Twisted Pear Audio - Buffalo32S (ES9018 DAC)

[BrianDonegan]

yes.

[Russ White]

Originally posted by leo



Thanks Russ!

I've been using it with the headphone amp the last few days, next step I think is to get a volumite , convert the cans to balanced and ditch the headphone amp

Your certainly welcome.

Oooooh, well I can honestly say if you have not heard it drive cans directly balanced yet, the best is yet to come for you.

It has seriously spoiled me.

Enjoy!!

Cheers!
Russ

[TheShaman]

So, Russ, I suppose the new Placid has little in common with the previous version..

Please let us know how the whole project goes.
A separate thread might be useful since it's a PSU after all and I'm sure people will use it in various projects other than the Buffalo.

But, please, do let us know how it sounds on the 32S compared to the "stock" PSUs. Are there any gains when using a "cleaner" supply, after all?
The fact that you proceed with this project is an answer in itself for me, but feel free to elaborate!

[Beefy]

Originally posted by Russ White
So, for those of you who are wondering. I have not forgot about the "Placid" shunt regulator I started working on about a year ago. I have just been perfecting it......

Oooooh, I completely forgot about Placid. I was promised a Placid last July due to an order SNAFU, but I would be more than happy to guinea pig the new version for you if it goes beyond a prototype

But my shipping address has changed since that last order. Brian would need to contact me......

[3lviz]

Somehow i seem to like the sound more when the dip switch 3 is in low position (slow roll off). Even tho the measurements a few pages back suggested the fast roll off would give straighter 0-20Khz performance, I find the sound to be more lively with the slow roll off.

Even if A/B comparing the treble performance with Benchmark DAC-1 the slow roff off seems to give better result in my case. I havent noticed any high pitched aliasign or defects of that sort either. I am feeding B32s with 44.1khz/16bit.

Any ideas why this could be? Am i turning into a bat?

[Javin5]

Originally posted by 3lviz

... the slow roff off seems to give better result in my case. I havent noticed any high pitched aliasign or defects of that sort either.

With slow rolloff you will have aliasing artefacts with treble rich, full frequency band program material; there is no way around it. For example, with a single sine wave, aliasing will add a slight tremolo effect. It is entirely possible that some may find this pleasing; this is why the rolloff is switchable to your taste. Don't feel like a bat; enjoy it the way you like it!

Kurt

[nycavsr2000]

Just purchased the dac sans power supplies. I'm going to use my own design for the power supplies as well as Paul Hynes' shunt regulators. Thanks Brian and Russ. Will let you know how it sounds. A colleague of mine is pretty enthused with your standard Buffalo dac (i.e. not the 32 bit version) stating that it has beaten some of the finer PCM1794 dacs with asynchronous sample coversion and tube differential outputs!

So I thought I might as well purchase one to see for myself!

Anand.

[scanspeakman]

Oh yeh! My buffalo32s arrived last friday after being stuck at someone's desk for about two weeks (who was probably wondering "what the f%^& is this and how much duties should be charged"). Yesterday evening my brother and I build the PSU's and dac. After about 4 hours of work it worked the first time we powered in on.

First impression is along the lines of earlier impressions mentioned above. More detail, less "sharp" treble and very neutral. Very pleasing. It was 01.00 when we finished it so we only got a change to listen very briefly and at a low volume. But it definitely sounds better then the CS4398 based DAC in my Marantz CD6002. That was pretty clear after about 15 minutes of listening.

It's not in a case yet but that will come in the following weeks.

Thanks Russ and Brain! Great product. Very easy to build and very good results.

Scanspeakman

[BrianDonegan]

Cool. Be sure to add the solder jumpers at L1 and L2 on the bottom of the Buf32 board.

[scanspeakman]

Originally posted by BrianDonegan
Cool. Be sure to add the solder jumpers at L1 and L2 on the bottom of the Buf32 board.

We did that and also cut the traces near the outputs. For this quick-and-dirty setup we left out the "thumpbuster" relays. The "thump" you get without them is minimal by the way. I am already wondering how this DAC will sound after a week of burning-in.

Scanspeakman