Just to illustrate my point about Chinese sellers offering some nice chassis options, here's a picture of my DIY build that now has the AK4490 DAC board from JLSounds.
The previous picture of the Curryman is also a Chinese sourced chassis.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The previous picture of the Curryman is also a Chinese sourced chassis.
I can happily listen to either for prolonged periods. The Buffalo is perhaps a little weightier in its sound but the AK4490 is slightly more nuanced - given the very different implementations it's not really possible to isolate what is down to the actual DAC. I don't think you can go far wrong with the JLSounds AK4490.
Recently, all of my playback has been DSD only - I'm upsampling my FLAC rips to DSD256 using HQPlayer - and in that context my preference is the AK4490, which has a DSD-direct mode.
The JLSounds AK4490 has a differential/balanced output - The BCF is a balanced to unbalanced buffer? If you want to keep it balanced maybe go for a pair of Broskie ACFs?
Caps are Multicap RTX from Percy Audio.
Yes but if you use the top inputs and not the inverting, then its balanced in balanced out, you would of course need two boards. What would be the benefit of the ACF? It has slightly less than unity gain for starters, do you think it would sound better?
So you can take a 44/16 PCM and upsample to dsd256 and it will sound better than playing it as PCM 44/16? How does that work? Does it sound lots better?
And then get rid of the SMSL M8 afterwords.
By the way, added three .1uf filtering caps to the input of the 7805 (that's feeding my FIIO D3 V1) along with 4 x 1000uf 25v electrolytics. There was .1uf on the output already, and added a 47uf 25v electrolytic on the output as well.
Those input filtering caps seem to have helped quite a bit with clarity of the sound -- or could this just be my imagination? The input filtering caps make the 7805 function better right?
Those input filtering caps seem to have helped quite a bit with clarity of the sound -- or could this just be my imagination? The input filtering caps make the 7805 function better right?
Just search for 'aluminium chassis enclosure' in the consumer electronics section of ebay.com and you should turn lots up.
What are the dimensions of the particular one you got if you don't mind? Just trying to figure out how large of one to get.
What are those pretty blue transformers in your case? Get them from ebay? I guess that they are sealed helps? How do they compare to unsealed antek toroidal?
Also trying to figure out what each board is in the photo above? Can you tell me what each board is? Those boards don't look familiar looking at the jlsounds web site. I don't see any white or green boards there. What are the center two green ones? What supply boards are you using? Why are there 4 supplies/transformers? There is also some riser pcb on the that unidentified white pcb to the front right.
Also trying to figure out what each board is in the photo above? Can you tell me what each board is? Those boards don't look familiar looking at the jlsounds web site. I don't see any white or green boards there. What are the center two green ones? What supply boards are you using? Why are there 4 supplies/transformers? There is also some riser pcb on the that unidentified white pcb to the front right.
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This is the one;
Aluminum Chassis DIY Case Amplifier Enclosure Headphone Cabinet BOX 260*90*311mm | eBay
The tube output stage and its power supplies takes up about two thirds of the chassis.
Aluminum Chassis DIY Case Amplifier Enclosure Headphone Cabinet BOX 260*90*311mm | eBay
The tube output stage and its power supplies takes up about two thirds of the chassis.
They're just encapsulated PCB mounted transformers - they're small and neat and just work.
This is my Curryman project, none of it is JLSounds.
White PCB is a DIYINHK USB board (small add on board is a low noise regulator).
Blue PCB is the Curryman DAC.
Two Green PCBs are JLH headphone amps.
Power supply boards are from the Curryman DAC designer, bought via a group buy a year or two back. Two PSU at the back are for the amp boards and the others are for the DAC/USB boards.
Thank you! Where did you get those transformers if you don't mind? Have a link? I need to build a linear regulated 9v dc supply for my SMSL M8 I'm getting Friday (since is goes with a SMPS wall wart). I could use a 25va 9v Antek toroidal if that's just as good as those blue ones. Along with the low noise 1A dc supply board someone mentioned to me earlier in this thread (it uses 8 jumpers to digitally select output voltage).
