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Reference DAC Module - Discrete R-2R Sign Magnitude 24 bit 384 KHz

Hello everyone!

I'm not sure if I am in the right forum to ask this, but - will the upcoming Soekris dac1541 drive my Audeze LCD-2.2 with Fazor? These are 70 ohms planar magnetic cans and I couldn't find the dac1541s power output on the homepage or elsewhere.

Best regards

Yeah, not really the right forum, but since I'm here.... Can't see any problem, the dac1541 can drive most headphones, but check the specs in the manual, it's now up on Soekris Engineering ApS, Products dac1541
 
Hello everyone!

I'm not sure if I am in the right forum to ask this, but - will the upcoming Soekris dac1541 drive my Audeze LCD-2.2 with Fazor? These are 70 ohms planar magnetic cans and I couldn't find the dac1541s power output on the homepage or elsewhere.

Best regards

@StefanAC be sure to get balanced headphone cables, output power may be up to 4x single ended power and voltage swing double (as in spec link provided by Soekris).

A PONO player in balanced headphone mode can drive LCD 2 so the Soekris DAC1541 should have no problem.
 
@soekris

Thank you for your fast response!

It seems I haven't read the manual carefully enough - I was expecting the information in the manuals specs sheet and not in the description of the individual features. But as the manual is still a work in progress maybe that will change in the future? And if that happens, an addition of these specs to the product page would be highly appreciated as well!

By the way - does the dac1541 use oversampling or not? I can't find any information about that on the product page or the manual.

@gavinb

I already have a balanced cable for my LCD-2.2s - unfortunately still unused.

I'm new to head-fi (due to my little daughter) and use the Audeze with a Chord Mojo at the moment. But while the Chord is surprisingly good with the planar magnetic drivers, I miss the sound signature I have with my modified Audiomat Tango 2.5 and EAD DSP-9000 Series III dacs or my no oversampling Philips CD-304 and CD-304 MKII.

Best regards
 
For those who use the Dam1021 with an RPI,

I started with a clean Raspbian without Moode , Volume or... So I installed mpd and stuff by myself. In my setup everything is working without changing to 32bit.

mpd.conf looks like this:

audio_output {


type "alsa"
name "sndrpirpidac"
device "hw:1"
auto_resample "no"
auto_channels "no"
auto_format "no"
mixer_type "null"
dop "no"
enabled "yes"
always_on "yes"

}

audio_output {

type "alsa"
name "Dummy"
device "hw:0"
mixer_type "hardware"
mixer_control "Master"
mixer_device "hw:Dummy"
mixer_index "0"
dop "no"
enabled "yes"
always_on "yes"

}

with the second device as my dummy output for volume control sent through serial with Matts listener (<-great piece of work =)

in Modules I have:
snd_soc_pcm1794a
snd_soc_rpi_dac
snd_dummy


in Config.txt:

dtparm=i2s=on
dtoverlay=rpi-dac
dtoverlay=pi3-miniuart-bt (for serial connection)
enable_uart=1 (also serial)

in order to get the serial working you also need to change cmdline.txt:

wc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty1 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait
 
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Hello again,

i want to go dual mono, how will I do this?
As I understood, you must connect the serial ports of both dams and set it up in firmware. i2s wires to both dams.

But, wich serial port should be used? J10 on the board where my RPi is connected (through the isolated serial port) and on the second board the isolated port?


I have read (here it comes) that the load resistance has an Feedback on a direct out r2r network, as I now plan to build a buffer on my own, I can set this load resistance. What would you say is the right value here.


Thank you very much.
 
Thank´s hop.sing,

cheers

To elaborate a little. I used to use the dam with a battery powered amanero, it sounded beautiful and is my benchmark, so to speak. Then I decided to build an integrated pre with the streamer inside. Rpi with high quality power supply straight to dam i2s sounded worse than the amanero setup, including the kali made things better, but I feel I am still not exactly where I used to be, even though it sounds very good for now. I will going to try different grounding schemes and hear what happens...those things always make a difference...
 
ETA on the DAM1231?

Again:

Soekris Engineering, Inc. (USA) has closed, and manufacturing of Computer products have ended.

Soekris Engineering ApS (Denmark) is very alive, all Audio products are being manufactured in Denmark and new being introduced....

We are currently out of stock of the dam1021-12, but next batch is being manufactured right now, should be in stock again in a few days.

We currently only have one online reseller, Soekris Europe » , but are actively looking for more, especially for the US marked. We are in talks with a couple potentials for the US market, but nothing have been decided.

Hi Soekris, is de DAM1231 one of the new boards you mentioned in your message? Whats the ETA on that board?
 
Hi,

Just an update to my build. My case is a bit different as I am retrofitting the Soekris 1021 board inside a Lampizator L7 DAC. The Lampi originally came with both a PCM module and a DSD module. I replaced the DSD module with the Soekris.

