Buffalo II

[BrianDonegan]

Pardon a n0ob question...
I have a BII + Placid kit and I'm about to start the build. I'm considering using a 7.5VAC Wall wart. How should I connect the grounds? I assume neither of the two leads from the wall wart are connected to ground?
I'll be using balanced XLR.

Connect the two output leads of the wall wart to the input of the Placid. Done.

 

[markusA]

Thanks, and how about the other grounds?
I'll be using transformers on the output...
The placid has one ground at the output, the BII's got some as well?
Should I route everything to a common chassie ground, wire it all in series or what?

 

[Duffy Moon]

what should i choose as internal wiring from the bnc to the buffalo S/PDIF

I use 0.6mm solid core bell wire. Works great. I use it for all internal wiring apart from mains. Maybe if I got unwanted noise I'd think about shielding, but I've never had a problem.

 

[Artemkv]

Guys, if I am getting this right, by ordering only from TPA site - the best results are achieved by putting together Dual Mono DAC + Ivy + (how many bi and single power boards donno..) + (2 transformers), correct?

 

[Bassivus]

Some thoughts about internal cabling both digital (S/PDIF) and analog output from the IVY, i am willing to spend some $ in the quest for the perfectly naturally balanced cable, am now running Silk Mk2 interconnects and Furutech rca and xlr .
I have partly decided to run twisted pair of the Silk mk2 at the output both balanced and se,
as for digital input i have ordered a Belden 1694A bnc/bnc and will modify my cd player into bnc.
The question that remains is:
what should i choose as internal wiring from the bnc to the buffalo S/PDIF input, the distance is max 2 in,

should i go for

-1694a shielded? might add some mecanical stress since the 1694 is quite stiff
-1694a stripped and center lead used both for + and -
-Silk mk2?
-other?
-other candidates as for the analogue cabling?


-Thanx

Just use some 24awg twisted wire pair, e.g. from striped CAT5 utp cable...

 

[pellesmil]

Just use some 24awg twisted wire pair, e.g. from striped CAT5 utp cable...

for the dig input?

as for digital interconnect what do you prefeer?

 

[NicMac]

The CAT5 cable works fine also here. I'm interested in you guys opinions on some nice kind of wire-to-board connector as I find the terminal blocks supplied with the kit somewhat "heavy" for these fine digital signals.
Cheers,
Nic

 

[Alchamist]

I listened Rega dac last week and it impressed me.

Timpani Audio & Video

could anyone compare buffalo ll and rega dac ?

regards

 

[needsp]

Hi Nic

I use these-

Rapid Electronics - Cables & Connectors

Seem fine to me, though many who insist on paying huge sums for audiophile connections will doubtless disagree

Paul

 

[christ]

Hi,
Finally I goy my MUX with power supply.
How to permanentlly connect the AES input that I am going to use in MUX?
Which pins should I connect and with what king of wire at select?
I wanted to eliminate the manual swich with wire.
I also dont need to select other imputs.
Christ

 

[sinski]

Is the sound of Buffalo DAC more on the bright side, or it is a warm sounding dac ?

 

[barrows]

Well...

You cannot really listen to the Buffalo II DAC without power supplies, and an I/V stage. How the entire DAC is built will influence the overall tonality. Saying a given build would be "bright" or "warm" would be a gross over simplification.
I will say this, a well built B-II DAC, with the Legato II I/V stage, with good parts, makes for a very detailed and neutral sound. If one is looking for a DAC which covers up and blurs details, in order to make bad sounding digital recordings smoother, this is probably not the DAC for you. If you are looking for a DAC to get the best out of decent recordings, then build a really good B-II and enjoy it.

 

[stephen1212]

a well built B-II DAC, with the Legato II I/V stage, with good parts, makes for a very detailed and neutral sound. If one is looking for a DAC which covers up and blurs details, in order to make bad sounding digital recordings smoother, this is probably not the DAC for you. If you are looking for a DAC to get the best out of decent recordings, then build a really good B-II and enjoy it.

+1

 

[labjr]

Two clocks vs one

Maybe this has been covered before. I noticed that both Wavelength and Calyx DACs use two clocks for different sets of sampling frequencies. Any reason the Buffalo doesn't use two clocks?

 

[Bunpei]

You cannot really listen to the Buffalo II DAC without power supplies, and an I/V stage.
...
I will say this, a well built B-II DAC, with the Legato II I/V stage, with good parts, makes for a very detailed and neutral sound.

I'm now listening to Buffalo II differential output directly with a tweaked Etymotic Research ER-4S earphone (variable resister and balanced wiring instead of original fixed resisters and single-end wiring. If the VR is set to zero, approximately 5 ohm impedance of the raw driver is available) using four UM-1 alkaline batteries as a power supply. No I/V stage is required on this configuration.
(In this case, a maximum level of raw output can be changed to some extent by changing the "quantizer bit length" parameter of ES9018.)

I'd like to completely agree with barrows' impression, "very detailed and neutral".

 

[LeonvB]

Any reason the Buffalo doesn't use two clocks?

That's simply because there's no relation of the DAC clock to the incoming signal. The Sabre chips monitor the input, and sample it at a much higher frequency. From the changes in the signal, they derive the sample rate and the values of the input. This is done for all types of input: SPDIF, I2S and DSD. This is described in the Sabre white paper (http://www.esstech.com/PDF/sabrewp.pdf).

 

[labjr]

That's simply because there's no relation of the DAC clock to the incoming signal. The Sabre chips monitor the input, and sample it at a much higher frequency. From the changes in the signal, they derive the sample rate and the values of the input. This is done for all types of input: SPDIF, I2S and DSD. This is described in the Sabre white paper (http://www.esstech.com/PDF/sabrewp.pdf).

I imagine it would still be better to have two clocks.

 

[Russ White]

I imagine it would still be better to have two clocks.

On what basis?

There is no technical reason why this would be true. This is because of the extremely high re-sample rate. The final sample rate with a 100Mhz clock is 1.5625Mhz. That rate is fundamentally unrelated to either 44.1 or 48Khz based sample rates. That is both intentional and desirable.

 

[Russ White]

Maybe this has been covered before. I noticed that both Wavelength and Calyx DACs use two clocks for different sets of sampling frequencies. Any reason the Buffalo doesn't use two clocks?

The only practical reason I can think of is because we are using the jitter eliminator (ASRC) feature and they are not.

McIntosh does the same thing. Only they use a PLL.

I on the other hand much prefer to let the ASRC work.

 

[Spartacus]

I imagine it would still be better to have two clocks.

LeonVB is right, any DAC using an ASRC needs only one clock.

If a DAC is using a high quality phase locked loop, then two clocks may be required.