S1 is not as good sounding as the last Taiwan batches of regular chips. (search this forum - there are some discussions regarding this issue)
So if you want better sound, take one of those - ecdesigns has a ton of them in stock and used to sell them at a reasonable price.
Take S1 only if you care more about the looks (nice crown). S1 will cost you at least twice or maybe 3-times as much and deliver slightly less in the sound department.
S2 really does sound better than any other TDA1541A version, but will probably cost you an arm and a leg.
I have one, but it's ...
So if you want better sound, take one of those - ecdesigns has a ton of them in stock and used to sell them at a reasonable price.
Take S1 only if you care more about the looks (nice crown). S1 will cost you at least twice or maybe 3-times as much and deliver slightly less in the sound department.
S2 really does sound better than any other TDA1541A version, but will probably cost you an arm and a leg.
I have one, but it's ...
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I don't think it's sad - it's wonderful! I bought 4 of these Taiwan chips and ended up selling my S1.
My S2 still beats them all by a noticeable margin, so it stays in a special box... hidden... waiting for me to finish my ultimate DAC worthy of its presence. Which I hope will finish in my lifetime and not have to pass onto the next generation.
(ok joke - or maybe not really...)
Get some of these Taiwan chips and try them out and make your own selection. They are not all the same, but they are all at least as good as S1 and one of 4-5 can be really good.
My S2 still beats them all by a noticeable margin, so it stays in a special box... hidden... waiting for me to finish my ultimate DAC worthy of its presence. Which I hope will finish in my lifetime and not have to pass onto the next generation.
(ok joke - or maybe not really...)Get some of these Taiwan chips and try them out and make your own selection. They are not all the same, but they are all at least as good as S1 and one of 4-5 can be really good.
Maybe. I don't know. I tested in a highly modified chinese dac, that I tweaked as much as I could. My findings were that with S2 emotions and very little details really came through.
Maybe it also depends on the music - I listened to Kari Bremnes, Sara K., Cincinnaty Pop Orchestra and some ordinary music like Michael Jackson, George Michael...
It's probably really a matter of taste.
Maybe it also depends on the music - I listened to Kari Bremnes, Sara K., Cincinnaty Pop Orchestra and some ordinary music like Michael Jackson, George Michael...
It's probably really a matter of taste.
ok you convince me sl1!! I want one of each, 1 crown and 2 crowns!!
And 1 Taiwan. Please report your findings. If you find a stock of S2 also post back here
Well Bolly it's gonna be awhile to hunt them down,
I have a small collection of S1's but not going to
to part with it. The potential of this chip is very very
high, in terms of bass not even the new R2R comes
close but in order to savour it's potential, you must
have a good Dac kit designed for the TDA. I diy my
own TDA nos but it was only after I bought the AYA
that I started to realise its true potential. Properly
tweaked no need DSD ya. Like vinyl I believe that
Red Book's real potential has yet to be fully realized
Cheers
I have a small collection of S1's but not going to
to part with it. The potential of this chip is very very
high, in terms of bass not even the new R2R comes
close but in order to savour it's potential, you must
have a good Dac kit designed for the TDA. I diy my
own TDA nos but it was only after I bought the AYA
that I started to realise its true potential. Properly
tweaked no need DSD ya. Like vinyl I believe that
Red Book's real potential has yet to be fully realized
Cheers
I agree - get one of each and report, and if you find affordable stock of S1 or S2, save one of each for me too. Now I want to give S1 another try.
I also agree that good DAC design is critical and can squeeze much more performance out of the DAC IC if done right. I also don't think you need DSD if PCM is done right.
I also agree that good DAC design is critical and can squeeze much more performance out of the DAC IC if done right. I also don't think you need DSD if PCM is done right.
Hi Sl1
As far as commercially available Tda kit set,
the champion trophy has to go to Pedja
No better out there. It's so well done that
you'll hear even little tweaks that you made.
What started me on the TDA was what I heard
many many years back on a Philips Cdp, it has
bass to die for but was a little wolly & blur but
with Nos it brought something good to the table.
Btw I've forgo Cdp's all together. Am using a SdTrans
384 which also is another little giant killer. Have yet
to connect I2S when I do, I hope that it will sound even
better
Cheers
As far as commercially available Tda kit set,
the champion trophy has to go to Pedja
No better out there. It's so well done that
you'll hear even little tweaks that you made.
What started me on the TDA was what I heard
many many years back on a Philips Cdp, it has
bass to die for but was a little wolly & blur but
with Nos it brought something good to the table.
Btw I've forgo Cdp's all together. Am using a SdTrans
384 which also is another little giant killer. Have yet
to connect I2S when I do, I hope that it will sound even
better
Cheers
Hi Sumotan,
I have Pedja's AYA1 and yes, it is really good - he knows what he is doing.
