5 boards
I might have a spare board soon so just wanted to check if there is anyone who has made a 5 deck DAC configuration? Have some questions related to the 5 deck version :
- Will the 12V power supply be able to drive 5 boards? Or would be require a high voltage PSU?
- What will be the values of the Rload resistors to be put in the Ra & Rb positions in 5 deck version?
- Will it have any positives in terms of sound quality when compared to a 4 board version?
- I will also be adding in Cinemags in place of capacitors in the output, will a 5 deck version be fine to be coupled with the Cinemags?
Cheers
Kartick
I might have a spare board soon so just wanted to check if there is anyone who has made a 5 deck DAC configuration? Have some questions related to the 5 deck version :
- Will the 12V power supply be able to drive 5 boards? Or would be require a high voltage PSU?
- What will be the values of the Rload resistors to be put in the Ra & Rb positions in 5 deck version?
- Will it have any positives in terms of sound quality when compared to a 4 board version?
- I will also be adding in Cinemags in place of capacitors in the output, will a 5 deck version be fine to be coupled with the Cinemags?
Cheers
Kartick
I am going to declare that my DDDAC journey is now over 
30 Dac boards total with the following alterations:
All electrolytic capacitors Nichicon Polymer FPCAP 50v as I leave the Dac powered up permanently.
The 6k pin 20 resistor is a Charcroft S102J 0.1% for stability and low noise level.
I had a pair of 1-1 Sowter transformer made as I do not need the high output voltage and probably gained a little but of bass slam into the bargain
The IV conversion once again Charcroft resistors are the CE-VSR6 for the extra dissipation.
I was hoping for 32 Dac boards total but I fell foul of the I2S maximum length rule ... so 15 standard boards each side seems to be the maximum.
I did try the Tent powered boards at the top of each stack but the I2S problem reared up again so off they came and replaced them with the standard ones and all is OK.
It would be an interesting experiment to see how many Tent boards could be driven by the main board but I really must stop somewhere.
Only thing now is the fact I have one Blue main board, two powered by tent Dac boards built and tested and current source set at 40mV, and a pair of the standard Dac boards going spare ...
Also have my original 16 standard board DDDAC with an uprated power supply although it is SPDIF only as I used the WaveIO board in the 30 stacker ...
Was it worth the longs journey ?
Hell yes , I have never heard reproduced music so lifelike and I am only using SPDIF.
By stacking the boards, the stereo image just gets better the more stacks you put together.
The stereo effect now is just as good as pair of expensive headphones, it seems to lock all the sounds together into a coherent whole and provide a solidity to percussion that has the be heard to believe what is possible.
The USB is working fine so now I will have to experiment with Hi Res but I am very impressed what 44.1 sample rate can do with a top flight Dac.
30 Dac boards total with the following alterations:
All electrolytic capacitors Nichicon Polymer FPCAP 50v as I leave the Dac powered up permanently.
The 6k pin 20 resistor is a Charcroft S102J 0.1% for stability and low noise level.
I had a pair of 1-1 Sowter transformer made as I do not need the high output voltage and probably gained a little but of bass slam into the bargain
The IV conversion once again Charcroft resistors are the CE-VSR6 for the extra dissipation.
I was hoping for 32 Dac boards total but I fell foul of the I2S maximum length rule ... so 15 standard boards each side seems to be the maximum.
I did try the Tent powered boards at the top of each stack but the I2S problem reared up again so off they came and replaced them with the standard ones and all is OK.
It would be an interesting experiment to see how many Tent boards could be driven by the main board but I really must stop somewhere.
Only thing now is the fact I have one Blue main board, two powered by tent Dac boards built and tested and current source set at 40mV, and a pair of the standard Dac boards going spare ...
Also have my original 16 standard board DDDAC with an uprated power supply although it is SPDIF only as I used the WaveIO board in the 30 stacker ...
Was it worth the longs journey ?
Hell yes , I have never heard reproduced music so lifelike and I am only using SPDIF.
By stacking the boards, the stereo image just gets better the more stacks you put together.
The stereo effect now is just as good as pair of expensive headphones, it seems to lock all the sounds together into a coherent whole and provide a solidity to percussion that has the be heard to believe what is possible.
The USB is working fine so now I will have to experiment with Hi Res but I am very impressed what 44.1 sample rate can do with a top flight Dac.
