remind me the good times ! 🙂 ! Well maybe that's why I only play with TDA1541A and AD1862 dac chips ! All good chips ! The WOlfson has crazy bass iirc in a correct layout. Hey, the Lab47 is a collector... the famous NOS beginnings !
I should evolve towards the modern AK and evolved DAC like the RTZ... Very more expensive though (think clock matters more for those high res, high speed devices, and it is harder to diy oneself when not an EE or a RF EE). And also the new dac chips are full of logics and needs screen and slection buttons... not very DIY friendly and costly : Cheap CHi-Fi winns here ! Even a Cambridge migth be less expensive off shelf than a diy. Though it is feasible to diy, @bohrok2610 did a tiny compact DAC with ESS or AK4499, didn't remember, also @altor, etc... And @MarcelvdG pushed the diy DAC at a next level with his tube DAC and quieter RTZ DAC.
SO how much should one spend in ready made AK4499 DAC assembled in China for people having a little difficult tastes cause experienced ?
But people like @LTK says to me an AYA 2 modded can sound crazy good (and I agree as mine has a good digital front end with good clock) but the RTZ is the next level... for DIY crowd.
I should evolve towards the modern AK and evolved DAC like the RTZ... Very more expensive though (think clock matters more for those high res, high speed devices, and it is harder to diy oneself when not an EE or a RF EE). And also the new dac chips are full of logics and needs screen and slection buttons... not very DIY friendly and costly : Cheap CHi-Fi winns here ! Even a Cambridge migth be less expensive off shelf than a diy. Though it is feasible to diy, @bohrok2610 did a tiny compact DAC with ESS or AK4499, didn't remember, also @altor, etc... And @MarcelvdG pushed the diy DAC at a next level with his tube DAC and quieter RTZ DAC.
SO how much should one spend in ready made AK4499 DAC assembled in China for people having a little difficult tastes cause experienced ?
But people like @LTK says to me an AYA 2 modded can sound crazy good (and I agree as mine has a good digital front end with good clock) but the RTZ is the next level... for DIY crowd.
https://www.audialonline.com/s5/
They say it is NOS , well they feed it 3xx khz signals so it is as if it is os, just not using digital filter modules such as saa7... something
They say it is NOS , well they feed it 3xx khz signals so it is as if it is os, just not using digital filter modules such as saa7... something
No it is NOS, but Pedja pushed the dac chip to his max with the simultaneous mode (splitted L/R data lines), this chip can do to allow such a speed for prople wanting oversampling in their pc source. I confirm there are just buffers in Audial stuffs after the i/v and no upsampling in the digital frontend, no reconstruction filters as far I know !
A countryfellow of you did a YT with his DIY poor copy of the AYA 2 with third party front end. Some people like it... they haven't listen to mine !
I directly prefer cheap Chi-Fi than these sort of faux false kits ! The kits Audial are doing are worthing it.
A countryfellow of you did a YT with his DIY poor copy of the AYA 2 with third party front end. Some people like it... they haven't listen to mine !
I directly prefer cheap Chi-Fi than these sort of faux false kits ! The kits Audial are doing are worthing it.
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Thanks diyiggy, I have two crappy that chips i don't know what to do with them
I might just pull the trigger on the wm8740, it supposed to sound worse than 8741, I just prefer the kits with the first one
I might just pull the trigger on the wm8740, it supposed to sound worse than 8741, I just prefer the kits with the first one
They just use the + signal and waste the - signal, it will be perfect to place straight into a tube rookie unbalanced and also build a dual single op amp per channel balanced straight to power amps !!!!
I do not know why people want components that mess with frequency response. That seems to be a job for DSP.
But, eh, to each their own.
But, eh, to each their own.
Well, I'm old enough and I've been building my system since... hmm... 1975.
I don't sell much, I tend to collect and collect and collect....
Hmm. pass me the Courvoiser, please?
And my Italian Leather Couches I bought almost 40 years ago and are still in perfect shape. So, if I had bought cheap stuff, i'd be on the 4th or 6th set by now... and the "chair" is Danish, not Italian! Same thing, bought it 40 years ago! Often, if you are cheap and short sighted you end up spending a lot more money on the long run.
It's called VALUE.
The mains? Dedicated home runs. Now that was an expensive upgrade. You see, the whole reason for rebuilding the house from the studs up was to open up the studs so I could redo the wiring and add all kinds of nice homeruns for the computers, stereos and TVs. Sure, while we were doing that we took the opportunity to add another room, bathroom, kitchen, deck... Might as well, huh?
There's CHEAP and then there's well priced. A lot of the cheap stuff is expensive as it's mostly throw away cr@p. Long term you can blow a lot of money 75 dollars at a time instead of just looking around and spending 400 or 800 bucks for a good unit ( perhaps used? On sale?). Above that, well. on a DAC... well...
