A NOS 192/24 DAC with the PCM1794 (and WaveIO USB input)

dddac 1794

The pictures shows my project 'the DDDac 1794'
I have started with one converter deck and expanded with decks till I reached the top plate of the housing. :)
The drilling and engraving is done by company Schaeffer in Germany and is very precise made by computer controlled cnc, Schaeffer also delivers the software for Mac and Windows to design the lay-out.
Nice software and easy to use.
Costs for the front-panel 51 euro and back-panel 45 euro, this price is without material and transport-costs.
I have the casing from an Italian company Hi-Fi 2000 which costed 120 euro (Modu 1NSLA02280B).

I use cinch chassis connectors from Cardas because I also use Cardas cinch cable.(perfectly fit between cinch plug and cinch chassis part)
Neutrik XLR and 75 ohm cinch connector from WBT.
This WBT connector is for the SPDIF input.

The sound of the dac 1794 is very relaxed and remind me of the 'analog days' when I used a Linn LP12 with SME IV arm.
It is relaxed but also very detailed.
The HiRez recordings can sound better and I say 'can' because many times it doesn't sound better.
An average recording in HiRez sounds not as good as a high quality recording on cd format.
Listen to Domnérus Antiphone Blues on Lim records and you'll notice how good cd can be.
On the other hand listen to a very good HiRez recording of label L2 “The view was all in lines” or “Remote Galaxy” and you will experience the quality of HiRez.
How does this dac 1794 deliver itself against the competition.
I have listen to a minerva dac (Weiss) which sounds to my ears nervous.
I think the dddac 1794 is two steps ahead of the Weiss dac.
I own a LessLoss dac, a very good dac using batteries for the Analog part and transformer for the Digital part.
What I loved from the LessLoss dac was the bass response I don't know if it was the Batteries or simple analog stage which made the bass response as good as it was.
But now I have to say, the ddac 1794 is better in all parts of the music spectrum.
From the lowest to the highest note, more space around the instruments,more definition,cleaner highs Yes I'm talking about cd format.
Good HiRez recording are the icing on the cake, more definition,dynamics and natural sound.
 

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Hello beardman,

First I was using Mundorf caps, the very known gold ,silver and oil type.
Later on I tried the Cinemag trafo.
There is a certain difference in sound.
The Mundorf has a little more push in the high frequencies the Cinemag sounds a little more rounded.The main reason I use the Cinemag is because of the isolation(galvanic).
Noise (digital?) is better isolated.
 
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rfthon, very nice! Great case. Nice gold connectors at the back

What is it, you taped inside your housing, the black stuff? EMI related?

I see you didn't like the ugly wirewounds in the PSU too :) I let them in cause some inductance isn't a bad thing at that place in the PSU, but....:D

Walter
 
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:p :D

OK, Pics first (or it did not happen ;) )

Set up was the 8 Decks Version of the DDDAC1794S with Silver Plus USB Cable, WaveIO with 2.15 and 1.65 Version Drivers. CD Player Klaus his high end Sony 777. Notebook WIN8.1 with JRiver19 and Foobar and Mac Mini with Audirvana. 8TB NAS box with Music. Also the Sotwer TVC Versions. To compare my original 4 DECK DAC with "normal" Sowter output

and Klaus his fantastic GOTO System :cool: :eek:
 

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Last edited:
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TEST-day DDDAC1794S

Goal was to just test through the new DAC and try some things with players, cables etc. But most of all, testing the new DAC on USB and SPDIF
This is in summary what came out:
8 Decks version works 100%. Sound is very fluid and analogue, especially on low volume. Lots of detail and very solid and contoured bass.
SPDIF versus USB. USB rules… Spdif is just behind in clarity and spatial sound stage. USB has bit more texture in voices. Spdif you could say is more rounded, les hearing through. (Still clearly better than stand-alone CD player with its own analog output)
Sowter versus Capacitor output. More space, more fluid without losing high presence (not so rounded like Cinemag 15B) As Tuyen write: you hear deeper in the music. Background is extremely quiet.
USB Cables, Less pronounce. Both Silver plus and Klaus his Kimber Cable play very neutral and open. Basic cable loses a bit detail. BUT not as big a difference between transformers and capacitors…
Music players: Foobar has been catching up. Difference is almost nothing left over (or is it WIN 8.1?) MAC is just bit more open. Could not really tell difference with JRiver (but it plays FLAC …)
8 deck versus 4 decks. Clear improvement in low level bass. More rich details and micro level detail. Is it worth the 4 extra Decks? If no budget constraints? Big yes. Can you live without? Of course (But Reinhard for sure not, haha)
By the way, on Feb 15 we have a new session for the DACs with Jean Hiraga, who owns now a 120 chip version of my older 1543 dac. He also wants the new 1794S 8 deck DAC, so we do some shoot out day again. Questions for 16 Decks are already coming in. Would be nice to try ;-)
What else…. Lots of music! We sometime totally forget to watch for sound differences and were just drifting away on the music. That is our aim anyway, isn’t it?
 
