Any 24 bit NOS DAC chips?

[neutron7]

SP/dif can do 24 bit and so can the audio drivers in my PC, also some of my content is 24 bit (when i work on my own music i always mix down 24 bit) so i would like to actually hear it! right now i am using EMU 0404 but its a bit noisy because of PC PSU.

i would like to use the optical out and build a DAC. but it would have to be 24 bits and not very complicated, because i have only built analog audio circuits before.

when i used to have Creamware DSP cards i used 24 bit ADAT converters and those sounded great. you could easily tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit, even more than between 44 and 92 Khz

any help would be appreciated. thank you

[Spasticteapot]

Originally posted by neutron7
SP/dif can do 24 bit and so can the audio drivers in my PC, also some of my content is 24 bit (when i work on my own music i always mix down 24 bit) so i would like to actually hear it! right now i am using EMU 0404 but its a bit noisy because of PC PSU.

i would like to use the optical out and build a DAC. but it would have to be 24 bits and not very complicated, because i have only built analog audio circuits before.

when i used to have Creamware DSP cards i used 24 bit ADAT converters and those sounded great. you could easily tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit, even more than between 44 and 92 Khz

any help would be appreciated. thank you

I wonder if it would be possible to add some .1uf MKP caps to the power leads from the PCI slot?

[lucpes]

Originally posted by Spasticteapot


I wonder if it would be possible to add some .1uf MKP caps to the power leads from the PCI slot?

Not much improvement adding MKP caps or whatever cap for that matter, well maybe it gets cleaner, but I have the 1212m (modded) which is a better card and it sounds worse than an external DAC. Maybe hack it to regulate +-12V to +-9V?

On the oher hand, using OSCONS for digital decoupling on the card really helped. But analog is a big no-no IMO inside the PC.

On the 0404 or most cards for that matter, the dac chip is powered by regulated supplies, so I'd bypass the opamps in there and take Vout from the DAC chip itself if you have more than 10k impedance down the chain.

[neutron7]

well i did notice that the DAC on the 0404 is balanced and they only use the positive side.

i was thinking if i cant build a DAC to try taking the balanced outs directly to my preamp, which can have a balanced input added, or even be converted to balanced all the way through, since my powered monitors have balanced in.

the only thing is since they only used positive out of the DAC i would probably have to solder the negative side directly to the pin, and is it possible that the DAC is somehow programmed into "single ended mode" and does not even have any output on the negative side.

its not like i can just stick the scope on there while its in the computer. its just a bit (very) impossible.

[lucpes]

Doesn't the 0404 have the option of ADAT out on the optical? My 1212m has it and it's more or less the same thing on the digital part...

[neutron7]

0404 has only 4 channels of output and i never read anything about ADAT. anyways i do not have the ADAT converters anymore, so i would be back to square 1

[Spartacus]

Originally posted by neutron7
well i did notice that the DAC on the 0404 is balanced and they only use the positive side.

Hi, what makes you think that? The analog out on the 0404 is a fairly standard balanced to single-ended converter.