you mentioned

you might look at EUVL's X'd circlotron jfet voltage follower. apparently it rocks with the denons

Is there a thread, website, set of boards for this?

I have using modified DH-5000s set up as SE but could change them to differential with the right amp.

It would be nice to go Sabre to D1 to differential amps to Denons.

Thanks

Bob

[qusp]

nope, no thread, no boards, no site, no official schematic. its one of those enigmatic designs by EUVL and secret mens business. must be pieced together from various posts he made on the subject . closest you'll get on here and a good starting point is the DAO, or GRollins New-tron. the F5 is actually not dissimilar and as you may know there is a version of the F5 that is used as a balanced headphone amp. the circlotron has been around since tubes and has seen many incarnations, but patrick's with the lovoltech jfets is the one i'm researching soon as I get a free moment and the devices i'll give it a burl on perf

I also have some modded denons balanced with custom tassie blackwoodies and a small amount of damping mods. the circuits i'm talking of, have no voltage gain and thats perfect for the sabre, as it already has quite enough voltage for headphones. would be interesting to try a circlotron with opamps too.

its not a complicated concept, but its a bit out of left field hyow it works, you get fully balanced push pull output from a design with all N channel devices

[flocchini]

thanks qusp

I saw the balanced F5 thread and will research the circlotron. I saw the article on the Pass site but have not gone beyond.

Given the discussion regarding balanced systems I decided I would put together a balanced Aleph pre. My first thought is to see if it can drive the Denons. i guess it is about experimentation


Best

Bob

[flocchini]

qusp

this may be over my head but is the starting point post 48 in the Some other source followers thread? Is there a good write- up on solid state circlotron. I am having a hard time putting my head around it. this does seem like the way to drive balanced headphones after iv conversion by the D1

Thanks

[qusp]

let me dig up my research, its bit all over the place. there is a pic of the finished build that EUVL made a PCB for himself, which included an LDR volume control. very neat little build as is typical from him, but he did not publish the schematic and feels that if you cannot figure it out with research by yourself, that you do not deserve to build it.... I may be putting words in patrick's mouth there, but I dont think he would disagree

[flocchini]

Again thank you qusp. I'll have to start firing some brain cells.

[qusp]

dont fire them, you need them to do a challenging job for you a cryptic phrase for you, 'one hand washes the other'

[flocchini]

I hear you