Attachments
I am going to declare that my DDDAC journey is now over
30 Dac boards total with the following alterations:
All electrolytic capacitors Nichicon Polymer FPCAP 50v as I leave the Dac powered up permanently.
The 6k pin 20 resistor is a Charcroft S102J 0.1% for stability and low noise level.
I had a pair of 1-1 Sowter transformer made as I do not need the high output voltage and probably gained a little but of bass slam into the bargain
The IV conversion once again Charcroft resistors are the CE-VSR6 for the extra dissipation.
I was hoping for 32 Dac boards total but I fell foul of the I2S maximum length rule ... so 15 standard boards each side seems to be the maximum.
I did try the Tent powered boards at the top of each stack but the I2S problem reared up again so off they came and replaced them with the standard ones and all is OK.
It would be an interesting experiment to see how many Tent boards could be driven by the main board but I really must stop somewhere.
Only thing now is the fact I have one Blue main board, two powered by tent Dac boards built and tested and current source set at 40mV, and a pair of the standard Dac boards going spare ...
Also have my original 16 standard board DDDAC with an uprated power supply although it is SPDIF only as I used the WaveIO board in the 30 stacker ...
Was it worth the longs journey ?
Hell yes , I have never heard reproduced music so lifelike and I am only using SPDIF.
By stacking the boards, the stereo image just gets better the more stacks you put together.
The stereo effect now is just as good as pair of expensive headphones, it seems to lock all the sounds together into a coherent whole and provide a solidity to percussion that has the be heard to believe what is possible.
The USB is working fine so now I will have to experiment with Hi Res but I am very impressed what 44.1 sample rate can do with a top flight Dac.
This is awesome!
As I have read your posts regaring the brick wall of 30 boards, it got me a bit thinking, would it be possible then instead of 2x16 which doet not work as you experienced, to make a 4x8 configuration? Have you thought about this also? Could that work?
Audio Creative can do this for you. Send me a PM if you warnt, so i can forward to the right Person
Don't worry to much on going from 16 to 24 bits. I would think the software is just adding dithered 8 bits to it and by doing that puts the whole series of bits in the right place for the DAC to handle. I do expect that the original 16 bits are unaffected so you will not loose anything.
Lovely work AlexI am going to declare that my DDDAC journey is now over
30 Dac boards total.
I'd be really interested to hear how it compares to my single decker with buffer and reclocker.
Did your new boards soften up in sound at all? I recall that the 2sk208-o for the ccs take some hours before they mellow. I would expect for anyone with the new dac boards that their sound will improve over time to become more relaxing.
I am going to declare that my DDDAC journey is now over
30 Dac boards total with the following alterations:
All electrolytic capacitors Nichicon Polymer FPCAP 50v as I leave the Dac powered up permanently.
The 6k pin 20 resistor is a Charcroft S102J 0.1% for stability and low noise level.
I had a pair of 1-1 Sowter transformer made as I do not need the high output voltage and probably gained a little but of bass slam into the bargain
The IV conversion once again Charcroft resistors are the CE-VSR6 for the extra dissipation.
I was hoping for 32 Dac boards total but I fell foul of the I2S maximum length rule ... so 15 standard boards each side seems to be the maximum.
I did try the Tent powered boards at the top of each stack but the I2S problem reared up again so off they came and replaced them with the standard ones and all is OK.
It would be an interesting experiment to see how many Tent boards could be driven by the main board but I really must stop somewhere.
Only thing now is the fact I have one Blue main board, two powered by tent Dac boards built and tested and current source set at 40mV, and a pair of the standard Dac boards going spare ...
Also have my original 16 standard board DDDAC with an uprated power supply although it is SPDIF only as I used the WaveIO board in the 30 stacker ...
Was it worth the longs journey ?
Hell yes , I have never heard reproduced music so lifelike and I am only using SPDIF.
By stacking the boards, the stereo image just gets better the more stacks you put together.
The stereo effect now is just as good as pair of expensive headphones, it seems to lock all the sounds together into a coherent whole and provide a solidity to percussion that has the be heard to believe what is possible.
The USB is working fine so now I will have to experiment with Hi Res but I am very impressed what 44.1 sample rate can do with a top flight Dac.
Congratulations Alex and thanks for the very interesting and valued contribution to this thread!!!
