My mistake. RTX6001 is based on AK4490. It looks like it doesn't support native DSD playback.
Any better suggestions? I like it because it's fast and supports wavpack DSD. There is FIFO before DAC anyway.
DAC
Hi,
I have read good reviews of various Hugo DACs by Chord electronics. They use a proprietary DAC. I haven't actually tried it I couldn't afford it.
Hugo 2 - Chord Electronics Ltd
Hi,
I have read good reviews of various Hugo DACs by Chord electronics. They use a proprietary DAC. I haven't actually tried it I couldn't afford it.
Hugo 2 - Chord Electronics Ltd
My personal weapon of choice is the RME ADI-2 Pro. The story is that their engineers built it as their in-house measurement and reference platform. It can do balanced headphone output with power to drive planars, has a silly low noise floor, parametric eq and crossfeed options, can be used with or without a computer, etc etc. No volume pot in the signal path either, which was something that was important to me. The manual for it also has technical explanations for many of their design decisions; it’s a good read in and of itself.
Another interesting option are the Soekris ladder DACs. They use FPGAs like the Chord Mojo / Hugo, but operate on different principles.
The Mytek stuff is also in this price range, and the Brooklyn+ just came out a few months back at RMAF. Sabre 9028 Pro-based, IR remote, stepped attenuator (maybe? Unclear), mm/mc phono stage, MQA support if you’re into that.
IMO, once you’re on the level of something like an ESS 9018, anything else out there will only get you minor improvements. This being DIY Audio, I definitely understand the fascination, and it’d be amazing to see some DIY FPGA DACs using Xilinx dev kits or similar. Indeed, it’s been done: DIY DAC goodness
Twisted Pear has their 9038 kit out now, DIYINHK has R2R NOS kits...lots of good stuff out there if you want to build or buy, just IMO the jump from a $300 DAC+Amp to a $2K DAC+Amp is very small while the jump from a iPhone dongle or motherboard stereo out to the $300 system is large.
Spend it on speakers
whatever you have now is probably more than sufficient.
Another interesting option are the Soekris ladder DACs. They use FPGAs like the Chord Mojo / Hugo, but operate on different principles.
The Mytek stuff is also in this price range, and the Brooklyn+ just came out a few months back at RMAF. Sabre 9028 Pro-based, IR remote, stepped attenuator (maybe? Unclear), mm/mc phono stage, MQA support if you’re into that.
IMO, once you’re on the level of something like an ESS 9018, anything else out there will only get you minor improvements. This being DIY Audio, I definitely understand the fascination, and it’d be amazing to see some DIY FPGA DACs using Xilinx dev kits or similar. Indeed, it’s been done: DIY DAC goodness
Twisted Pear has their 9038 kit out now, DIYINHK has R2R NOS kits...lots of good stuff out there if you want to build or buy, just IMO the jump from a $300 DAC+Amp to a $2K DAC+Amp is very small while the jump from a iPhone dongle or motherboard stereo out to the $300 system is large.
Spend it on speakers
whatever you have now is probably more than sufficient.
Sadly, ime the fifo does not cure player/os/usb cable/port dependence. Otherwise it does improve the sound.
If you are happy with Daphile and cannot hear a difference between players because of the fifo, then all is well
Sadly, ime the fifo does not cure player/os/usb cable/port dependence. Otherwise it does improve the sound.
If you are happy with Daphile and cannot hear a difference between players because of the fifo, then all is well
Yes, I heard the jitter can still pass to next stage through stray capacitance...etc. (I've no equipment or knowledge to verify this.) However, the FIFO does effectively minimize the jitter. Speaking of the player, each one may sound different, but which is the best? (And what are the criteria?) It appears to me there is still no definite answer for that.
Poting
There are several people on this forum using FPGA boards for the digital part of their own sigma-delta DACs: Noah Slanter (the one you linked to), xx3stksm (with information spread over several threads, for example Is DSD signed or unsigned? ), blueskull (Ideas wanted -- USB DAC product , but he has a start-up company, so it's not really DIY) and I (see the links in post # 18).
