DDDAC 1794??

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Hi all.
I’m about to order a DDDAC 1794 kit from Audio Creative, am I making the right choice? Looking for the best (well pretty good) DIY DAC as I’ve always believed in DIY having built many audio items over the years.

If the DDDAC1794 isn’t the best option I’d welcome your thoughts and direction.

Many thanks. Dave
 
DDDAC1794 is superb! At the end of the day you need to decide as no one can say what sound you like best so others opinions don't really matter, they just give guidence.

Based on the reviews you need to decide and never easy unless you can buy 2 or 3 and decide that way or listen to other members DACs if someone is close to you.
 
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Hi nzlowie,

I have a (heavily) modified DDDAC and find it to be very, very musical (to my ears that is). However, what i've noticed is that the PSU and fine tuning of the DAC is quite key so if you decide to go with the DDDAC I may suggest that you also look into the threads here on diyaudio that address potential improvements to the DAC. E.g. this thread:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...-upgraded-single-board-pcm1794-nos-dddac.html

In my experience the DDDAC is also quite influenced by the clock it's given - I have found that feeding it a precision clock (low, low frequency phase noise) is quite worthwhile.

I'm also thinking that maybe this could be interesting to you?

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vend...crete-r-2r-sign-magnitude-24-bit-384-khz.html

It's my impression that it has created quite a stir here at diyaudio.

Good luck with your DAC build ;-)

Jesper
 
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I am working up a BeagleBoneBlack I2S feeder for a recent DDDAC build. It sounded quite good with the Wave I/O unit that it came with.

I recommend the DDAC.

I have built the AudioNoteKits DAC 4.1, and it is terrific as well, tubed, more $, etc.

The Soekris board is in a box, a bit down the line in my stack of stuff to play with. Good early reports. You can get that board, add a USB converter, one power transformer, and get music out pretty quick it seems. Not heard this one of course.
 
Just be aware that the DDDAC is based on a flawed understanding of digital theory (the no oversampling, no filtering thing) and has pretty awful objective measurements (hidden behind all the useless blabla on how well it reproduces square waves, an invalid signal).

These two facts would make me hesitate to put it among the "best" DAC you can build. But some will, ironically for the same reasons.
 
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Interesting. Is audio creative cheaper than ordering directly from Doede?

Anyway, I've built both the old DDDAC 1543 and the newer 1794. The 1543 is my favourite in a way. Sine wave output at higher audio frequencies is laughable -a perfect stairway - Yet to the ears the thing is incredibly musical. It's one of the best all round dacs I've heard because it seems to make the greatest number of different recordings enjoyable.

The 1794 is a different animal, a little less live sounding to me but still very good. I understand that there was a new board that came out after I built mine that takes care of some technical issue or other and I know there are mods for it too but I haven't felt the need to try any of them out yet.
Would I go for it again now? Yes, I think so.
Not much of a review but another data point for you I guess.
 
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Hi ... I would like to thread carefully here and am not interested in entering into a discussion here ... But as a sort of reply to this:

has pretty awful objective measurements (hidden behind all the useless blabla on how well it reproduces square waves, an invalid signal).

I can say that the reason why it measures not-too-good is that with the output resistors usually used the resting output DC point apparently causes the 1794 to distort quite a lot. With resistors that place the DC point at a lower value (e.g. 0.7 volts) the distortion is close to -110 dB 2H and lower for the other harmonics. The output level will be lower though - but I would imagine that the sound could also be better.

Best regards,

Jesper
 
With resistors that place the DC point at a lower value (e.g. 0.7 volts) the distortion is close to -110 dB 2H and lower for the other harmonics. The output level will be lower though - but I would imagine that the sound could also be better.
Would you have a link to the distortion spectrum of the dddac at that point ? I've searched quite a lot and couldn't find anything.
 
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Interesting. Is audio creative cheaper than ordering directly from Doede?

Anyway, I've built both the old DDDAC 1543 and the newer 1794. The 1543 is my favourite in a way. Sine wave output at higher audio frequencies is laughable -a perfect stairway - Yet to the ears the thing is incredibly musical. It's one of the best all round dacs I've heard because it seems to make the greatest number of different recordings enjoyable.

The 1794 is a different animal, a little less live sounding to me but still very good. I understand that there was a new board that came out after I built mine that takes care of some technical issue or other and I know there are mods for it too but I haven't felt the need to try any of them out yet.
Would I go for it again now? Yes, I think so.
Not much of a review but another data point for you I guess.

Doede no longer sells direct, all sales of his designs are through AudioCreative. I was lucky to get the Sowter transformers when I purchased my kit from Doede, before the change.
 
I have a (heavily) modified DDDAC and find it to be very, very musical (to my ears that is). However, what i've noticed is that the PSU and fine tuning of the DAC is quite key so if you decide to go with the DDDAC I may suggest that you also look into the threads here on diyaudio that address potential improvements to the DAC

Hi Jesper,
I'm thinking about assembling a DDDAC 194 without every modification.
how do you evaluate the DDDAC without modding? still a very good dac or it is not worth the purchase?
and how is it comparing to commercial dacs?
 
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@michelemezza: Hi ... thanks for your question, however, I cannot really answer your question.

As it is I have some previous experience with building (IMHO) quite good analog circuitries and building/modifying digital circuitries. So when I decided to build a modified DDDAC I decided to include my previous audio experiences already from the beginning thus skipping some of the modification steps (and doing them differently than others have done). Personally, the unmodified DDDAC would not be interesting to me - but others may have different "paths" in audio.

Compared with commercial DACs I don't know - I have not been in the "normal consumer" field for many years and so I have not compared my modified DDDAC with other DACs.

Hope that although not a very specific answer it may anyway somehow help ;-) And good luck in your endeavors.

Jesper
 
Just be aware that the DDDAC is based on a flawed understanding of digital theory (the no oversampling, no filtering thing) and has pretty awful objective measurements (hidden behind all the useless blabla on how well it reproduces square waves, an invalid signal).

These two facts would make me hesitate to put it among the "best" DAC you can build. But some will, ironically for the same reasons.

There are many other DACs with "better" measurement results. But the DDDAC-1794 is the best DAC to my ears. And the "digital theory" behind the DDDAC-1974 is not flawed at all; it's just different from mainstream textbook engineering.

Go for it, it's really is a very good DAC. And Doede (the designer) is a very kind and helpful guy.
 
Its all about the Music

Originally Posted by 00940
Just be aware that the DDDAC is based on a flawed understanding of digital theory (the no oversampling, no filtering thing) and has pretty awful objective measurements (hidden behind all the useless blabla on how well it reproduces square waves, an invalid signal).

I have a fully tweaked/upgraded single board DDDAC and it is by far the most musically sounding DAC I have ever heard or owned. Friends of mine who go to high end audio equipment shows say that my DDDAC sounds as "analog" as the best DACs that they have heard at any price.

I put my ears above theories and test measurements.
 
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