Da-capo issue (John W?)

[IanAS]

Originally posted by dowayo
I'm listening... in MP3 format

You don't really want to be listening to mp3's on your HiFi from your 'pute. Although the higher bit rate encodings can be not too bad, if you want HiFi you should copy your CD's onto your HDD and listen to them instead.

Just in case you don't already know:

Use Exact Audio Copy to copy the CD's. http://www.exactaudiocopy.de

You can play them with winamp http://www.winamp.com/player

These are both free software.

You can of course also play a CD from your CD rom or writer using windows media player. That can play the HDCD if it's an HDCD CD whereas winamp doesn't. Or the HDCD is lost somewhere, maybe in EAC or the wav file it produces. But the HDCD discs can sound a little bit different via media player. I haven't tried saving them as a wma file.

[dowayo]

I only use EAC for CD TO MP3 encoding purposes. I'm going to try your suggestion (copying CDs to HDD) this afternoon.
I use MP3 because of storage space and because that's the format I download them from the Net. If I've downloaded them in MP3 format it's absurd to re-convert them to WAV (as information is already lost in the first conversion), isn't it?
Winamp is much better than Windows Media Player, I agree.

[IanAS]

Yes the data is already lost in the mp3.

You can use FLAC Frontend to convert the EAC's wav files to FLAC's with no loss in sound quality (to my and my pals ears at least) to save space on your HDD.

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

You should configure EAC for max quality as it has an option for higher speed copying resulting in possbily lower quality.

[glj38]

Hello all,

Does anyone know where I might obtain a working D.C. battery supply for my Pink Triangle DaCapo DAC?

I have a Cardinal transport and two DaCapo DACs and I would like to give the D.C supply a try!

If anyone can help, then please get in touch.

Best regards,

glj38

[kevinkr]

Latest version of EAC even includes the FLAC encoder so no external encoding is required - this should be more efficient than the previous approach of ripping and using an external coder or as I did doing it as a two step process.

Flac support is available for Winamp and QCD.

Flac normally provides from 30% - 50% compression of the original file size, and most importantly is lossless. (i.e. A 100MB wav file when compressed will be in the range of 50 - 70MB.)

[simes_pep]

Hi,
Just stumbled across this fourm - very interesting.

I have a PT Ordinal with a 24-bit filter (will check). It is working fine attached to a Meridian 200 transport.

Very interested in the possibility of a new up-sampling filter, if available.

Thanks,
Simon.

[JohnW]

Hi Simon,

Sorry for the late reply, I’ve just completed a project – where Electronics was the easy part – then came the paperwork…

While it was my original intention to release a new digital filter module for Dacapo / Ordinal based upon a pair of FPGA’s for the advance digital filter / modulator – we found the digital PSU section in both ordinal and Dacapo could not meet the power (Current) requirements of the large FPGA’s.

If you’re prepared to add an extra PSU to power the digital module – it could work, however this is not really a practical idea.

Both Dacapo & Ordinal where vastly improved with the new Filter / Modulator – however it took us longer then expected to unravel the “unpublished” little tricks that the original SAA7350 designers implemented to improve its modulator performance within the limited silicon space of the day.

We where pleasantly surprised that the designers of the SAA7350 chose to design for best audio quality, at the expense of better measured performance – rare these days where must “corporate” designers are not open to believe that “Better” standard audio measurements do not automatically go in-hand with better audio quality.

For example, the SAA7350 designers chose to leave the Noise Shapers “Poles” at DC, rather than inserting “Poles” higher up for better Dynamic Range results. Leaving the Poles at DC reduces the Quantization noise at lower frequencies where the ear is very sensitive – a decision that is admired by this poster – obviously these designers actually listened to there development work – rather then just the numeric test results…

The development work for the “new filter module” is not lost, but just but the first step towards a high end “budget DAC” I will be soon releasing that seriously out performs even DACAPO with DC, for less then GBP400. That’s the price of 17 years of further development since DACAPO was originally designed – better to wait a little more for the new DAC which will only cost say 25% more then the replacement filter would have cost anyway (if it had been released)…

John

[simes_pep]

Ok, Thanks for that.

Although I have thought about upgrading the Ordinal with a upsampling DAC, nothing has really shone, unless for huge money, particularly with the same warmth that the Ordinal has.

I have a Michel ORBE, SME V and Helikon, so CD has always been secondary.

I have a TAG AV32R for 5.1 purposes of DD/DTS processing, and even with 24-bit/96 KHz DACs it doesn't do 2-channel as well.

I have managed to keep a 2-channel and 5.1 channel system separate but only a HT pass-through input on a Sim Moon i5 amp.

Anyway will leave it be, for the time being.

Simon.

[Studley]

John
can you tease us with any more details re the DAC eg will it have a USB input?

Also, any update on the other products that were talked about a while back; transport, digital amp etc?

[JohnW]

Hi Studley,

Yes, the DAC supports USB input, with SPDIF supported to 192 KHz.

The DAC is a Discrete design (as Dacapo), with 64 DAC's per channel, Class A output stage.

It will be available in 2 versions, basic unit (without output level attenuator) and for GBP100 extra, a version with Relay Switched attenuator which can replace a pre-amplifier in an all digital Setup - this version also has a headphone output.

John