My first Nos dac is alive!

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I built my first nos 'DanDac' [sorry Peter ] over the weekend.

It is designed for portable audio use and therefore intended to
be permanently connected to an amp and enclosed in a single small box.

I first connected it to my Stax 4040 /Arcam CD23 rig........
And it worked!
Powered by a tired pp3 9v battery and using a crappy string of
plugs tacked to the outputs, the sound was...surprising.
Compared to the Arcam I thought it lacked a little in dynamics
but hey!

When connected to a small op based headphone amp [a design
called the Pimeta..check out head-fi] and supplied a signal by
a Sony dj925 pcdp ,listening through Beyer 931s, the sound was
far more dynamic .
A system synergy thing I guess.

What to make of the sound?
I don't know yet.
I had consumed a couple of fine ales and it was rather late when I
auditioned it.
Initially I found myself wondering about the treble levels not being quite there.[My stax setup has a quite well lit sound]
But there was also something rather nice about vocals that grabbed me too...
Definitely something different from the norm here..
On the whole a thumbs up thus far.

Thanks to everyone here who has given advice and steepened my
learning curve



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Bottom

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A side view

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I think am beginning to rather like the sound of this dac.....Hmm talking to myself again,
nothing new in that



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[pburke]

is there a contest underway for who can build the smallest DAC?

This is the second tiny layout posted here in a week

[Peter Daniel]

You seem to be using BG N caps. You probably know it by now, but polarity on those caps is quite important. My preference is for Non Polar (marked) lead to be on pos. supply and on the input signal (from DAC).

If you are missing highs, Rikens are the way to go. They were the best of all resistors that I tried.

Very nicely done, BTW

PS: Those are not OsCons in receiver bypass?

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Hi Peter
I am pleased you like it.
As you can see, it was inspired by your 'ultimate dac layout'

The caps have their long lead acting as 'positive', I used the
polarized BG caps as a guide here, hope this is correct?

And yup, those ARE Oscons you see...

As for the Rikens, I would love to try them but availability in the UK is zero.
Ordering from the Netherlands is a possibility, but it can
be costly for just a few resistors!

The resistors I have used are a tantalum variety from a company in the UK called HI FI Collective, they now stock Audio Note's range
of discreet components.
I have not compared them to any thing else though,just stuck them in there on blind faith...much like the rest of the project..hehe

On the whole I am pleased with the sound of this unit .
And that sound certainly has 'something' about it.


Cheers


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Well, I did manage to source some Rikens without having to suffer too much cost.

When they turn up I will build another dac and compare..


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[Bricolo]

Nice looking board!

I see you're using the LT1963, have you compared it to other ones?

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Originally posted by Bricolo
Nice looking board!

I see you're using the LT1963, have you compared it to other ones?

Hi Bricolo
Thanks.
I have not done any comparisons as yet.
If I recollect these are the quietest ldo regs available.
I am listening to the dac [or should that be listening to music] at the moment, it sounds great

This is is going to be one killer portable setup


Cheers

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