Hello,
is there any benefit regarding the sound running TDA1541A in simultaneous mode?
Also, did you use Mute board ( Mute - I2S over USB Audio ) to mute the signal when there is need, i.e. when changing different sample rates? Is there any need for it?
Thanks,
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In general, there is a substantial improvement in sound consistently reported by those who run TDA1541a in simultaneous mode.
Those reporting have been using the I2StoPCB card from IanCanada or the device by Ryanj. It is safe to assume same result from this card.
Can you send me link for that board, thanks. If its not allowed here, please use PM.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, here I come, in front of all the congregation, to confess my Sin. 
I started modifying the MOSAIC.
The MOSAIC DAC is a truly great DAC, exquisitely detailed, relaxed and elegant, but, in stock form, it lacks hard punch in the mid-bass and bass weight, so it always looses compared with my Otari R2R. Talking about which, I thank that one, which is heavily modified, and whose last couple of mods not only catapulted it to high class status but also encouraged me to attempt the challenge for the MOSAIC.
I'll explain. From a past audiophile life I have still some Black-Gate caps (I don't care what your opinion is) so I installed 22uF Standard B-G near the first and most critical opamp of the repro amp. I also installed a Balun in series with power input. Due to technical problems I did not truly evaluate this mods one after one, rather it was almost simultaneous. Astonishing result to say the least.
I have used baluns since the beginning of my DIY life, mainly in SMPS driven units, using highQ cores (stated effect until multi KHz range) and OCC copper enameled wire, which is the best option, but I have also used those rings that come in PC SMPS and common type enameled wire and it still is good. Now I have instaled baluns in linear PS units, and now I have the will to install them also in power amps just to see what it does. Maybe I will install them on all home appliances.
Anyway, it is a very cheap and easy to do mod, so there you have...
Back to the MOSAIC: I have always suspected the power supply as the cause for the "sound presentation" and after the expiration of the waranty period (or not?) I feel like tailor the sound more to my liking.
Because the complexity and secrecy of the circuit, no one in his right mind would attempt to improve what our Guru did with this superb invention, so I targeted the PS caps. Main PS board is small so one would need to "cut and solder" to increase there capacitance. Too risky.
The principal daughter board has several caps (excellent quality, BTW) that are easy to swap for my preferred ones. I replaced three 330uF caps for 560uF Rubycon ZLH (I lacked ZL) which were the only ones that I had that fitted there.
I now you will doubt it but the effect was, as predicted, much more punch on the mid-bass and more extension to the lower bass. A bit of delicacy was lost, though...detail remained and with a bit of more dynamics, IMHO.
Then the Balun: my last high Q core, but with common type copper; great effect; more depth and credibility of images; more "curves" and breath to the sound.
Now I am testing the latest mod: B-G PK series on the converter's PS. There is some space constraints so I could not test "power bank" or "super-E cap" there, but I found a place where I will be able to test this approach with N series B-G caps in the near future...well the BGs are doing well: refinement returned, details are still even or greater and frequency extremes are wider apart. It is still sounding a bit "plastic" though. I hope that goes away soon.
That's all for now. I hope our Guru will forgive my sacrilege.
Fully completed products are a torture for us, DIYers.
Best wishes,
M.
I started modifying the MOSAIC.
The MOSAIC DAC is a truly great DAC, exquisitely detailed, relaxed and elegant, but, in stock form, it lacks hard punch in the mid-bass and bass weight, so it always looses compared with my Otari R2R. Talking about which, I thank that one, which is heavily modified, and whose last couple of mods not only catapulted it to high class status but also encouraged me to attempt the challenge for the MOSAIC.
