Any good TDA1541A DAC kit?

[AudioLapDance]

Hey Thorsten,

I'm not sure if you noticed but the second SPDIF transceiver on Joshua's list uses the Wolfson WM8804

The S/PDIF Transceiver Module

Cheers,
Jeff

[ThorstenL]

Hi,

Originally Posted by cirrus18

If this is the case what if any DAC kit or a ready assembled kit could you recommend? please.

For TDA1541 I gave my recommendation above. The Borbely PCM1704 DAC was pretty good. The various buffalo variants appear very good (not tried).

Most of these Chinese kits are worse than the GB's here, often the design is faulty added to poor parts quality. And from what I see, there is not much that does not fall under "cheap chinese kit".

Best choice may be to buy a 2nd Hand DAC (or CD/DVD/Universal Player) with a good chipset and good basic design (means japanese or US/EU major company) and to modify this suitably.

Ciao T

[AudioLapDance]

Also, John's (ecdesigns) super-optimized 1541 board is a bit tricky as it has to be the master. "There can be only ONE!"

This is how he explained it to me:

The MK7 must slave the connected source, so using CS8412 or USB won't
be an option unless the source can be slaved through an extra clock
interlink. CS8412, CS8414 and CS8416 cannot be slaved without loosing
data (periodic ticks in the sound).

Options are using a CD player, tap I2S signals from it, feeding it a
11.2896 MHz clock from the MK7. It is advised to completely remove the
digital filter (SAA7002). Other option is using cheapest squeezebox
player, again tapping I2S and feeding 11.2896 MHz back to the player.
Information of these mods can be found on other threads on diyaudio.

Note that the MK7 bit clock is generated on-board (divider), so the
source only needs to provide WS and DATA signals. This way source
jitter on BCK is eliminated.

[ThorstenL]

Hi,

Originally Posted by AudioLapDance

Also, John's (ecdesigns) super-optimized 1541 board is a bit tricky as it has to be the master. "There can be only ONE!"[/I]

Slaving is possible using either async USB (must then be limited to 44.1KHz) or a CDP. Or one can hack Johns work and bypass his master oscillator, or beg him to not include it, so an external MCK may be used, in which case anything goes.

Ciao T

[Joshua_G]

Originally Posted by ThorstenL

Cirrus Logic SPDIF receiver. I suspect you could do worse in terms of jitter rejection, but not much.

Thanks, Thorten.
Any good option out there? Especially SPDIF to I2S that can get it's clock from the DAC PCB.

Originally Posted by ThorstenL

You would be much better off using your CD-777 as DAC, TBH.

I do enjoy it very much as a DAC. I'm trying to figure out if I can possibly do any better with the money I have.

Edit,
Oops, you already replied my question.

[guido]

Originally Posted by AudioLapDance

Also, John's (ecdesigns) super-optimized 1541 board is a bit tricky as it has to be the master. "There can be only ONE!"

This is how he explained it to me:

CS8412, CS8414 and CS8416 cannot be slaved without loosing
data (periodic ticks in the sound).

Don't think that is correct; it will skip or double a sample, depending which clock is faster. Which you probably cannot hear.

[ThorstenL]

Hi,

Originally Posted by guido

Don't think that is correct; it will skip or double a sample, depending which clock is faster. Which you probably cannot hear.

I had a china DAC with this type of slaved CS8412. The audibility depended heavily on the music played. I have a CD (rip) I love with only Piano and double bass (Harmon Lewis & Gary Karr - The Spirit of Koussevitsky), it was all but unlistenable, with more pops and ticks than a bad condition LP.

A big FIFO with "re-set" if it is filled with zero's might do the trick.

At AMR we simply stuck in a programmable low jitter clock and appropriate software. It is amazingly effective.

Ciao T

[regal]

Originally Posted by ThorstenL

Hi,



Slaving is possible using either async USB (must then be limited to 44.1KHz) or a CDP. Or one can hack Johns work and bypass his master oscillator, or beg him to not include it, so an external MCK may be used, in which case anything goes.

Ciao T

Are there any asynch USB products/designs that would allow slaving to John's module? That would require galvanic isolation on the USB side (meaning RBCD only) but I have not seen any asynch USB1.0 to 16/44.1 I2S, they seem to be a unicorn.


So I think ECDesign's work is that he has created a modern CD player, not a standalone DAC (the title of his thread is not quite there yet.)


Now to the original question, are there any good TDA1541 kits or even PCB's available, and I think the answer may be "no." I'd say there probably isn't even a good open TDA1541 Standalone DAC design because the chip really needs a master clock.

In general DIY DAC builders need a slavable asynch usb implementation that can spit out i2s and all its variants (r justified, 16 bit, 24 bit, split L&R, etc).

Alternativley a for the TDA1541 a project where asych usb is properly implemented on board. Hopefully the widget project or somthing comes along for us non-software engineers who want to build a TDA1541 DAC but understand the importance of it being master clocked.

Maybe there is something out there but I haven't been able to find it. So I think it is a good thing this thread was started.

[ThorstenL]

Hi,

Originally Posted by regal

Are there any asynch USB products/designs that would allow slaving to John's module?

Any of them? Well, any with discrete Audio Clocks of suitable frequency.

You just need to remember to set your PC or player not to feed them anything else except 44.1KHz.

Originally Posted by regal

That would require galvanic isolation on the USB side

Why would it? Isolating I2S is trivial, given that most frequencies are quite low.

Originally Posted by regal

I'd say there probably isn't even a good open TDA1541 Standalone DAC design because the chip really needs a master clock.

The AMR CD-77 CAN be used as Stand Alone DAC, so if I may be so bold, there is at least one.

Ciao T

[Tazzz]

If you are really paranoid with clocks seems to me you would not want an USB-PHY in the dac box as it will need several asynchronous clocks running all the time

A good clock close to the dac possibly with a locally slaved cs8412 with a wclk clock feed back to a computer with a juli@ soundcard would let you have everything synchronous (or better make sure the dac be the only thing changing state half a cycle from everything else) in the dac and use only the absolute minimum chocolates needed and leave the many unrelated and much higher clocks in the pc.