Altmann Attraction DAC

[jeff mai]

This one seems to be getting some good press:

http://www.mother-of-tone.com/attraction.htm

See this review:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin...mpling_dac.htm

Sounds like the second coming from the review. Anyone care to speculate what makes it special?

[Bernhard]

Looks like a PCM1704 non os.

[DUC985]

i had it for a week, for test purposes after the rave review at enjoy the music. I have not compared it agains the DAC's within the review but agains my AYA DAC TDA1541 from Pedja Rogic and my DDDAC with 24xTDA1543. Source was a CDMPRO2. Both DIY DAC's smoked the Altmann in my system.

[flyboi]

Hi DUC985!

What type of NON OS Dac does it used? Could u described the character of the Altmann Attraction DAC compare to the other 2 dacs?


Cheers!

Eddy.

[Brent Welke]

In the seventh paragraph from the bottom of the page in this review http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin...mpling_dac.htm it says the chip is the TDA1543. Also says there are 5 OPA134 per channel.

[jeff mai]

The review I linked says it uses a TDA1543!

[DUC985]

The Altman uses one TDA1543 and several OPA134 as output stage. Asyncronus reclocking and a non standard SDIF receiver, so no Crystal device is used. Most of the parts are SMD parts.

With regard to the sound it is always difficult to describe that in writing especially if your mother language is German.
My system is using a CDMPRO2 as transport a K&K Audio line stage and a kind of Ultrapath 300B SE Amp.
Speaker used are Lowther Academy's and Open Baffles using the Ciare 250. Just to give you an indication about the setup used.

The Altman was very natural sounding on voices, i believe this is due to the fact, that one TDA1543 is always more natural than the n * TDA1543 versions.
The Altman was kind of harsh sounding in my system. The n * TDA1543 sounds a lot smoother. With my Lothers this is a very important point. The strange thing was that even it sounded a little bit rough, it lacked top end resolution. The n * TDA1543 had a clearly better soundstage and overall resolution.
I also had kind of problem with the output volume of the Altman, the OPA's push the output to more than ~3 Volts RMS. This makes a linestage obsolete.

So in short words this DAC is not bad at all, but as this is a DIY forum i believe you can do better or at least equal if you build it yourself. Also the parts cost for a single TDA1543 DAC will not cost your more than a 100 bucks with top notch products and without OP's as output stage.

[lohk]

On all fotos of different versions of that DAC I can clearly see several crystal devices.

[Bernhard]

24 bit with TDA ?????

[jeff mai]

Originally posted by Bernhard
24 bit with TDA ?????

Notice that nowhere in the literature does it reveal the bit depth. I suspect that the custom input receiver discards all but 16 bits.

I wonder if the TDA1543 simply operates on the incoming sample frequency or if there is upsampling.