I'll explain. From a past audiophile life I have still some Black-Gate caps (I don't care what your opinion is
) so I installed 22uF Standard B-G near the first and most critical opamp of the repro amp. I also installed a Balun in series with power input. Due to technical problems I did not truly evaluate this mods one after one, rather it was almost simultaneous. Astonishing result to say the least.I have used baluns since the beginning of my DIY life, mainly in SMPS driven units, using highQ cores (stated effect until multi KHz range) and OCC copper enameled wire, which is the best option, but I have also used those rings that come in PC SMPS and common type enameled wire and it still is good. Now I have instaled baluns in linear PS units, and now I have the will to install them also in power amps just to see what it does. Maybe I will install them on all home appliances.
Anyway, it is a very cheap and easy to do mod, so there you have...
Back to the MOSAIC: I have always suspected the power supply as the cause for the "sound presentation" and after the expiration of the waranty period (or not?
) I feel like tailor the sound more to my liking.Because the complexity and secrecy of the circuit, no one in his right mind
would attempt to improve what our Guru did with this superb invention, so I targeted the PS caps. Main PS board is small so one would need to "cut and solder" to increase there capacitance. Too risky.The principal daughter board has several caps (excellent quality, BTW) that are easy to swap for my preferred ones. I replaced three 330uF caps for 560uF Rubycon ZLH (I lacked ZL) which were the only ones that I had that fitted there.
I now you will doubt it but the effect was, as predicted, much more punch on the mid-bass and more extension to the lower bass. A bit of delicacy was lost, though...detail remained and with a bit of more dynamics, IMHO.
Then the Balun: my last high Q core, but with common type copper; great effect; more depth and credibility of images; more "curves" and breath to the sound.
Now I am testing the latest mod: B-G PK series on the converter's PS. There is some space constraints so I could not test "power bank" or "super-E cap" there, but I found a place where I will be able to test this approach with N series B-G caps in the near future...well the BGs are doing well: refinement returned, details are still even or greater and frequency extremes are wider apart. It is still sounding a bit "plastic" though. I hope that goes away soon.
That's all for now. I hope our Guru will forgive my sacrilege.
Fully completed products are a torture for us, DIYers.
Best wishes,
M.
Attachments
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I'm in for magicMagic.
If your world does not accept magic, you won't hear it.
Cheers,
M.
Could you explain the engineering part of magic? How do you choose the number of windings, core material, where do you place it in the schematic, etc.
Guys,
Thanks for the interest.
Do a little search.
As I said, better quality rings may (should) work better, as OCC copper enameled
wire will sound better than common type enameled wire. I lost the specs of my rings, but there are not common type ferrite; some sort of compacted magic powder, with lower reach, into KHz range. Though as I said, salvaged ferrites from cheap burned SMPS from PCs will also work.
I explicitly avoided technical explanations: I surely will get it wrong and your left hemisphere will think "this guy doesn't know what he is talking about" and your Ego will happily write "you don't know what you are talking about".
Again, this trick is dirty cheap and easy to implement. Just follow the diagram, which shows bifilar windings (edit: apparently this configuration is called a Reisert one), and connect the leads between input power connector and power (N, L) leads. Try it with common type "parts bin" elements, then decide if it is worth the effort to go for fancy ones.
Use something between 18 and 22AWG enameled wire (if you have silver, go for it!) and use as many windings as you see fit. I have used single layer, double and triple (for noisy digital units), all working fine. Just measure that both leads are insulated from each other and from ring.
"We are fearless DAC builders, we don't need no dirty instructions"
For me, this is Standard Modifications Proceedings, formerly for digital but now also for analog. Transport-->digital processor-->DAC.
I will also try it on other parts of the power supply, for example, post first bank of capacitors...
Cheers,
M.
Thanks for the interest.
Do a little search.
As I said, better quality rings may (should) work better, as OCC copper enameled
wire will sound better than common type enameled wire. I lost the specs of my rings, but there are not common type ferrite; some sort of compacted magic powder, with lower reach, into KHz range. Though as I said, salvaged ferrites from cheap burned SMPS from PCs will also work.
I explicitly avoided technical explanations: I surely will get it wrong and your left hemisphere will think "this guy doesn't know what he is talking about" and your Ego will happily write "you don't know what you are talking about".