Is anyone able to help here, I am selling my MDAC to finance the dddac
I currently use the MDAC straight into my power amp, the MDAC has a remote volume control which I use regularly.
My question is
A) can I run the dddac straight to my power amp
B) is there some software that will control the volume or do I need some sort of remote control pre amp?

Thanks
 
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There is experience with running the dac direct to the end amplifier. Depending on the total gain this might prove to be not be favorable. reason is, that the dddac has some quantization noise at -80 dB level at high frequencies with 44.1 and 48 tracks starting at 5 kHz. if now your amplifier chain has a high gain, you will hear HF noise from your speakers when playing quietly or at no music

secondly I do not like volume control in payers, as it ruins bit perfect playback....

if you insist not to have a volume control AFTER the DAC (can be even passive or with a TCV ( my choice ) ) than at least make a switch at the output which reduces the sound level including the noise, with -20dB. noise will be too low to hear than and you do not need to waist so many bits for normal listening volumes. if you want to play load, just flip the -20 dB switch.

a good way to do this, is to change ( more decks is ad rato ) the 134 Ohm Rload with two in series. like ... ground - 12 ohm - 120 ohm - dac pos terminal. now tap your signal from the pos ( 0dB) or from the 12 Ohm ( -20dB )

outputimpedance is now very low. your amp likes that and the bias stays intact
 
There is experience with running the dac direct to the end amplifier. Depending on the total gain this might prove to be not be favorable. reason is, that the dddac has some quantization noise at -80 dB level at high frequencies with 44.1 and 48 tracks starting at 5 kHz. if now your amplifier chain has a high gain, you will hear HF noise from your speakers when playing quietly or at no music

secondly I do not like volume control in payers, as it ruins bit perfect playback....

if you insist not to have a volume control AFTER the DAC (can be even passive or with a TCV ( my choice ) ) than at least make a switch at the output which reduces the sound level including the noise, with -20dB. noise will be too low to hear than and you do not need to waist so many bits for normal listening volumes. if you want to play load, just flip the -20 dB switch.

a good way to do this, is to change ( more decks is ad rato ) the 134 Ohm Rload with two in series. like ... ground - 12 ohm - 120 ohm - dac pos terminal. now tap your signal from the pos ( 0dB) or from the 12 Ohm ( -20dB )

outputimpedance is now very low. your amp likes that and the bias stays intact
Yikes! That went totally over my head!
 
Yikes! That went totally over my head!

If you play with a reduced sound volume from the digital audio signal you lose some resolution by reducing the available bits, If you only reduce the volume by a small amount the loss is not noticeable.
In order to play at low levels without reducing the resolution you need to reduce the output from the DAC. Doede suggests one way of doing this is to put 2 output resistors instead of one on the I/V resistor block. When you build this it will become apparent, but the idea is instead of taking the output on the full 134R you can take it from the 12R instead which will give a reduced output.

For info I too play a MDAC direct to power amps and have also played the DDDAC direct using digital volume control. Theory is one thing, but for me in practice I can't hear any loss in quality. YMMV etc and my recommendation is to build it, it's easy and a significant improvement on the MDAC.

If you decide to go ahead there will be plenty of help available.
 
If you play with a reduced sound volume from the digital audio signal you lose some resolution by reducing the available bits, If you only reduce the volume by a small amount the loss is not noticeable.
In order to play at low levels without reducing the resolution you need to reduce the output from the DAC. Doede suggests one way of doing this is to put 2 output resistors instead of one on the I/V resistor block. When you build this it will become apparent, but the idea is instead of taking the output on the full 134R you can take it from the 12R instead which will give a reduced output.

For info I too play a MDAC direct to power amps and have also played the DDDAC direct using digital volume control. Theory is one thing, but for me in practice I can't hear any loss in quality. YMMV etc and my recommendation is to build it, it's easy and a significant improvement on the MDAC.

If you decide to go ahead there will be plenty of help available.

Thanks VERY much for your help!!!