The best measuring DACs out there are at this time ESS 9038 and AKM 4497.
Both are pretty expensive ones.
What you should consider is the implementation, and how you you are going to do it.
The ESS chip is a native I out chip, which also can be used as a U out chip, bit with less stunning performance.
And this is actually a key point, as the ESS chips delivers quite a lot of current, because it internally consists of 4 DACs per channel.
The current output is thus pretty hot, which makes the I/V stage a challenge.
On the other hand the AKM is a native U out DAC chip, which do not need any I/V conversion stage at all.
It hardly needs any amplification, just buffering and a little filtering.
This makes the AKM easy to implement,
But the AKM 4497 has no built in up-sampler as the ESS chips has, so if you want to attenuate jitter, you´ll have to up-sample externally.
You also need a receiver chip to get from S/P/DIF to I2S.
And finally I think you need to do a clock as well.
So there we are.
Both are pretty expensive ones.
What you should consider is the implementation, and how you you are going to do it.
The ESS chip is a native I out chip, which also can be used as a U out chip, bit with less stunning performance.
And this is actually a key point, as the ESS chips delivers quite a lot of current, because it internally consists of 4 DACs per channel.
The current output is thus pretty hot, which makes the I/V stage a challenge.
On the other hand the AKM is a native U out DAC chip, which do not need any I/V conversion stage at all.
It hardly needs any amplification, just buffering and a little filtering.
This makes the AKM easy to implement,
But the AKM 4497 has no built in up-sampler as the ESS chips has, so if you want to attenuate jitter, you´ll have to up-sample externally.
You also need a receiver chip to get from S/P/DIF to I2S.
And finally I think you need to do a clock as well.
So there we are.
Dear Terry,
We have / have access different dacs. Here I have been talking about a Mirand dac, with mods. The combination of the Mirand modded (and with new output shield + SITO discrete opamps) and the usual EMU soundcard performs quite well..
AK4490 USB Dac with dsd support.
The mods were aimed at getting better clock performance **(with the old version) plus some.
The newer version got a factory ironing with very nice result..
** (better clock: swapped in NDK SDA clocks and new clock supply)
ciao, George
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Sorry George, I meant to say computer hardware. I know HQP at DSD256
is resource hungry and was wondering what level of hardware is required to
achieve seamless playback.
Yes the Mirand DAC looks really good and it's a great idea to optimize for the
one format (DSD256). I'm sure it sounds VG.
cheers
Terry
Ok.
I'm using an i7 7500 mobile processor based laptop. It's definitely not a power champion. I can not do the real max: at 256 only the 2s version of the xtr filter. Stereo.
The system is Audiolinux. I had to do further optimization on it for glitch free operation.
Today I would go for a faster setup but: with this processor there are no power dissipation problems even in constant max power conditions; it somehow shows that not only scary monster setups are usable.
it is an absolute minimum requirement - but works
Ciao, George
I'm using an i7 7500 mobile processor based laptop. It's definitely not a power champion. I can not do the real max: at 256 only the 2s version of the xtr filter. Stereo.
The system is Audiolinux. I had to do further optimization on it for glitch free operation.
Today I would go for a faster setup but: with this processor there are no power dissipation problems even in constant max power conditions; it somehow shows that not only scary monster setups are usable.
it is an absolute minimum requirement - but works
Ciao, George
May I tease You a little bit?
Given that with only one sentence You have just eliminated 99% of the present audio market.. May I ask what kind of conversion does not do it?
Would like to point at my past involvement: converters at my disposal are:
1540; 1543; 1541A; PCM58; PCM63x; PCM1704; AD1865
dacs with ESS9018, 9023; CS4396; cs4398; akm 4396;
Of these I prefer my present dac with 4490 in the stated modality...
You are aware of the fact that what I am stating is that instead of doing PCM do DSD conversion in hardware, in a chip, in highly limited conditions, digital and analog sections cross-contaminating -- I vote for a more separated, cleaner, and limitless and future proof solution?
Ciao, George
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