These days, I'd classify a NOS DAC as one of those components.
I could listen to NOS and 44.1kHz martial with my old speakers (Contour 1.3) and a quite decent 40W push-pull class A amp... even though I could easily measure the HF roll off (-4dB at 20kHz) and see the HF artifacts rubbish above 20kHz. Still, the sound was ok. Relaxed, kind of spacious... compared to x2 or x4 oversampled 44.1kHz material.
Then I built a wide bandwidth high impedance amplifier (Aleph J)... and I started to worry (just a bit...) about HF rubbish. But, I could still listen to NOS and 44.1 kHz material. Still the Contours 1.3. No pre-amps, no sound coupling caps in the whole signal chain (apart from the crossover caps), revealing annealed pure silver ribbon interconnects. NOS still sounded more relaxed compared to x2 or x4 oversampled 44.1kHz material. But, I also liked oversampled material, especially if I was doing a bit of critical listening. Both NOS and (slightly) oversampled material sounded pretty good.
Then I replaced the Contours 1.3 with Contour 30i, kept the amplifier (Aleph J)... improved the streamer (from trying various laptops, to NUC11) and in particular - improved the streamer power supply a lot.... and that was it for me and NOS... couldn't stand the roll off and coarse highs any more.
Once upon a time I was NOS aficionado... and wouldn't allow even a slight hint of possibility that with better system, NOS would sound completely differently.
A DAC that boosts bass or bias trebles or raises mids.
It doesn’t seem to be the job of a DAC to do this.
Obviously, I am not saying tone control components are not useful, but nowadays you can use FR-neutral components as a base and EQ to taste using easy-to-reverse DSP.
Ignore me, preferences are preferences and I should not pretend mine are any more valid than anyone else’s.
No, i am currious how could the dac raise and lower frequencies when it is a flat line at all 20-20khz ?
The filter is to get rid of the sampling noise, like way less than a classD, I use a first order 175khz , then the differential signal gets into two gain stages interconnected so that common noise is suppressed, it suppress the noise and it sounds better, not perfect.
What matter is that you like your sound, I respect that an audio system is an instrument and is far from accurate or perfect, I found pleasure in recreating vocal classical music as clear and natural as possible, it is still a beacon and light to guide me in audio choices,
Hey, I saw New Order about six weeks ago. They played a couple of Joy Division songs too.
the famous bass guitarist is dead few month ago alas (1 year or two). Saw him long time a go in a Paris's club where he played for his own first album.
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HIFI Stereo 6Z4+6N11 Tube decoder R2R NOS AD1865+CS8412 Audio AD1865 DAC
This is a cheap audionote dac !!!! a reviewer said it sounds nearly as good.
This is a cheap audionote dac !!!! a reviewer said it sounds nearly as good.
Just added my cheep Chinese DAC to the £7 DVD player, the inherent softness of the speakers is counteracted by the crisp sound of the DAC, improvements from a taut bass to a sharper treble.
Quite literally "hard times", as I'm taking advantage of a concrete floor.
And if you don't like banjos, I've gone one worse - pan pipes! (WAYRA DE LOS ANDES - BOLIVIA), then some Rage against the machine; I have a varied taste in music.
Quite literally "hard times", as I'm taking advantage of a concrete floor.
And if you don't like banjos, I've gone one worse - pan pipes! (WAYRA DE LOS ANDES - BOLIVIA), then some Rage against the machine; I have a varied taste in music.
Pan pipes....
Some music you grow up with, you know? It defines some little spot in your heart that for whatever reason, against all reason, just finds a home.
But, when I listen with an objective ear... those flutes -"flabiol" sound a bit, hmm... strident... like a flute that is trying to scratch its nails against a blackboard.
We've been there... but my wife hasn't tried it yet. Next time...
Yes, every so often I'll play it on the main stereos, I got LP and even Hi Def versions... and yes, the nails against the blackboard come through clearly.
But, hey, I still love it. ;-)
Gotta love that Ooompahpah Oommpahpah so common in Western European folklore...
Some music you grow up with, you know? It defines some little spot in your heart that for whatever reason, against all reason, just finds a home.
But, when I listen with an objective ear... those flutes -"flabiol" sound a bit, hmm... strident... like a flute that is trying to scratch its nails against a blackboard.
We've been there... but my wife hasn't tried it yet. Next time...
Yes, every so often I'll play it on the main stereos, I got LP and even Hi Def versions... and yes, the nails against the blackboard come through clearly.
But, hey, I still love it. ;-)
Gotta love that Ooompahpah Oommpahpah so common in Western European folklore...