I am convinced that John W's amplifier will be one of the best on the market. He is working on the right ideas!
Thanks for your interest and support, there’s a 70% chance that prototype units should be ready for coming the CES show – much depends on coding of the FPGA based modulator and digital filter and SAW resonator production issues. If I manage to meet the CES show deadline – then full production should be within 3 to 6 months.
After evaluating “off the shelf” modulators I felt it was worth pursuing my own modulator & digital filter design.
After evaluating all currently available SRC designs (from AD, Crystal & TI) all had a major impact in sound quality compared to a low phase-noise direct clock-lock system. This has necessitated the development of an ultra-low short term phase-noise VCO based upon cascaded 2-port SAW resonators. MCLK is 2048fs – fundamental mode crystals are extremely expensive at these elevated frequencies, and cheaper lower frequency VCXO with PLL multipliers introduce excessive phase-noise – especially close to the carrier, leaving SAW devices as the only viable option. Unfortunately I require 2 VCO frequencies to support 44.1 KHz and 48 KHz (and there multiples) – manufacture of SAW devices at custom frequencies is very costly – combined with long lead-times.
Some good news, I’ve just return from visiting my casework vendor in China last night – and it seems casework issues are finally being resolved – which has been one of my biggest headaches…..
Once again, thanks for your interest & support,
John Westlake
After evaluating “off the shelf” modulators I felt it was worth pursuing my own modulator & digital filter design.
After evaluating all currently available SRC designs (from AD, Crystal & TI) all had a major impact in sound quality compared to a low phase-noise direct clock-lock system. This has necessitated the development of an ultra-low short term phase-noise VCO based upon cascaded 2-port SAW resonators. MCLK is 2048fs – fundamental mode crystals are extremely expensive at these elevated frequencies, and cheaper lower frequency VCXO with PLL multipliers introduce excessive phase-noise – especially close to the carrier, leaving SAW devices as the only viable option. Unfortunately I require 2 VCO frequencies to support 44.1 KHz and 48 KHz (and there multiples) – manufacture of SAW devices at custom frequencies is very costly – combined with long lead-times.
Some good news, I’ve just return from visiting my casework vendor in China last night – and it seems casework issues are finally being resolved – which has been one of my biggest headaches…..
Once again, thanks for your interest & support,
John Westlake
I'm semi confident we'll be seeing John's gear before that of Mueta 🙂
Keep at er John, Thanks for that bit of detail on it, very interesting.
REgards,
Chris
Keep at er John, Thanks for that bit of detail on it, very interesting.
REgards,
Chris
Thank you John, very interesting.
One more question please.
Would the matching transport be able to read SACD also (ie converting DSD to PCM)?
Keep up the good work
Best regards, Betto
One more question please.
Would the matching transport be able to read SACD also (ie converting DSD to PCM)?
Keep up the good work
Best regards, Betto
Betto,
The T1 transport (Original name hey 😉 ) is CD only, however the digital amplifier supports DSD via SDIF3 (3 lines - Clock, L & R), and DSD buried within SPDIF - this is a proprietary interface format that has been developed in partnership with a 3rd party company I have an interest in.
This 3rd party company will offer a user installable board for certain DVD players that will output bit accurate SPDIF up to 192 KHz & DSD (converted to PCM or embedded "native" in a 176.4 KHz SPDIF DataStream). This is the only method I currently know of, which gives consumers access to the DSD stream for high quality playback.
John
The T1 transport (Original name hey 😉 ) is CD only, however the digital amplifier supports DSD via SDIF3 (3 lines - Clock, L & R), and DSD buried within SPDIF - this is a proprietary interface format that has been developed in partnership with a 3rd party company I have an interest in.
This 3rd party company will offer a user installable board for certain DVD players that will output bit accurate SPDIF up to 192 KHz & DSD (converted to PCM or embedded "native" in a 176.4 KHz SPDIF DataStream). This is the only method I currently know of, which gives consumers access to the DSD stream for high quality playback.
John
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