My take on TPA's Opus DAC

[orthoefer]

Here is what I have so far. It will be a while until completion as some of the parts haven't even been ordered yet. As usual, case is from Lansing, custom panels are from Front Panel Express, and transformer is from Plitron. Note inversion of the USB and S/PDif boards below the Otto module. This arrangement lines up the connectors a little more logically.

[orthoefer]

A couple more photos.


I have a lot of milling to do on the back panel....

[Dougie085]

Which chassis is that and how much was it?

[kevinkr]

Originally posted by Dougie085
Which chassis is that and how much was it?

As the OP indicated the case/chassis was from Lansing, presumably:
http://www.lansing-enclosures.com/

The custom front panels were from Front Panel Express here: http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/

[Dougie085]

Yeah was wonder how much it cost I knew where they were from.

[kevinkr]

Here's mine in a Sescom box.. My own supply design, and all but the receiver board built by me. (Not for the smd challenged.)

Incidentally this dac sounds really good, better than my Zhaolu with minimal tweaking, and the fellows at TPA are very supportive. I recommend them and their products heartily. Note I have no affiliation, just a very pleased customer.

I based it on a pair of COD with the considerably less expensive PCM1798 simply because I had the chips. I didn't have too many of the other parts and ordered them all from Digikey. The IVY I also built from a bare board, the output is unbalanced transformer coupled from the IVY balanced outputs. (I used UTC A-21 600 ohm transformers.) The receiver is their V.2 WM8804 based receiver.

A couple of comments, the dacs, receiver and probably the Metronome are static sensitive as are any cmos based device. Handle with care. I2S signaling is fragile, run it very directly to where it is going and be aware that the SCK signal can also interfere with the others. I stacked my receiver board and dacs in a single stack which eliminated some issues I had with SCK coupling into other things. The leads are just long enough to do the job and eventually I may replace the terminal blocks with samtec or similar single in line headers and mating connectors to further shorten the paths. (Depends on whether I add a metronome or other options.)

The power supplies are my own design, are total overkill, and take up about 3/4 of the available space in my sescom box..

[orthoefer]

Originally posted by Dougie085
Yeah was wonder how much it cost I knew where they were from.

Lansing cases are steep. This one cost $95 including shipping. However, there is no denying that they are top notch--extremely well designed, made, finished and packaged. And oh yes, they are still made in America. Check this thread and see that my Dac is part of a series. I would probably do the series a little differently knowing what I know now. Nevertheless, I am committed.

[orthoefer]

Still need to order feet, dampening material, output connectors, hook-up wire, etc. Plus, I haven't figure out how I am going to put more status LEDs and an input selector switch for the OTTO module on the frontplate.

[orthoefer]

Here I used a sheet of EAR Isodamp SD40 between the DAC's bottom plates. One side of the damping material has a strong adhesive. Not shown is another piece of SD40 damping the DAC's top cover. Equipment feet are 4 Ear MF-1010 (all from Percyaudio.com). I have a little more casework to do before I can begin hooking things up. Plus, I am still working on the input selector switch and circuitry--actually undecided about what to do. I ordered one pushbutton from Mouser, but I didn't like its tactile feel. Other pushbuttons are on order to try them out.

[kevinkr]

Looks really nice so far. On the LED thing, there is really only one LED that provides useful information that you need to see on the front panel and it is the one Russ White recommends you place there (I forget which one that is at the moment, it's in the receiver documentation however) - the others are useful for trouble shooting but normally seem to all be lit the same way when the receiver is locked.