I'm of the view the character comes from the recording. The power supply has perhaps the biggest influence after that, due to the PSRR of typical amplification and DAC parts not being sufficient for highest quality audio.
You're thanking me for agreeing with your ears? Or have I misconstrued something? Other D-S DACs most certainly do suffer from the HF hash phenomenon. There are some ways to reduce this though - low pass filtering I'm using on a very cheap integrated mp3/wav player (see my latest blog post) and its beneficial but not a complete panacea.
No shortage of secondary market multibit DAC chips for DIYers to dabble with.
Yep certainly are thanking you for agreeing with my ears, most reviewers seem to be of an opposit opinion, that's why was doubting ears, even lampizor gave the buffalo DAC and hence the ESS a amazing review, and that guy has heard some real high end kit, and knows his analog electronics.
I had a look at that TDA 1387 data sheet interesting , I'm learning that there are lots of topologies as side from r2r and DS , lots of switching going on tho as the bit value is composed. Will add it to the list.
No shortage ????? How the hell do I get a listen to a pcm1740k ??? Is the tda still in production ?
NSA?
As I said SI tools and power integrity tools are not used that often, as to the ones on the internet.... don't know much about them I use the expensive one that comes with the PCB package as using it during interactive routing is a must and it must also have a seamless interface to the PCB package or you are going to have fun simulating the layout... Then you have to collect all the IBIS files for the active devices etc. Simulation is a time consuming job, I know because we have to do it, mostly though for critical high speed digital we use the interactive high speed router, this gives us a constant impedance over layer changes HUD for length matching etc.
Plenty of listeners on Head-Fi have remarked on the same HF issues with ESS DACs. Matt who wrote the Wiki I referred you to found the TDA1387 based DAC (not fully modded) more fun to listen to than his Gustard which is based on ESS.
I'd not bother with the PCM1704 (too fashionable hence high prices) but you can get PCM1702 fairly cheaply here - I think I paid about 20RMB each for a small quantity a few years back. Don't think the TDA1387's still being made but there are so many out there because they were in Soundblaster cards which get recycled for the bits. So absolutely no shortage of them and the price reflects this (under $0.08 a pop).
What's your EDA platform ? Mentor + hyperlynx, cadence + sigrity or altium, you will find ansys EM integrates nice with all of em, and gives , arguably, better quicker results.
SIwave will especially blow your mind , since it's capable of chip to connector sims ( including package parasitics ) of the entire board and sttoo. like resonant frequency analysis , and it will even accurately predict EMC emmisions and suseptance .
For power integrity (PI) linked with thermal loading try Redhawk models.
Hyperlynx on the full licence should do it all, and well integrated into expedition PCB, but depends on which rep you believe .( but maybe from your HUD description it is mentor you use so you would be familiar with that )
IBIS are easy to derive, both hyperlynx and t2b from cadence can spit out up to v4 definitions v5 is still being stabilised by the steering groups anyway. The time needed to learn the format is quite small, and you are no longer tied to devices you can find models for, you just need to know some definitions that come from the chip technology files which are no secret, even with mil spec vendors
NSA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency
NSA UK
The current state of British politics , and unfortunately the people too
Try surfing round Russian or Chinese EDA community sites, that will give you a taste of what's really going on out there.
He said the tda was more fun, not that the ESS sucked !! Which seems nearer the mark.
All the critical reviws have read have been like that, they say stuff like "bright " or "slightly forward" not tireing , uncomfortable, fatiguining . To me you hit the mark with your first comment on its sound. The real shame is that the bass and a lot of the middle is real nice, just damn spoilt !!!!
Thanks for that will have a look for a 1702 , that will give me a good try at a pure r2r sound, cheaper than the discrete danish design was looking at. Will check the data sheet.
For some reason dislike the idea of working with discontinued chips, it not logical but always design with the idea it may someday end up in production somewhere and then discontinued Parts is a no no.
We all should move the China.
I like the food so if they have a decent ' takeaway ' why not ? !!
Abraxalito's right vecna, the PCM1702 is the older bother of the PCM1704 and there's not much difference in them, it's said the 1704 is "glitch free" but you can take that with a grain of salt.
Look here for old machines that use them, and even the 1704
CD-Player-DAC-Transport List
Cheers George
Or you can avoid a DAC and start using a DDX amp (marketing speak: "Power DAC")....Full digital chain till the speakers....No scratchy contacts, no need for expensive potentiometers or gold plated input relays. No mucho $ for obsolete R2R chips and having to mod crappy chinese Ebay DACs with PCB tracks coming off when you look at them. No expensive ESS DACs with various PSU boards plugged in in a butterfly scheme. Shortest signal path possible with DDX. Just one device doing things with the signal your sources feed it.