Another guy that has good stuff is Ian with his buffer and reclocking and I2S to PCM to put TDA in simultaneous mode. I haven't tried his stuff personally, but all I can read are rave reviews.
These 2 stand out a little. There may be other guys with great designs, but not commercially available.
My simple DAC plan:
DAC must have an oscillator right next to it and the source should be slaved to it too - USB card can be used in this way. Simple straight I2S from USB to DAC with the reclocking of all 3 lines right before entering the DAC chip.
PSUs must be separate for each line (quite many of them) and all with at least the -96dB noise level, so that the whole 16-bit range is above it and the last bits don't get drowned in it.
Analog stage can be simple opamp for starters, but would like to experiment with tubes.
When this is done, an upgrade could be a TDA1541A in simultaneous mode and/or 2 of them in balanced configuration to avoid capacitors in signal path.
And I'm sure there will be more ideas what else to try.
Bye, Sl1
I have Pedja's AYA1 and yes, it is really good - he knows what he is doing.
Another guy that has good stuff is Ian with his buffer and reclocking and I2S to PCM to put TDA in simultaneous mode. I haven't tried his stuff personally, but all I can read are rave reviews.
These 2 stand out a little. There may be other guys with great designs, but not commercially available.
My simple DAC plan:
DAC must have an oscillator right next to it and the source should be slaved to it too - USB card can be used in this way. Simple straight I2S from USB to DAC with the reclocking of all 3 lines right before entering the DAC chip.
PSUs must be separate for each line (quite many of them) and all with at least the -96dB noise level, so that the whole 16-bit range is above it and the last bits don't get drowned in it.
Analog stage can be simple opamp for starters, but would like to experiment with tubes.
When this is done, an upgrade could be a TDA1541A in simultaneous mode and/or 2 of them in balanced configuration to avoid capacitors in signal path.
And I'm sure there will be more ideas what else to try.
Bye, Sl1
Hi Sl1
Me & Eldam exchange lots of ideas on what we tweak on the AYA.
While Eldam is on your side with Ian Canada's stuff I prefer the
simpler method of using SD card. Personally I feel that the Sd Trans
is as good if not better then going Ians way. I've got 2 Cdp's costing
a total of 5k & the Sd trans is just better overall. Well if we're all
suffering from OCD. Lol, our projects will never ever be completed
hence we've got to draw a line on where to end for each project.
I've stop mucking around with AYA after a year of tweaking.
Not sure if you notice stock AYA though sound good, is sluggish.
Well my AYA no longer sounds this way. It's very very open &
dynamic now
Cheers
Me & Eldam exchange lots of ideas on what we tweak on the AYA.
While Eldam is on your side with Ian Canada's stuff I prefer the
simpler method of using SD card. Personally I feel that the Sd Trans
is as good if not better then going Ians way. I've got 2 Cdp's costing
a total of 5k & the Sd trans is just better overall. Well if we're all
suffering from OCD. Lol, our projects will never ever be completed
hence we've got to draw a line on where to end for each project.
I've stop mucking around with AYA after a year of tweaking.
Not sure if you notice stock AYA though sound good, is sluggish.
Well my AYA no longer sounds this way. It's very very open &
dynamic now
Cheers
Hi,
AYA1 sounds good to me, but it's true I don't have it in a high-end system.
Now you're gonna either laugh or cross yourself if you are catholic:
I have it in the living room connected to a tv, so that we can watch concerts and movies with really good sound. The source is downsampled to PCM stereo from whatever it was before and then after the AYA there is a Yamaha micro system with a digital amp which is suprisingly good if you take technical spec into consideration (it should be total bull*) and the speakers are some old Aiwa bookshelfs with some paper drivers in them and there is a little active Yamaha "sub"woofer in the corner.
I used AYA for the DAC in this setup when we bought this tv and it turned out to have only optical out for sound and I had no other DAC at hand. After a few days I bought some cheap DAC people use to connect to tvs in cases like this and my wife told me immediately to throw it away and put that "home made box" back. The difference was so obvious, that my wife, who knows nothing about electronics or audiophilia (it actually sounds like a sickness, doesn't it?), issued a restraining order for me and my soldering iron regarding the AYA and insisted vigorously that it should stay in the living room. Probably that's why it has been working almost 24/7 for over 10 years now without failure.
I have 2 Marantz CD players (50 and 273). CD player is obsolete, but it is a relatively easy to mod and get a very good sound because source, master clock and dac are all in the same box.
That SD player costs 500 USD! With that budget you can make 2 whole TDA1541A DACs.
That's why I don't have Ian's stuff - too expensive for me.
