I haven't the dac kit discussing in this thread. I'm trying to share my experiences of my AK4396 tryouts. I mean analog supply capacitors on dac's #18 pin (+5v) and #19 (Analog ground). You can apply same if there are employed caps between #16 (Low Ref) and #17 (High Ref).
On digital supply (#1 Digital Ground, #2 +3.3V) you can employ a ceramic bypass capacitor alone. If you feel necessary, you can add a ~10uF tantalum as decoupling.
This very interesting post gets along with my an early post in this thread.Post #613
But my current favorite is not tantalum. A no-name axial type, blue color, 5uF NOS electrolytic. Yes, an electrolyric. I'm trying everything on everywhere
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I do agree, in that position Silmics are not so good, in fact I'm recomending Cerafines there...
I was not in a attitude for offend anyone. I'm just trying to encourage people to attempting their own experiments.
Regards.
Yup, I believe these are the pins connected to the components that I referred to. I will add that to my "explore list".
I think that's the fun of DIY - the ability to hear the changes, if there is any, from parts changes and play them in our own gears. I want to say thank you to Erin to start this thread and many others provided mod suggestion. I have had fun during the holiday with this dac. Especially for a little over $100 of parts altogether, this has been my lowest cost entertainment and yet full of fun in recent winter holidays that I can remember
Can you give a link to the Nichicon capacitors, I have tryed searching for them but did not find any of 16v only 200v and 400v.
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It seems only high voltage series in production nowadays. I found them at a local shop where is not a surprise to find such parts. Nichicon PZ is just as an example. There are in-production candidates from other brands and Nichicon like CA and PX. CA series 100uF/160V has adequate size (16x25mm) despite its very high ripple value. PX 100uF/25V seems a good candidate also.
Green 100nF ceramics are what i used at digital and analog side.
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But my current favorite is not tantalum. A no-name axial type, blue color, 5uF NOS electrolytic. Yes, an electrolyric. I'm trying everything on everywhere
I reinstalled those tantalums with my last setup again. I see no reason for pull up them actually instead of attitude of "try some different".
These tantalums took my attention during days that i was trying to figure out difference between dc-coupling (no-cap, direct connect) and ac-coupling (with dc-blocking cap) with my balanced configured gainclone amplifier. I couldn't detect any difference between them.There is 2.5V DC at AK4396's analog outputs when it refers to ground. Thus, it requires a cap at output when feeding an unbalanced amplifier which is a general case. But, in balanced configuration (instrumentation amplifier) dc is not visible if you isolate your amplifier from your source's (this case AK4396 dac itself) ground.
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Off topic, please forgive me.
I just saw this new DAC on ebay which looks interesting, although only USB input.
TE7022 WM8761 24Bit/96Khz USB DAC Decoder RCA Coaxial Out + USB line | eBay
I just saw this new DAC on ebay which looks interesting, although only USB input.
TE7022 WM8761 24Bit/96Khz USB DAC Decoder RCA Coaxial Out + USB line | eBay
Would you be kind enough to describe the sonic difference between the SilmicII and the Nichicon PZ ?
Curious. Thanks
First difference is massive bass. It is obvious. I think this standard kind of caps revealed 4396's actual bass performance. Second is detail rise with highs. Maybe this is benefit of ceramics. Very enjoyable, relaxing experience overall. I must admit that, I'm thinking it is not special effect of Nichicon PZ, the point is trial with many different parts even cheap standard types. You can face with unexpected things in this manner. I have to admit that worst one from those I tried was Sanyo SEPC. I'm using them only digital side.
While we are at a little off topic for opinion, how about this:
New DIR9001+PCM2706+WM8740 Parallel Mono DAC Coaxial board +USB | eBay
This costs just $10 more than the AK4396.
New DIR9001+PCM2706+WM8740 Parallel Mono DAC Coaxial board +USB | eBay
This costs just $10 more than the AK4396.
I was also looking at that a few days ago. There's another thread on here which pretty much stats that the capacitors are fakes and same with the regulators I believe but it sounds really good once you address those issues.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/186213-wolfson-wm8740-dir9001-pcm2706-diy-dac.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/193531-gigaworks-wm8740x2-dir9001-dac.html
I also suspect the authenticity of Elna Cerafines caps as the extra $10 for the parts they listed are too good to be true. It sounds like it still offers a good platform to mods.
Thanks for the reference!!
Heyyas
sorry for the late replies and thanks again for your answers.
While i'm aware that the parts i've chosen are not as highend as they could be i always try to find the balance between what can be measured and/or read from the datasheets (and, if a friend who helps me ALOT with understand those things, the parts i understand) and what could be voodoo. I'm NOT stating that higher quality caps are voodoo - i'm sure theres parameters that can be measured. But i've used those panasonics in my LM3886 PA-100 circuit as well as in my CMoy mini headphone "amplifier". I'm very content with the sound already.
So while i thank you very very much for your explainations and the work you've put into tuning the last out of thise cute little DAC i think i'll try the (presumabily) lower quality parts first. If anything at all isn't to my liking, first thing i'm doing is ordering those regulators and new caps ;P.
Thanks again, will report back when i have my parts.
Regards
- Dario
sorry for the late replies and thanks again for your answers.
While i'm aware that the parts i've chosen are not as highend as they could be i always try to find the balance between what can be measured and/or read from the datasheets (and, if a friend who helps me ALOT with understand those things, the parts i understand) and what could be voodoo. I'm NOT stating that higher quality caps are voodoo - i'm sure theres parameters that can be measured. But i've used those panasonics in my LM3886 PA-100 circuit as well as in my CMoy mini headphone "amplifier". I'm very content with the sound already.
So while i thank you very very much for your explainations and the work you've put into tuning the last out of thise cute little DAC i think i'll try the (presumabily) lower quality parts first. If anything at all isn't to my liking, first thing i'm doing is ordering those regulators and new caps ;P.
Thanks again, will report back when i have my parts.
Regards
- Dario
Hi,
just tried replacing the V regulators with the ones recommended from the BOM. The sound is kind of "drier" now and lost its dynamics a bit, but I hope it gets better afetr burn in.
I also bought HER602 fast diodes. I will try changing the default rectifiers with these and tell you about any audible difference.
just tried replacing the V regulators with the ones recommended from the BOM. The sound is kind of "drier" now and lost its dynamics a bit, but I hope it gets better afetr burn in.
I also bought HER602 fast diodes. I will try changing the default rectifiers with these and tell you about any audible difference.