DAC-in-the-Box modifications. Again.

[Aleksunder]

Kind of a repeat post, but I was ignored last time, perhaps someone could disabuse of me of a naive idea.

The DITB has a problem with it's size - given the lack of space for big caps and so on, it's perhaps understandable that the designers used +/- 5v voltage regulators for everything, including the analogue stage. This is obviously not a huge amount of headroom for an opamp driving a 2.4v line out.

Hence the modifications involving replacing the 5v regulators with 12v ones.

But instead, why not drop the voltage from the DAC so that the opamps are only making, say, 1V? Are DITB owners all going to be using passive pre-amps, that need 2+ V?

This is apparently to do-able by switching from the DAC's V-out, and instead resistor-loading it's I-out, which I gather also means the DAC's R2R ladder is driving the opamps directly, rather than via the dozens of transistors in it's on-board amp.

The reason I'm asking, rather than actually doing, and either reporting success or not reporting a ruined DITB is that I'd quite like to not ruin my DITB!

thanks all.

[Fin]

Another option is to build an external, regulated +/-12V supply and let it supply the existing +/-5V regulators and the opamp directly (ie. remove the 5V regulation from the opamp).