Interresting !
Are there a lot of differences according to your experience between all the AKs you played with ?
The AK4999 seems needing sota layout & pcb designs ?
Are there a lot of differences according to your experience between all the AKs you played with ?
The AK4999 seems needing sota layout & pcb designs ?
Sure, 4497 is better then 4493 and 4493 is a little bit better then 4490, but I cannot say the same about 4499 - did not heard something new, better then 4497.
But the schematic's difficulty and the power consumption with 4499 is higher, and it's 4 channels doe not have any advantages, if you need only 2 channels.
Hope 4498 will be available soon....
Thank you for the experience shared.
I'm looking forward the day I can find such a chip that sounds as good as my prefered PCM chips but able in one chip to feed 3 amps per channel for a cool stereo active speaker 🙂 .
I'm looking forward the day I can find such a chip that sounds as good as my prefered PCM chips but able in one chip to feed 3 amps per channel for a cool stereo active speaker 🙂 .
I purchased the S.M.S.L Sanskrit V2 based on the AKM 4493. Excellent sound, so good that its hard to imagine how to make it better for the money.
That S.M.S.L Sanskrit V2 sure looks tempting....I am now doubting that I can even BUILD one with those features for that amount of $$$$...............
Implementation is very important on AK devices in order to work with DSD format and SPDIF. You can't get DSD from AK chips without a controller as well as SPDIF without a receiver. If you want DSD, make sure that AK board has this feature. ESS boards tend to have that natively.
ESS chips doesn't need extra chips since they support auto DSD sensing and direct SPDIF support. But their analog stage requires very strict calculations in order to prevent that weird IMD distortion phenomenon. Google: ESS hump.
ESS chips doesn't need extra chips since they support auto DSD sensing and direct SPDIF support. But their analog stage requires very strict calculations in order to prevent that weird IMD distortion phenomenon. Google: ESS hump.
If an AKM dac board exposes I2C bus for an external MCU, easy enough to enable DSD using an Arduino. Also, AK4118 SPDIF receiver boards are available to add that capability of desired. Of course, adding more features adds more cost, and possibly more diy time, to a project.
Regarding ESS dacs, the hump is only one of the issues to deal with.
Regarding ESS dacs, the hump is only one of the issues to deal with.
You also have deal with high volume pop sound during format changes. Serious companies deals with this by implementing extra muting components on outputs (or maybe adding some soft mute delay with controller).
Pops (such as when jumping between tracks) can be a problem with many different dac architectures. Not aware of any bare board Chinese dacs that are full featured in the sense of rigorous pop muting. At least some USB boards make implementation easier by providing useful MUTE and DSD_ON signals. For SPDIF it can be more tricky.
Hello i have the nihtila dac 4493. Sound is very good, simple the best 4493 i heard.
I have also diynhk boards 4493 and had the jlsounds 4493 that also sold
I cannot stand the ess sound. I maybe rude but for me is the worst chip i have eard.
I had the ian raspberry dac ess dual mono and sold after some weeks of experiments with power supplys etc and even bought the lundahl transformers.
I have also diynhk boards 4493 and had the jlsounds 4493 that also sold
I cannot stand the ess sound. I maybe rude but for me is the worst chip i have eard.
I had the ian raspberry dac ess dual mono and sold after some weeks of experiments with power supplys etc and even bought the lundahl transformers.
Still on progress. 4 salas regulator still not finished, arduino control not finished. Only dac and output filter finish.
Can you share photo of the bottom layer? That would say more about the design. I would recommend to to use STM32 based Arduino controller since they have hardware SPI interface as far as I know.
How to use SPI Communication in STM32 Microcontroller (STM32F103C8)
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pistolero, thank you for Input
nihtila AK4493 pcb does look fabulous indeed
really glad It sounds good
would you please tell us more Impressions
how would you compare sound to old R-2R dacs
Is there possibility to make dual mono dac with true balanced outs If you use 2 pcbs
How does sound LM4562
nihtila AK4493 pcb does look fabulous indeed
really glad It sounds good
would you please tell us more Impressions
how would you compare sound to old R-2R dacs
Is there possibility to make dual mono dac with true balanced outs If you use 2 pcbs
How does sound LM4562