AD1865 & Pass D1 = Best DAC ever

[benproiii]

I have just finished building my hi end DAC, it is an balanced AD1865 DAC with 4x Pass D1 IV Stages with CCS's, The digital section uses CS8412 receiver, AD1896 ASRC, SM5842 digital filter, and flip flop re-clocking to the DAC's. The Clock is a symmetrical colpitts oscillator with LT1021 based power supply. The rest of the PSU's are Sigma11 and Sigma22 based PSU's. All of this was built for less than $300 including the case (from Par-metal). This DAC is one of the best I have ever heard, I've listened to many digital converters including the ESS Buffalo DAC with Pass D1 IV this, one seem's to sound just slightly better in the control of the bass frequencies and the treble is slightly more crisp. I would like to know what changes could be made to improve the subjective sound quality even more, (I'm pretty new to DAC design). Any suggestions are welcome, Thanks.

[bambadoo]

Nice work!

[abraxalito]

I suggest ditching the off-the-shelf digital filter and rolling your own with a lightweight DSP chip like ARM Cortex M4. I reckon 2X OS sounds best with a minimum phase filter - not linear phase like with the standard filter parts. Also try without the ASRC as this has built-in linear phase filtering too.

[jean-paul]

Nice work but you haven't heard enough DACs to call it "the best DAC ever"

[juanitox]

so what 'yours" top 4 jean paul ?

[jean-paul]

Hi it is not that interesting what I think as I count other features than sound quality too in the final verdict like easy of implementation, availability, etc.

Purely sound wise I have a weak spot for TDA1541A, AD1865 and FN1242a without ranking one or another higher than the other as they all have their specific merits. Since I am into ES9023 now I rank that one pretty high too. The latter is the most easy to implement and outperforms many PCM and even WM874x types. If it is better than TDA types I can not tell. Haven't compared as I haven't any TDA based DACs anymore. One of the members will be comparing the ES9023 with TDA1541A based DACs soon but unfortunately his ES9023 DAC is not playing because of an error. To be honest that comparison is the most interesting to me.

All is relative of course and it also depends on taste. The better DACs are the one you don't expect to be good. I recall what I experienced with the so-called Lawrence CS4397 DAC after modification. I like DACs to sound analog-like with lots of spacial information, depth and real life like highs. As soon as a DAC has any metallic like highs I switch it off

[Stixx]

One of the members will be comparing the ES9023 with TDA1541A based DACs soon but unfortunately his ES9023 DAC is not playing because of an error. To be honest that comparison is the most interesting to me.

Hang on in JP... once I have your ES9023 DAC finished (psu is ready...) I will of course compare it to my latest gen Audiosector DAC.

[jean-paul]

OK, that one is interesting too as the Audiosector are good sounding DACs. But we are stealing another members thread. I am outta here !

[juanitox]

thanks jean paul , for the moments i experiment a single TDA1543 " à la mode" audio sector sounds very good but can't say more it's my first one.

but as Dac "addict" i had ( audionte ad1865 , berkeley alpha, weiss 202 , acoustic arts tube dac, lessloss 2004, wadia 25, audioaero 24/192, PASS D1, JADIS JS2, EAD DSP900, etc...)
and my top 3 are Audio note, berkeley and audio aero.

do you have a link for your ESS9023 dac ,even if the only sabre dac i had ( Weiss) was not my taste at all..

[jean-paul]

ES9023 / WM8804 S/PDIF "Subbu DAC V3" GB Interest