8414+4334 DAC Sound Quality?

[bart_dood]

Hi, I am considering making an external DAC based on the CS8414 and CS4334 chip kit from audiochips.com (pair are $20).
I am currently designing the board on eagle based on the Elliot Sound products DAC:

http://sound.westhost.com/project85.htm

My question is....how good would you say the sound quality is? At the moment I have a Marantz CD62 which is about 7 years old or so, its a bitstream player and I made a few mods by swapping out the cheapo electrolytic caps for some Elna's.
Would you folks say the external DAC I am considering building will make a significant improvement? I am thinking of making it battery powered like my pre-amp.

Thanks a lot

Chris

 

[saurus]

I built that DAC. It sounds OK, but is fairly quiet, and it sounds a bit thin. It sounds noticably worse than the built-in DAC in my Rotel, but that may be due more to layout/construction problems with my circuit.

I am considering adding an opamp/buffer output circuit to see if that helps.

Also, I would like to hook up an external clock (like a Kwak clock), if I can figure out how to attach it to the CS8414. I couldn't figure it out from the datasheet.

Anybody know how to do that? Thanks!

 

[Yuri Birukov]

I'm advice that DAC: http://www.zeuslab.newmail.ru/sirius.htm - good sound!

 

[tschrama]

That was my first real DIY DAC project and it functions very well. I made mine on veroboard without a PCB, easy! You should take care to use good output capacitors. It sounds god, it very quiet, I like it a bit better than my standard philips 4xOS TDA1545 (CD723) .. It 's a realy nice project, and I don't think it will be need such a good supply as the various NOS DAC here on the forum..

Goodluck,
Thijs