Hi Guys,
I just got in late tonight from a really great vacation in San Francisco/Napa/Sonoma, and I've got plenty of updates and screenshots to post of the boards, but it will have to wait until tomorrow since I'm jet-lagged and it's 2:30am.
I've updated the list, and made a note of any questions left unanswered over the last week, so I should be able to post some replies for anyone who was left hanging sometime tomorrow.
If you're one of the people who has expressed interest, please check your order as it appears on the sheet, and let me know if I have anything wrong. If there's a ? beside your name, it's because I have no idea what you're asking for, and need clarification. I'd like to get the boards ordered next week, so it's important to get a final count done!
To all you West Coast Americans out there: you make some very good food and wine, and you're lucky to live in such a beautiful place!
Cheers,
Owen
I just got in late tonight from a really great vacation in San Francisco/Napa/Sonoma, and I've got plenty of updates and screenshots to post of the boards, but it will have to wait until tomorrow since I'm jet-lagged and it's 2:30am.
I've updated the list, and made a note of any questions left unanswered over the last week, so I should be able to post some replies for anyone who was left hanging sometime tomorrow.
If you're one of the people who has expressed interest, please check your order as it appears on the sheet, and let me know if I have anything wrong. If there's a ? beside your name, it's because I have no idea what you're asking for, and need clarification. I'd like to get the boards ordered next week, so it's important to get a final count done!
To all you West Coast Americans out there: you make some very good food and wine, and you're lucky to live in such a beautiful place!
Cheers,
Owen
Ho Owen
Nice to read from you, hope you've enjoyed your trip, it seems so
Just to clarify my order here's my update, I'll take :
1 x BAL-SE PCB + 1 x SE-SE PCB + 1 x BAL-BAL PCB + 3 x PSU KIT
As I've got most of IC's, I just need other parts like 0.1% resistors and polymer caps.
I don't know what's included in PSU Kit, would you please give us some advices about the content?
Many thanks for your sharing and kindness
Cheers
Nice to read from you, hope you've enjoyed your trip, it seems so
Just to clarify my order here's my update, I'll take :
1 x BAL-SE PCB + 1 x SE-SE PCB + 1 x BAL-BAL PCB + 3 x PSU KIT
As I've got most of IC's, I just need other parts like 0.1% resistors and polymer caps.
I don't know what's included in PSU Kit, would you please give us some advices about the content?
Many thanks for your sharing and kindness
Cheers
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Hello Owen,
Made some changes to my list. I will take
2 x BAL - SE PCB
2 x BAL - BAL PCB
Regards,
Subbu
Made some changes to my list. I will take
2 x BAL - SE PCB
2 x BAL - BAL PCB
Regards,
Subbu
Hi Owen,
Glad to hear you had a good trip. I'd like to make another change my list:
1x SE-SE kit
1x BAL-BAL kit
2x SE-SE PCB
2x BAL-SE PCB
2x BAL-BAL PCB
Thanks!
And for those that asked what I'm doing with all of these, I'll be using the BAL-BAL for home, SE-SE for the office, and the PCBs for future projects and backups for when I mess up
Glad to hear you had a good trip. I'd like to make another change my list:
1x SE-SE kit
1x BAL-BAL kit
2x SE-SE PCB
2x BAL-SE PCB
2x BAL-BAL PCB
Thanks!
And for those that asked what I'm doing with all of these, I'll be using the BAL-BAL for home, SE-SE for the office, and the PCBs for future projects and backups for when I mess up
Hi
First a bit about me, i'm an electronics engineer with most focus on embedded system so the audio world is new to me. I'm fairly new to this forum as well, have read around a bit before and done an attempt at a DAC project (school course / private) with a CS4398 which was very educational. This was my first hardware design with digital components, long story short it will never sing in its current state the only chance is to remake everything from scratch.
My current audio setup at work is based on a 30$ headset with the laptops internal sound card. At home i have a stereo thats about 15 years old and the only good thing about it must be durability because i doubt a modern budget system would last 15 years...
The only part that might be salvageable is a DAC707 (purple one with CS8416 & CS4398). Will most likely upgrade that one as well but it might be enough for a first step since its quite a lot of money involved when you start reading here...
Long story short, I found this thread a while ago and I was really surprised to find those measurements in the beginning. Looks to good to be true, then i got a bit scared of the frequency response, but apparently it works great with a good source. Congratulations on a nice design.
Now to the real questions, hope you have some time to answer.
First how much will an entire setup of The Wire cost? Just a ballpark number, in the previous group buy you sold a kit with PCB+opamps for 95$ right. How much more is required before everything is up and running?
How about component availability?
I live in sweden and many components aren't available since farnell only sells to enterprises. The other distributors available doesn't have this type of high end components at all (at least not the ones in the BOM). So i will probably need to by everything from the states. Can i get everything from one supplier to save shipment cost or will i need to go to several?
The big problem, what do i need (not BOM)?