Again, this trick is dirty cheap and easy to implement. Just follow the diagram, which shows bifilar windings (edit: apparently this configuration is called a Reisert one), and connect the leads between input power connector and power (N, L) leads. Try it with common type "parts bin" elements, then decide if it is worth the effort to go for fancy ones.
Use something between 18 and 22AWG enameled wire (if you have silver, go for it!
) and use as many windings as you see fit. I have used single layer, double and triple (for noisy digital units), all working fine. Just measure that both leads are insulated from each other and from ring. "We are fearless DAC builders, we don't need no dirty instructions"
For me, this is Standard Modifications Proceedings, formerly for digital but now also for analog.
Transport-->digital processor-->DAC.I will also try it on other parts of the power supply, for example, post first bank of capacitors...
Cheers,
M.
Attachments
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Thanks.
I suspect that it is more complex than that. Note the half way inverse winding.
Experiment.
Experience is all. The rest is opinion.
This one seems good, but expensive.
Micrometals Amidon T130-2 Iron Powder Toroidal Core T-130-2 Toroid NEW--1piece-- | eBay
Cheers,
M.
Thanks Max. Btw Im kind of surprise that your getting good reaults from the BG PKs.
Been playing with BGs for a long time. The PKs do make instruments sound more realistic but they're pretty slow cause the esr is extremely high. The one thing that I've always noticed about BGs is that you can only use a sprinkle of them on any circuit. The other thing about BGs including the N is that they really aren't that transparent, highs looses that sparkle, hence one would have to mix with other caps to attain a balance in sound.
Cheers
Been playing with BGs for a long time. The PKs do make instruments sound more realistic but they're pretty slow cause the esr is extremely high. The one thing that I've always noticed about BGs is that you can only use a sprinkle of them on any circuit. The other thing about BGs including the N is that they really aren't that transparent, highs looses that sparkle, hence one would have to mix with other caps to attain a balance in sound.
Cheers
Thanks Max,
I know that there are enough critics on this site and understand your reservations describing the applcation of the balun. My interest was genuine and I appreciate you sharing information.
May I ask one more question - how did you find out about this usage of balun? It is always valuable to understand the thought process behind any new application.
I know that there are enough critics on this site and understand your reservations describing the applcation of the balun. My interest was genuine and I appreciate you sharing information.
May I ask one more question - how did you find out about this usage of balun? It is always valuable to understand the thought process behind any new application.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate your open mind.
The balun trick was detected in the mid 2000's probably on a forum or a site dedicated to digital transport upgrades. I cannot find it now. What I retained is that not only it could tackle common mode but also differential mode noise
I believe the midpoint reverse winding does a cool effect, somehow. Anyway, if you read the topic, it is not an easy to grasp one, even for a simple object. It is supposed to work on MHz range. The funny thing is that I hear benefit until deep bass. Very hard to explain. My final line is that solid state electronics and DACs in particular are so powerful devices that even the tinniest spurious information fed to it can make things go wrong, meaning power is energy is information. Dirty power is dirty information: causes dirty output. One has to make every effort to clean as much as one can the info delivered to the "information transformer unit". I can declare that it also works for power amps: my Amnesis n°1 amp has now the one from the left on the pic.
Burning-in going on. It is sounding a bit thin for the moment but hopefully it won't last.
Dear Sumotan,
Yes, BGs are strange animals. At first they sound awful; no highs, then no bass, or vice-versa, and "plastic" sound...eventually they end sounding right for me. I bought them when there were affordable. Now people ask crazy money for them. One experiment that astonished me was replacing the main cap from the SMPS of digital transport (still in use) with a BG-VK(?) high voltage cap. The background went totally black!
One of those cases when you completely forget the money paid for. Everything is Light. And Light is Energy and Light is Information.
God creates with Light. We are Light. And Light is Love and Harmony.
With my best wishes and Love, that is Light.
M.
Attachments
Yes. The Little black ones.
Those are good.
Have you used the "power tank"?
Cheers,
M.