Why convert digital to analog when it can mostly be done in the digital domain and when your sources are digital anyway ? I experiment with those and I like the concept (while being a DAC builder and analog loyalist). Beware, you will end up with a mostly empty audio rack going that route
Why convert digital to analog when it can mostly be done in the digital domain and when your sources are digital anyway ? I experiment with those and I like the concept (while being a DAC builder and analog loyalist). Beware, you will end up with a mostly empty audio rack going that route
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I like the food so if they have a decent ' takeaway ' why not ? !!
The real stuff isn't much like the UK's Chinese takeaway food, except for 'Sweet and Sour Pork' which is almost identical
Or you can avoid a DAC and start using a DDX amp (marketing speak: "Power DAC")....Full digital chain till the speakers....No scratchy contacts, no need for expensive potentiometers or gold plated input relays. No mucho $ for obsolete R2R chips and having to mod crappy chinese Ebay DACs with PCB tracks coming off when you look at them. No expensive ESS DACs with various PSU boards plugged in in a butterfly scheme. Shortest signal path possible with DDX. Just one device doing things with the signal your sources feed it.
Why convert digital to analog when it can mostly be done in the digital domain and when your sources are digital anyway ? I experiment with those and I like the concept (while being a DAC builder and analog loyalist). Beware, you will end up with a mostly empty audio rack going that route
Actually I had similar idea ages ago, seemed simple, design a descrete current steering DAC and just up they output powers per active source. But then found some implementations which did not get the best reviews ,
DDX as far as I understand it is effectively fancy PWM ? with the signal being integrated across the load device,
Design wise its a nightmare, the rf spectrum noise is insane and leaks everywhere, not surprising since your switching amps about at MHz . Also as if I am correct most designs resolve the final signal over a custom choke , not over the speaker voice coil , so not exactly digital all the way to the speaker ☺ they have to do that to even approach a flat freq response and to handle passive crossovers.
Naim project for Bently seems the best implementation so far, but the technology has only made it to 1 of their mainstream products which kind of says something ?
The real stuff isn't much like the UK's Chinese takeaway food, except for 'Sweet and Sour Pork' which is almost identical
Excellent - that's me sorted then....haha
I used a few of the DDX eval boards. Interesting amps, and initially I liked them a lot. But the sound always wore me down, irritated me after awhile. Didn't want to come back to the amp. Not sure what was going on there.
Also interesting about no bass on the ESS. They don't have a lot of "umph" to my ear, but are very smooth. Maybe too smooth for most people. Not enough bite. I always wondered if it was power supply thing.
Will dig up the Cirrus chips I liked with my transformer outputs. Agree that the transformer out isn't great for portable.
Also interesting about no bass on the ESS. They don't have a lot of "umph" to my ear, but are very smooth. Maybe too smooth for most people. Not enough bite. I always wondered if it was power supply thing.
Will dig up the Cirrus chips I liked with my transformer outputs. Agree that the transformer out isn't great for portable.
Also interesting about no bass on the ESS. They don't have a lot of "umph" to my ear, but are very smooth. Maybe too smooth for most people. Not enough bite. I always wondered if it was power supply thing.
This is typical to my ear of Delta Sigma type converters.
That's why I went back to well implemented R2R ladder dacs, PCM1704 is my favourite, they have a "jump factor" that Delta Sigma's just can't do. But then I just listen to Redbook or HDCD Redbook also.
Cheers George
On the DX90 iBasso DX90. Análisis técnico y review. the base seems quite affected by load impeadence and characteristics , but have to say does not offend in any way. In the review you will see a dead flat freqresponse the sweep being done on some fine kit, so how come we all hear a extended and just plain wrong HF ???
I can't wait to get hands on some kit built from the DACs suggested so far, just to renew faith in digital reproduction period.
I can't wait to get hands on some kit built from the DACs suggested so far, just to renew faith in digital reproduction period.
Nuforce DDA-100 is a nice one. Normally I try stuff and sell it only to buy another new toy etc. It is a method to gain experience (in a way).
This one stayed in my system. I did mod it though. It needed an abnormal break in period. Initially it sounds slightly horrible.
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Just had a look on the website , seems adequate, bit like protel before it grew into altium.
Not at all industry standard tho ☺. You have no access to real 3d solvers , hence your emc analysis in going to be no more that a computer aided guess.
SIwave will give you a 90% accuracy pass/fail at the emc chamber itself ☺ , that's gold and could save several board iterations .