First i need a new pare of headphones, but i plan to find those in a local store so i can find some comfortable ones, my guess is that they will be single ended. To drive the headphones i need an analog source and the only sources i have today are single ended. But i like the concept of a balanced design, and my eyes are focused on the ackoDAC AKD-26. That one is far over my current budget but i really like the design and possibility of extensions.
Will the wire work well for driving a normal input stage of a power amplifier?
At work i will only use headphones but at home i also need something for both my computer and TV. It would be nice with a system that works both ways (hence the interest in the ackoDAC). Will look more into the home stereo in a few months but i like to plan ahead...
Best regards // Rikard
First a bit about me, i'm an electronics engineer with most focus on embedded system so the audio world is new to me. I'm fairly new to this forum as well, have read around a bit before and done an attempt at a DAC project (school course / private) with a CS4398 which was very educational. This was my first hardware design with digital components, long story short it will never sing in its current state the only chance is to remake everything from scratch.
My current audio setup at work is based on a 30$ headset with the laptops internal sound card. At home i have a stereo thats about 15 years old and the only good thing about it must be durability because i doubt a modern budget system would last 15 years...
The only part that might be salvageable is a DAC707 (purple one with CS8416 & CS4398). Will most likely upgrade that one as well but it might be enough for a first step since its quite a lot of money involved when you start reading here...
Long story short, I found this thread a while ago and I was really surprised to find those measurements in the beginning. Looks to good to be true, then i got a bit scared of the frequency response, but apparently it works great with a good source. Congratulations on a nice design.
Now to the real questions, hope you have some time to answer.
First how much will an entire setup of The Wire cost? Just a ballpark number, in the previous group buy you sold a kit with PCB+opamps for 95$ right. How much more is required before everything is up and running?
How about component availability?
I live in sweden and many components aren't available since farnell only sells to enterprises. The other distributors available doesn't have this type of high end components at all (at least not the ones in the BOM). So i will probably need to by everything from the states. Can i get everything from one supplier to save shipment cost or will i need to go to several?
The big problem, what do i need (not BOM)?
First i need a new pare of headphones, but i plan to find those in a local store so i can find some comfortable ones, my guess is that they will be single ended. To drive the headphones i need an analog source and the only sources i have today are single ended. But i like the concept of a balanced design, and my eyes are focused on the ackoDAC AKD-26. That one is far over my current budget but i really like the design and possibility of extensions.
Will the wire work well for driving a normal input stage of a power amplifier?
At work i will only use headphones but at home i also need something for both my computer and TV. It would be nice with a system that works both ways (hence the interest in the ackoDAC). Will look more into the home stereo in a few months but i like to plan ahead...
Best regards // Rikard
If you can purchase most of the components from the same vendor, or get cheap shipping from ebay sellers, it will cost you around $200 to have a completed amp:
$95 for the kit from Owen
$40 for Misc parts on the BOM not included in the kit
$20 for a small case from Hammond(as an example)
$15 for a nice Alps RK27 Pot.
$20 for shipping (as an example)
$200 total (a very rough total of the top of my head)
I have to disagree with you on your comment about Farnell.
They will sell to anyone, (and so will Elfa). There are lots of DIYers in Europe who use them. You may have to set up an account or a user ID, but you shouldn't have any problems buying from them.
If the ackoDAC is too rich for your blood, this one http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digi...2496-ak4393-dac-kit-cs8416-ak4393-5532-a.html might be of interest. They discuss the ak4396 based variation of this board, and since the chip itself has balanced outputs, you should be able to bypass the Balanced to SE circuitry and feed a balanced amp directly. With some tweaks, this board looks like a real low budget winner.
I'd be concerned about the amount of current you'd be feeding into the input of the power amp from The Wire. I like to think about a headphone amp in the same way as I think of a poweramp for speakers. It is the source of the current gain needed to drive an transducer(either headphones or speakers). It's better to let a preamp or buffer (like a DCB1) do the job of voltage and impedance control between the source component and the amplifier.
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why do you need anything after the dac to drive the power amp? any decent balanced dac will be able to do that directly, certainly the es9016 will. the aku26 is actually not so badly priced mr slim, its not close to the price of the full blown ackodac and has just about everything built onto the one board, with only a single supply of clean DC required to drive the whole thing. the regulators, hires usb input, mcu with volume and source select and IV stage are all onboard. It has a digital pot, so no need to blow money on a balanced pot and will drive any amp direct with no problem, so no need for a preamp.
this way you can also do away with the pot on 'the wire' so save coin there. myself i have nothing bad to say about ackos stuff, youve probably read my comments on it around the forum so i wont go on here, but i really think these new integrated more budget solutions hes doing are a great value.
hows it going opc? no noise on the thread for a while, loving your iv mate!! seriously great stuff with the akd12p and the wire v1
this way you can also do away with the pot on 'the wire' so save coin there. myself i have nothing bad to say about ackos stuff, youve probably read my comments on it around the forum so i wont go on here, but i really think these new integrated more budget solutions hes doing are a great value.
hows it going opc? no noise on the thread for a while, loving your iv mate!! seriously great stuff with the akd12p and the wire v1
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