There must be a relatively cheap way to a good sound ...
Bolly, I hope you are not angry for us hijacking your thread a little.
Have you found any good source for S1 or S2 yet?
You do know to be careful because there are many fakes circulating around?
Before you buy, make sure that at least it doesn't look fake.
Bye, Sl1
AYA1 sounds good to me, but it's true I don't have it in a high-end system.
Now you're gonna either laugh or cross yourself if you are catholic:
I have it in the living room connected to a tv, so that we can watch concerts and movies with really good sound. The source is downsampled to PCM stereo from whatever it was before and then after the AYA there is a Yamaha micro system with a digital amp which is suprisingly good if you take technical spec into consideration (it should be total bull*) and the speakers are some old Aiwa bookshelfs with some paper drivers in them and there is a little active Yamaha "sub"woofer in the corner.
I used AYA for the DAC in this setup when we bought this tv and it turned out to have only optical out for sound and I had no other DAC at hand. After a few days I bought some cheap DAC people use to connect to tvs in cases like this and my wife told me immediately to throw it away and put that "home made box" back. The difference was so obvious, that my wife, who knows nothing about electronics or audiophilia (it actually sounds like a sickness, doesn't it?), issued a restraining order for me and my soldering iron regarding the AYA and insisted vigorously that it should stay in the living room. Probably that's why it has been working almost 24/7 for over 10 years now without failure.
I have 2 Marantz CD players (50 and 273). CD player is obsolete, but it is a relatively easy to mod and get a very good sound because source, master clock and dac are all in the same box.
That SD player costs 500 USD! With that budget you can make 2 whole TDA1541A DACs.
That's why I don't have Ian's stuff - too expensive for me.
There must be a relatively cheap way to a good sound ...
Bolly, I hope you are not angry for us hijacking your thread a little.
Have you found any good source for S1 or S2 yet?
You do know to be careful because there are many fakes circulating around?
Before you buy, make sure that at least it doesn't look fake.
Bye, Sl1
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Won't laugh Sl1 just that your not doing justice to AYA.
Well I thought too about just using AYA with a CDT & be
done with it but & curiosity got the better part of me when
I read about the rave reviews of the SD Trans. Yes its not
cheap but the SQ is so high that commercial vailable stuff
will need to be in the 5-8k bracket to beat it.
Modding you old CDP will not beat the AYA, better use your
CDP spidf out & connect to AYA
Cheers
Well I thought too about just using AYA with a CDT & be
done with it but & curiosity got the better part of me when
I read about the rave reviews of the SD Trans. Yes its not
cheap but the SQ is so high that commercial vailable stuff
will need to be in the 5-8k bracket to beat it.
Modding you old CDP will not beat the AYA, better use your
CDP spidf out & connect to AYA
Cheers
Yes, I'm not using AYA to its full potential, but it makes my TV sound really good.
I don't fall for brand names and price brackets, because prices are formed more on marketing than technical basis.
I think that a CD player with hq oscillator right next to the DAC IC which reclocks the I2S and also masters the whole system at the same time can outperform any external DAC connected through SPDIF regardless of its price range. Simply because you need the signal source and dac clocks to be in sync, which is almost impossible using SPDIF. The way to make things work right using SPDIF would be buffering and reclocking I2S lines like Ian does it.
Clocking is the biggest problem with DACs and most of them don't do it right - meaning all these connected through SPDIF and Toslink with receivers with too much jitter. Even most USB ones just regenerate clock from the signal using the receiver chips pll.
To not make bit errors in NOS 16-bit your max jitter can be 173ps.
That's because the timing error without creating a bit error can be max half the size of the timeframe for one bit.
In 16-bit (1/65536 precision) 44.1kHz (1/44100):
1/2 * 1/65536 * 1/44100 = 1.73e-10 seconds = 173ps
Most of the spdif accepting receivers have jitter 200ps in their datasheets.
And this is for NOS - if you have oversampling or higher freq DSD signal, then we're no longer talking 44.1kHz so jitter to make no errors must be much much lower.
One could argue that DIR9001 has only 50ps jitter in the datasheet, but at what frequency? At closer look it is not much different from a CS8412 and you need to tweak it to reduce the locking freq range to reduce jitter, but still ... How well can you do it - can you get it well under 173ps to be able to use it on a NOS DAC?
The sure way is your own master oscillator right next to the dac chip. And the easiest and cheapest way to do that is in a CD player.
I don't fall for brand names and price brackets, because prices are formed more on marketing than technical basis.
