DAC for a first time DIYer?

[northernsky]

Originally Posted by jrockhead

Still there, just checked the USA ebay site. Do a seller search for Gigawork. His shop has 2 pages of good stuff.

Thank you, but it I did the same search, I found the Gigawork shop with only one product (an Aleph pcb).

It seems that in my country (Italy) I can only buy amplifiers!!!

Renato

[northernsky]

Originally Posted by northernsky

Hi,

I cannot find anymore the Gigawork CS4398 DAC Kit on ebay. Can you help me?

I think I solved the puzzle. Gigawork ebay shop does not ship to Italy anymore

Renato

[vetinry]

Hello everyone
I've only been on the site for a few weeks and was thinking about participating in building a Goldmund clone but have been warned against it due to my inexperience.
So, I thought I might start with a DAC, either in kit form, partly assembled or fully assembled but perhaps with some upgrade options.

I'm getting a bit confused by the wealth of information on the site but it seems that Gigaworks DACs might be a good starting point.

Can I ask a couple of questions please.

Firstly, on some of the threads, people are talking about a 1794a chip being the best that you can buy but this doesn't appear to feature in the gigaworks boards (one of the ones I'm looking at has the CS4398 DAC.
Should I be looking for boards with the 1794 DAC or will the latter one still be ok.

Secondly, I am wanting to use this with a Squeezebox, which will be feeding a Bryston SP1.7 pre-amp. How much of a difference will I get (with the basic DAC without any upgrades) compared with using the Squeezebox DAC, or running digitally to my Bryston (getting on a bit now but I'm guessing still using quite good circuitry)?

Or am I only really going to start noticing a big difference if I start upgrading all of the components such as Op amps.

Lots of these terms are really new to me so please treat gently.

So much to learn, so little time.

Thanks very much

Steve