The transformers in my Curryman build are only 10VA, though you can get bigger ones.
I would stick with the Antek as it's leadout wires will make connecting up simpler, the encapsulated transformers have pins for mounting to a PCB. Either type will deliver 9VAC to the power regulator board.
Do you mean Ales's power supply board?
I would stick with the Antek as it's leadout wires will make connecting up simpler, the encapsulated transformers have pins for mounting to a PCB. Either type will deliver 9VAC to the power regulator board.
Do you mean Ales's power supply board?
Modifying my FIIO D3 V1 DAC Again..
Here it is inside a well used old-school (no longer available) Radio Shack metal enclosure. (Used foil tape to cover up old holes from previous projects.)
It's on the left side with the rca outputs on the front soldered to the new gold rca connecters on the back. Also on the front is a 5V usb power input.
I don't use the stock 5V usb style switching power supply because the sound is terrible in comparison to a linear power supply.
On the right side is my 7805 voltage regulated supplying the DAC with the needed 5 volts. The input is coming from a 13.8V Pyramid PS-3KX linear power supply. Quite a difference in voltage, but since it is such little draw on the regulator, it gets barely warm with the heat sink in the enclosed case (with no vent holes).
I just added 8 x 1000uf 25V electrolytic smoothing caps on the input to the regulator along with 3 x .1uf filtering ceramic disc caps. I didn't have a .3uf so used three .1uf in parallel. I also didn't have a 10,000uf electrolytic so settled for 8x1k uf -- hope this is okay?
On the output is a .1uf filtering cap (larger diameter one -- don't know the voltage difference between the two sizes). Also on the output is a 47uf smoothing electrolytic along with a recently added 1000uf smoothing electrolytic.
I hope I did okay with this. Let me know your thoughts.
Just added aluminum foil duct tape between the DAC and dc supply board to possibly help with any shielding.
The addition of the filtering caps on the input seems to help.. things sound a bit more clear.. don't know if it is my imagination or not.. WOuld this make sense if things did sound better? There is another smoothing cap and filtering cap inside the DAC with another regulator bringing it down to 3.3V .. a shunt regulator inside it (however those work.. need to learn about them).
Here it is inside a well used old-school (no longer available) Radio Shack metal enclosure. (Used foil tape to cover up old holes from previous projects.)
It's on the left side with the rca outputs on the front soldered to the new gold rca connecters on the back. Also on the front is a 5V usb power input.
I don't use the stock 5V usb style switching power supply because the sound is terrible in comparison to a linear power supply.
On the right side is my 7805 voltage regulated supplying the DAC with the needed 5 volts. The input is coming from a 13.8V Pyramid PS-3KX linear power supply. Quite a difference in voltage, but since it is such little draw on the regulator, it gets barely warm with the heat sink in the enclosed case (with no vent holes).
I just added 8 x 1000uf 25V electrolytic smoothing caps on the input to the regulator along with 3 x .1uf filtering ceramic disc caps. I didn't have a .3uf so used three .1uf in parallel. I also didn't have a 10,000uf electrolytic so settled for 8x1k uf -- hope this is okay?
On the output is a .1uf filtering cap (larger diameter one -- don't know the voltage difference between the two sizes). Also on the output is a 47uf smoothing electrolytic along with a recently added 1000uf smoothing electrolytic.
I hope I did okay with this. Let me know your thoughts.
Just added aluminum foil duct tape between the DAC and dc supply board to possibly help with any shielding.
The addition of the filtering caps on the input seems to help.. things sound a bit more clear.. don't know if it is my imagination or not.. WOuld this make sense if things did sound better? There is another smoothing cap and filtering cap inside the DAC with another regulator bringing it down to 3.3V .. a shunt regulator inside it (however those work.. need to learn about them).
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Still experimenting but I like the sound. Upsampling is done on the fly with HQPlayer software (needs a powerful PC though).
The really interesting thing is that you don't need a DAC chip to decode DSD;
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/273474-best-dac-no-dac.html
But this is getting off topic...
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