Indeed this has been a great journey and I also thank you for your patience on solving some issues and taking your time. It was all my pleasure on the many PMs we had to support this journey. Even though, due to my business travel, I cannot always answer quickly
Looking at the analog side of the DAC, current outputs added together in a load resistor, this should work as long as you have the digital side working. So yes you should be able to parallel 8 deck versions at the input side on the I2S side and than at the analog side where all current line comes together in one load resistor.
We did this with the old 1543 DAC and had 240 dacs in parallel working nicely in a test setup. 240, as we did not have more dacs available at that time for the test
And YES we had again improvement in SQ
Thanks Doede for the reliefing information. I tested it yesterday and it worked out fine, so I can get stereo from red book material too. The sound is quite amazing even with single dac board, listened through OTL tube headphone amp and Sennheiser HD598.
Hello,
If they provide the kit with a short cable for that function i think they want you to use a short cable.
Anyway i did use the short one.
But i did see a lot of talking about modifications to the power supply and after that people will connect the power supply using long cables.
Doede once did tell me it is not a problem having chokes close to the mainboard so i ended up with 4 inch/10 centimeter cable between the last cap and the circuitboard.
I did take some pics before lifting it up into my rack but they were to big to post here. Did send them to Doede as well so he could reduce seize and post them lol.
Greetings, Eduard
p.s you are going back to choke input?
If they provide the kit with a short cable for that function i think they want you to use a short cable.
Anyway i did use the short one.
But i did see a lot of talking about modifications to the power supply and after that people will connect the power supply using long cables.
Doede once did tell me it is not a problem having chokes close to the mainboard so i ended up with 4 inch/10 centimeter cable between the last cap and the circuitboard.
I did take some pics before lifting it up into my rack but they were to big to post here. Did send them to Doede as well so he could reduce seize and post them lol.
Greetings, Eduard
p.s you are going back to choke input?
Hello,
Here some pics. Both wave Io and mainboard are choke input with LL2733 lundahl.
Wave IO has Belleson 5volt 2A directly at its input.
Both power supplies are with R core 500VA for dddac and 120 VA for wave IO.
They even have their own power supply cable and switch because i will start using USB with Aurender i think beginning next year.
I agree choke input sounds more in control, like you have your own energy plant.
Did solder the schottkys right on to the lundahl solder tags.
The first cap AND the 360 ohm bleeder on the other side of the choke.
Greetings, Eduard
Here some pics. Both wave Io and mainboard are choke input with LL2733 lundahl.
Wave IO has Belleson 5volt 2A directly at its input.
Both power supplies are with R core 500VA for dddac and 120 VA for wave IO.
They even have their own power supply cable and switch because i will start using USB with Aurender i think beginning next year.
I agree choke input sounds more in control, like you have your own energy plant.
Did solder the schottkys right on to the lundahl solder tags.
The first cap AND the 360 ohm bleeder on the other side of the choke.
Greetings, Eduard
Attachments
So I have built the choke PSU like this pic like others here to try this design first. My transformer delivers 15 v AC but the DC output across the load bleed resistor is approx 19 v DC but the design shows should be approx 12 v. I know it depends on the bleed resistor and more so the resistor is 33 ohms.
Any ideas why 19 and not 12 v out I suppose I should reduce the transformer output ?
Any ideas why 19 and not 12 v out I suppose I should reduce the transformer output ?
Simon@
Do not reduce the transformer output. Remove the caps before the first choke, and you then have a true choke input. Sounds better, and your voltage will drop much closer to 12vdc, or even under.
What dac boards do you have ? The new ones draw twice the current and if you hook them up to your psu as it is now, you will see a large drop in voltage. With choke input , the voltage drop is only half of cap input psu, but you maintains the same current through.
If you have the old board(s), 19vdc is probably to much, it depends on the number of boards.
With choke input and old board(s) you will be very close to 12vdc, measured at dac input.
Do not reduce the transformer output. Remove the caps before the first choke, and you then have a true choke input. Sounds better, and your voltage will drop much closer to 12vdc, or even under.
What dac boards do you have ? The new ones draw twice the current and if you hook them up to your psu as it is now, you will see a large drop in voltage. With choke input , the voltage drop is only half of cap input psu, but you maintains the same current through.
If you have the old board(s), 19vdc is probably to much, it depends on the number of boards.
With choke input and old board(s) you will be very close to 12vdc, measured at dac input.
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