The USB module is Amanero and its outputs are connected to the PCM and Soekris boards in parallel. The DAC boards are powered by NewClassD DEXA regulators. Outputs are switched by a relay connecting to a 2A3 tube output stage.

Attached a photo of the board inside the L7 chassis.
 

Attachments

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I can switch between the PCM module and the Soekris module with the push of a button, making comparison easy.

Soundwise the stock Soekris sound quite good but I prefer the Lampi PCM module as the latter has better resolution and finer details. I then came across the transistor mod posts so I ordered the parts and did the mod to the dam1021 module.

Now this is a major improvement! So much so that I now prefer the modded Soekris over the PCM module. With the transistor mod the dam1021 now has even better resolution and details, better separation and soundstage than the PCM module.

I was a bit hesitant in doing the transistor mod as soldering the SMD components is quite tricky. I'm now glad that I took the chance.

I'd like some inputs from fellow diyer's:

1. The two DAC modules now connect to the Amanero USB board in parallel. I wonder if this may degrade the sound? Any experiences on driving two DAC boards from the same USB module?

2. My dam1021 board is the latest version. Now that I did the transistor mod I wonder if there are any other mods that are worth doing?

Thanks.
 
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Nice upgrades you did :)

That transistor mod is that with BC550/560 for the vrefs ?

Mods that I did:
- Cut the USB +5V power to the Amanero and add its own Lt3045 PS.
The Amanero benefits greatly from a better PS.
- Added extra capacitance to the vrefs and clock
- lowresmod (only necessary for my v1)
- replaced the four onboard regulators with muzgdiy regulators

So far it sounds very good, only thing I didn't try yet is the BC550/560 transistor mod
 
> Nice upgrades you did :)

Thanks!

> That transistor mod is that with BC550/560 for the vrefs ?

Yes it's the BC550/560 mods as described in this thread earlier.

> Mods that I did:
> - Cut the USB +5V power to the Amanero and add its own Lt3045 PS.
> The Amanero benefits greatly from a better PS.

Agree completely. I powered the Amanero from a NewClassD regulator. Big improvements.

> - Added extra capacitance to the vrefs and clock

I'm wondering if the extra capacitance to the vrefs is compatible with the BC550/560 mod?

For the clock cap do you know where I can find information of it? Thanks.

> - replaced the four onboard regulators with
> muzgdiy regulators

Interesting. I'll need to look into it.

> So far it sounds very good, only thing I didn't try yet is the BC550/560 transistor mod

Btw, how would you rank the improvements from the various mods you tried?

In my case the BC550/560 mod is similar in magnitude to the power supply mod to the Amanero USB module.
 
> I'm wondering if the extra capacitance to the vrefs is compatible with the BC550/560 mod?

Yes, I've read somewhere that the transistors have no problem with it

> For the clock cap do you know where I can find information of it? Thanks.

Search this thread for my name and "clock" and you'll find it :)

> Btw, how would you rank the improvements from the various mods you tried?

The lowresmod had the most impact but that's because I have a v1 DAC,
the later versions have this mod incorporated.
Difficult to rank them but with each step it got better :)
 

PKI

Member
Joined 2011
Paid Member
Hi all,

a couple of days ago I assembled a newly purchased 0.02% dam1021 dac on the AZ OLED motherboard. Let me tell you that I am more than pleased with AZ OLED kit.
I am listening to the dac and comparing it A/B to the schist gungnit multibit. Here are my first impressions:
dam1021 is really good sounding DAC and its sound is quite different from the schiit. I guess some might prefer either of them.
Strength of dam1021 as I see it. Pretty rich tone a lot ob body. Pretty wide soundstage and in combination with AZ OLED board and amanero flawless work with different interfaces and switching between sources and resolutions.
Weak points, again, as I see it. As a downside of the richness when music gets difficult and dense things are getting busy. Sound loses its resolution and gets a little bit compressed as a record with lower dynamic range. Tonal balance is a little bit not neutral (especially compare to schiit), looks like you use a tone control and boosted up top and bottom a bit, or like you padded mid range in your speaker XO if you know what I mean. A little bit laid back, not neutral. Where it looses to sth schiit is the top end, highs are a little bit not synthetic, but more forward and less neutral on dam1021. The sound stage is wider with the dam, but a little bit more forward, some might like it.

So saying this I imagine that there are might be improvements in terms of filtering and I would really appreciate if you guys pointed me as I am completely new to all these stuff and DAC filtering in general.

Another thing I think that different buffer might be an improvement, as switching raw/buffered change (obviously) things and there are some aspect in that I do like. I will try to drop in B1 or Salas version of the Buffer after RAW outputs of the DAC.

As I say it is my very first impression as I need to put it in any case so switching and A/B is a bit easier without being afraid to shorten something on freely laying boards.