I think that a CD player with hq oscillator right next to the DAC IC which reclocks the I2S and also masters the whole system at the same time can outperform any external DAC connected through SPDIF regardless of its price range. Simply because you need the signal source and dac clocks to be in sync, which is almost impossible using SPDIF. The way to make things work right using SPDIF would be buffering and reclocking I2S lines like Ian does it.
Clocking is the biggest problem with DACs and most of them don't do it right - meaning all these connected through SPDIF and Toslink with receivers with too much jitter. Even most USB ones just regenerate clock from the signal using the receiver chips pll.
To not make bit errors in NOS 16-bit your max jitter can be 173ps.
That's because the timing error without creating a bit error can be max half the size of the timeframe for one bit.
In 16-bit (1/65536 precision) 44.1kHz (1/44100):
1/2 * 1/65536 * 1/44100 = 1.73e-10 seconds = 173ps
Most of the spdif accepting receivers have jitter 200ps in their datasheets.
And this is for NOS - if you have oversampling or higher freq DSD signal, then we're no longer talking 44.1kHz so jitter to make no errors must be much much lower.
One could argue that DIR9001 has only 50ps jitter in the datasheet, but at what frequency? At closer look it is not much different from a CS8412 and you need to tweak it to reduce the locking freq range to reduce jitter, but still ... How well can you do it - can you get it well under 173ps to be able to use it on a NOS DAC?
The sure way is your own master oscillator right next to the dac chip. And the easiest and cheapest way to do that is in a CD player.
Your right about all that Sl1. The reason I suggested about using spidf is because
the grounding & ps & signal traces in your cdp if using Tda dac will not be as
optimise as AYA hence. I have a top loading cdp which using Philips drive which
has I2S connection. My original idea was to install AYA in it as a replacement but
changed my mind about it. With the trans 384 aside from having 12S it also has
the advantage of being so much less prone to vibrations but most important to
me is that I wanted to optimise the performance of this combo to the max as my
ability allows.
Thks for sharing
the grounding & ps & signal traces in your cdp if using Tda dac will not be as
optimise as AYA hence. I have a top loading cdp which using Philips drive which
has I2S connection. My original idea was to install AYA in it as a replacement but
changed my mind about it. With the trans 384 aside from having 12S it also has
the advantage of being so much less prone to vibrations but most important to
me is that I wanted to optimise the performance of this combo to the max as my
ability allows.
Thks for sharing
I agree the S1 is better than The Taiwan 98 I get from ECdesign.
While the the Taiwan is more hifi, it is also less liquid and not so good soundstage (while this last parameter has a lot to see with many external factors. The chip I get from ECDESIGN has imho a problem : it sounds distorsed in the mid-highs on transcient : even worse than a normal TDA 1541A which is smooth (but veiled). The "Truth" is also than these chips ask different passive setting around them (passive parts). But anyway, there is no doubt for my difficult ears than on classical and jazz music, from simpliest to the most complex instruments ensembles : S1 is superior. If I had a Taiwan but without this problem in the mid-higs (sort of odd harmonics on transcient I have not with all others TDA 1541 chips) it will be a close keeper for rock music-)
A guy had a nervous breakdown after listened his expensive ESS9018 dac vs mine
I agree with Sumotan, the TDA in good environment has a rythmic profile to die for when you know how to talk to him with the good layout around...
While the the Taiwan is more hifi, it is also less liquid and not so good soundstage (while this last parameter has a lot to see with many external factors. The chip I get from ECDESIGN has imho a problem : it sounds distorsed in the mid-highs on transcient : even worse than a normal TDA 1541A which is smooth (but veiled). The "Truth" is also than these chips ask different passive setting around them (passive parts). But anyway, there is no doubt for my difficult ears than on classical and jazz music, from simpliest to the most complex instruments ensembles : S1 is superior. If I had a Taiwan but without this problem in the mid-higs (sort of odd harmonics on transcient I have not with all others TDA 1541 chips) it will be a close keeper for rock music-)
A guy had a nervous breakdown after listened his expensive ESS9018 dac vs mine
I agree with Sumotan, the TDA in good environment has a rythmic profile to die for when you know how to talk to him with the good layout around...
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the second guy if reliable (ask for TDA photograph and bottom of the board to check it's genuine) could be a good solution : the chip is solid, most of the diyers shorts the eprom only. Up to you to de-solder the TDA properly...
On a board, you have the guaranty the chip is not a sorted second choice from factory which has a second life instead having been throwed in the factory garbadges, or at least a fake chip (but I mostly believe than chips you can see on EBay are bad second sorted choice after quality control... but who knows)?!
On a board, you have the guaranty the chip is not a sorted second choice from factory which has a second life instead having been throwed in the factory garbadges, or at least a fake chip (but I mostly believe than chips you can see on EBay are bad second sorted choice after quality control... but who knows)?!