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Kubelik NOS DAC kits

The PCB for Dorati has gone out to manufacture - this is what it looks like.
Great to see progress on Dorati boards. Forgive me for asking stupid questions – comparing the Dorati board with the Kubelik board I see a capacitor (C21) on the Right channel that does not have an equivalent on the Left channel. I also don’t see C21 on the Dorati schematic. Just wondered.
 
The schematic's been updated since the first one I posted, the PCB was made from the updated one. I decided that without opamps, we'd not need one decoupling cap per channel, just one for both. You'll see that ferrite beads on the opamp supply rails have been deleted too, compared to Kubelik.
 
PCBs came in this evening, started stuffing the first one and hope it'll be done before tomorrow lunchtime.
PCB20220519220442.jpg
 

That looks to be a streamer with an ESS 'HAT' DAC board. If you already have the RPi then you can feed a 'Dorati' DAC (see picture in post #329) over I2S direct from the RPi without use of a HAT. If you prefer to feed your DAC with USB then you'll need an interface board - this is the simplest and cheapest option : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000141799137.html . This kind of board receives power over the USB connector. Then RCAs are fed direct from the 4pin output connector of the Dorati.

Dorati needs a 12-15V power supply, max current 150mA.

I forgot to mention, if you're not up for building Dorati yourself (its only available as a kit) then there's a similar design (called 'Abbado') which is available ready-built.
 
:up:
Better sit down on the couch with your wife and have a good listen.
🙂

George - wifey's away at her sister's place so I'm listening all by myself. Took me a while to find a Kubelik which wasn't modified too far. I have managed to set them up side-by-side now and having a listen. The Kubelik's an old revision and its using OPA1642 rather than OPA2209 which means a little more noise. The difference is (to use a video analogy) that Dorati sounds higher contrast, tonal colours seem more vivid, music has more energy. When wifey returns I'll give her a blind test to see how she describes them.
 
Hello Abraxalito/Richard!

I have been following your posts on TDA1387 DAC for some time.
I am interested in having your Deca DAC or Abbado.
If you don't mind, can I send you an email (since I can not send PM) to inquire about those DACs?

Thank you!
 
That looks to be a streamer with an ESS 'HAT' DAC board. If you already have the RPi then you can feed a 'Dorati' DAC (see picture in post #329) over I2S direct from the RPi without use of a HAT. If you prefer to feed your DAC with USB then you'll need an interface board - this is the simplest and cheapest option : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000141799137.html . This kind of board receives power over the USB connector. Then RCAs are fed direct from the 4pin output connector of the Dorati.

Dorati needs a 12-15V power supply, max current 150mA.

I forgot to mention, if you're not up for building Dorati yourself (its only available as a kit) then there's a similar design (called 'Abbado') which is available ready-built.
Hi Abraxalito, thanks for the info. I'm not real good with this type of electronics so just wondering if you could provide a block diagram of what I need. I'm ok with building the Dorati kit. Also could you let me know how much your kit costs please and how I can PM you for payment details etc.
 
Wifey on listening wasn't as enamoured as I was with Dorati when comparing against Kubelik. We both agreed though that Dorati had the lower noise floor so I went off searching for distortion in Dorati, knowing that it would distort more by virtue of deleting the opamps with their lashings of loop gain. Here's the result - Dorati playing a 5kHz full-scale tone :

image_2022-05-23_173226503.png


The biggest spike there is the first image frequency at 39.1kHz, around -50dB. Both 2nd and 3rd harmonics are comfortably below -80dB. Quite a surprise that those spurs are so low. The search to pin down the dissatisfaction continues...
 
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