How much of what I am hearing is of the chip itself (1387), and how much can I smooth it out with the right capacitors in the output stage?
Will it improve as it burns in?
Will it improve as it burns in?
I would let it run for about three weeks, powered on and running half the time, powered off the rest of the time.
I’d be surprised if that simple of an implementation of any DAC sounded any better than a cell phone however.
I’d be surprised if that simple of an implementation of any DAC sounded any better than a cell phone however.
My cellphone sounds terrible! This dac slaughters my ASUS Xonar DS soundcard with BB2107 opamp, and outresolves my Micromega Stage 3.
It's the sound of redbook digital that I am mainly complaining about here.
It's the sound of redbook digital that I am mainly complaining about here.
I am using a wall wart from an old harddrive (better made than most) plugged in to a good line filter, which significantly improved the sound of my old Micromega.
I am going to power the dac with batteries to see if there is any improvement.
The dac sounds decent on good sources, but less so on red book cds. objectively, it is performing as it should, but as I am very sensitive to high frequency digital distortion, it needs a little sweetening.
does anyone know how to build a warm, smooth and sweet tube buffer?
I am going to power the dac with batteries to see if there is any improvement.
The dac sounds decent on good sources, but less so on red book cds. objectively, it is performing as it should, but as I am very sensitive to high frequency digital distortion, it needs a little sweetening.
does anyone know how to build a warm, smooth and sweet tube buffer?
'Good sources' means higher sample rates and more bits than 16?
Got any more details on what 'high frequency digital distortion' might mean? Could it be intermodulation products from imaging for instance? A tube buffer isn't going to undo distortion but it might add more of its own as a distraction.
DSD primarily. The distortion appears with nearly every dac regardless of its cost or technology (especially on redbook). The resulting negative effects of quantization is most likely to be responsible.
Smoothing and sweetening this type of distortion can go far to alleviate its negative impact.
Through an spdif coax connection. The input receiver accepts inputs up to 192khz. Playback was thru Audacity on Debian Linux (no PCM conversion).
1387 only accepts PCM so did your Linux have DSD->PCM conversion software? I've never seen Audacity play DSD, which version is it?
If you were able to pack a DSD file into a PCM stream (which is what gets sent over S/PDIF) then you'd only hear noise, not music when piping that into a 1387.
Audacity has a 'Project rate' box in bottom left - what number was showing in that box when you were playing your recording?
Audacity has a 'Project rate' box in bottom left - what number was showing in that box when you were playing your recording?
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Neither of which numbers correspond to any kind of DSD known to man. Oh wait, my bad, 22.5Mbps is stereo DSD256 bitrate.
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http://www.2l.no/hires/. Look at the 256 samples. The numbers I qouted was when playing Hoff Ensemble Innocence.