Buffalo II

[MartinC700]

Originally Posted by pellesmil

i am waiting for my new-year shipment, consisting of a Buffalo and IVY 3 and some Placids, i prefer a solid powerpack so im gonna run 3 Placids for the IVY (and one for the Dac)

i know the question have been asked before but since im planning to use 4 Placids would it be best to put the Placids in a separate case?
if you recommend putting everything in one box, how far apart must the Placids be from the DAC / IVY and signal lines
If i put the Placids in a separate case, wirering will be longer (probably 1,5ft - 2ft long) but i am planning to use some very good Silkspeak 4mm2 cable to connect the Placids and the IVY / Buffalo.

Ideas appreciated

I used a seperate box for the transformers and raw rectification (with CRCRC filtering), then fed the unregulated DC to the box containing Placids and Buffalo (bypassing the Placid rectifier section). I would not put the Placids in a seperate box, you should keep the Placid to IVY lines as short as possible.

Regards

FYI I also used

[NicMac]

Originally Posted by LeonvB

Since it vastly increases the length of your powerlines I wouldn't do that. Plus it's really not needed, and that's in multiple ways. It's not required if you use a big enclosure, plus the best sonic improvements are going dual mono and using tridents. If you use Trident regulators you don't need a Placid for the DAC board.

Then we just need some bipolar Tridents for the I/V stage

[LeonvB]

Then we just need some bipolar Tridents for the I/V stage

Those are available, supersized: it's called a Placid BP
Joking aside, moving from 1 to 3 Placid BPs on the I/V stage is the only upgrade Russ was quite clear about: he couldn't tell the difference. Moving to a dual mono setup is a quite measurable improvement, and going to Trident regulators is a quite noticable improvement. I think those are more worthwhile paths to follow than blindly increasing the PSU count.

[NicMac]

Originally Posted by LeonvB

Moving to a dual mono setup is a quite measurable improvement.

Did you measure this? With dual IVY III or Legato? Which Bal/SE stage?
I'm just curious as I cannot find much reports on the effective benefit of dual mono.
Nic

[BrianDonegan]

For those of you with an 80MHz Buffalo and looking to go dual-mono, I have a couple 80MHz units on hand. If you want one, send me an email, but please, only if you already have one.

[barrows]

Originally Posted by NicMac

Did you measure this? With dual IVY III or Legato? Which Bal/SE stage?
I'm just curious as I cannot find much reports on the effective benefit of dual mono.
Nic

I too would like to see this measurement! While, in theory, dual mono makes sense, in practice I really have reservations when trying to consider if going dual mono really offers an audible advantage...

[Russ White]

In my testing there was no measurable difference between dual mono IVY-III and stereo. I have not had a chance to check legato, but I doubt I would see anything different.

The only real reason to go mono would be for the best possible isolation (supply and channel seperation).

Really it is simply an arbitrary option. Some people asked for it, and so we delivered.

Cheers!
Russ

[NicMac]

Well - I guess there is at least one measurable difference: twice the output swing!
The same might be attained with a few resistors changes on the I/V stage but that is just to simple (and cheap) for some of us

[stephen1212]

Actually I have built a dual mono IVY and a dual mono Legato both with -6 db balse stages so no increase in output swing. I don't need that much gain, and prefer the Legato which has less output swing than the IVY. Dual mono sounds much better than I would have suspected in both cases. Maybe its a combination of more perfectly canceling out all of the currents inside and outside the chip as all of the signal is the same with just one channel per DAC along with greater current and noise averaging from summing twice as manny outputs. That said the improvement with the Trident on a dual mono IVY has me preferring it to the dual mono Legato without the Trident upgrade.

I guess what I am saying is the Trident is a must do upgrade with more significant sonic benefit, but dual mono is still very worthwhile just not as cost effective. I will report on the Legato with Trident when it is up.

[LeonvB]

Did you measure this?

ESS themselves have done that work, as they state their measurements for the ES9018:
mono mode
DNR 135 dB / THD+N -120 dB
stereo mode
DNR 132 dB / THD+N -118 dB
8-channel mode
DNR 129 dB / THD+N -118 dB