Yeah, John is-da-man...he is (almost) always right.
My Dual-Mono DAC is sounding ferocious, with passive output...and some tweaks...
I am affraid that I am getting out of tweaks to try.
So I am putting everything inside a box, at last!
Cheers,
M.
PS: please John, choose a cheaper shipping option so I can buy your Mosaic.
lol, SY and nico do need to hear a good dac!
BTW, ECdesign told me yesterday that their website will be upgraded soon.
Yes I really believe one of this 3 : Audial, EC Designs or AMR could help to change their mind ! Not so more expensive than a poor Asus sound card for games players or Daft Punk lovers !
The first 3 ones were NL dac chips* bottle-feeded but Asus just eated delta sigma chips ! Not the same youth !
* : If I launched a dac brand, I will write above the work shop : "Since 1541" !
The first 3 ones were NL dac chips* bottle-feeded but Asus just eated delta sigma chips ! Not the same youth !
* : If I launched a dac brand, I will write above the work shop : "Since 1541" !
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Price list to be asked by mail.
Prices are very reasonable, for inventions like these, but as I said, shipping is exorbitant.
What first world citizens may not know is that third world citizens like yours truly are at the mercy of customs office: any ultra-fast shipment method is automatically suspected of traffic of some kind and selected for inspection...apart paying duties, which I hate, the superfast shipping system is prolonged from a few days to one month, like my recent experience when buying one expensive SMPS from Hypex.nl for my next Lazy Cat's First One V1.4 amps...8 weeks wait!
Cheers,
M.
It could make sense to use 16 bit 192 KHz in NOS mode with a single TDA1541A DAC chip. This way at least the time resolution could be increased a bit. This however requires original 24/192 or 24/96 KHz material, upsampling from 44.1 or 48 to 96 or 192 KHz offers no advantages.
It's impossible to achieve 24 bit resolution using multiple TDA1541A DAC chips (DAC chip tolerances, summed on-chip logic switching noise from multiple DAC chips). 16 bits means 2^16 or 65536 possible analogue signal levels, with TDA1541A 4mA full-scale output current this translates to 61 nA / bit.
With 24 bits we have 2^24 or 16,777,216 possible analogue signal levels, with the 4mA full scale example we would get 238 Femto-amperes / step. It's not difficult to imagine that we cannot possibly achieve this with multiple TDA1541A chips and required wiring, plus noise contribution of each DAC chip and connected I2S interface.
When being realistic, no audio set on this planet is capable of resolving 24 bit resolution up the signal path due to practical limitations. 24 bit resolution is already lost when the DAC output signal leaves the DAC PCB.[/QUOTE]
Hi there, can this circuit accept 24bit or even 32bit i2s datastream? Yes I know that the tda dac only accept 16 bit of data. I am just curious what happen when I fit in hires 24bit audio source from Usb to i2c receiver, will the circuit split the msb 16bit data and throw away the rest?
If not how could we modify the circuit to make it accept higher than 16bits audio files?
Regards
Sf
Hi Max, And if you lived in Argentina it will be worst
! Ah no price list... great like when we invint our wives in a good restaurent ! No price for her on the Menu
.... It's very waf : she will not say anymore we spend all our money in hifi stuffs !Reactor Circuit
Hi John,
The reactor circuit with the given values seems to increase low frequencies
(about +3dB@100Hz / +5dB@50Hz).
Did you compensate this increase in the digital domain (DSP)?
What is the advantage of the reactor, a more transparent sound?
Hi John,
The reactor circuit with the given values seems to increase low frequencies
(about +3dB@100Hz / +5dB@50Hz).
Did you compensate this increase in the digital domain (DSP)?
What is the advantage of the reactor, a more transparent sound?
Hi maxlorenz,
The question is, how long this box will stay closed”
Putting some of these inside the box may help to reduce the urge to modify a completed project:
http://cdn.toolstation.com/images/130125-UK/images/library/stock/webbig/46451.jpg
I am affraid that I am getting out of tweaks to try.
So I am putting everything inside a box, at last! 
The question is, how long this box will stay closed
”Putting some of these inside the box may help to reduce the urge to modify a completed project:
http://cdn.toolstation.com/images/130125-UK/images/library/stock/webbig/46451.jpg
Hi maxlorenz,
The question is, how long this box will stay closed
Putting some of these inside the box may help to reduce the urge to modify a completed project:
http://cdn.toolstation.com/images/130125-UK/images/library/stock/webbig/46451.jpg
Hi dear,
There is no such thing as a completed project for a third decan of Virgo perfectionist DIYer like yours truly.
A pity that no more mates try the dual-mono TAD1543 DAC...
Hi maxlorenz,
We planned to introduce the Mosaic Toslink DAC in 2016 as an additional product.
However, first listening tests showed that the Mosaic USB DAC and Mosaic SD-player could never reach this level of performance. Note that the Mosaic USB DAC could already compete with some of the best digital audio sources on the market. But we want to offer a DAC that challenges the best analogue audio sources, therefore we decided not to sell the SD and USB DACs anymore.
Toslink is used as "barrier" between noisy digital audio source environment and clean DAC and (pre) amplifier environment. It offers superb galvanic insulation and blocks source HF interference.
The Mosaic T DAC runs on a novel fuzzy logic clock that attenuates source jitter and interference to inaudible levels without having to slave the source. The phase noise of this novel clock source is totally independent of power supply noise. This results in a phase noise spectrum that cannot be achieved with conventional master clocks.
USB streaming is no problem, we developed the XTOS module for that, it supports up to 192/24 just like with the existing Mosaic USB DAC so functionality remains the same.
We could develop a separate SD-transport but this would make little sense now as we can choose between many existing digital audio sources without having to worry about source interference or jitter.
Oops!
No more SD Mosaic nor USB Mosaic...
We planned to introduce the Mosaic Toslink DAC in 2016 as an additional product.
However, first listening tests showed that the Mosaic USB DAC and Mosaic SD-player could never reach this level of performance. Note that the Mosaic USB DAC could already compete with some of the best digital audio sources on the market. But we want to offer a DAC that challenges the best analogue audio sources, therefore we decided not to sell the SD and USB DACs anymore.
Toslink is used as "barrier" between noisy digital audio source environment and clean DAC and (pre) amplifier environment. It offers superb galvanic insulation and blocks source HF interference.
The Mosaic T DAC runs on a novel fuzzy logic clock that attenuates source jitter and interference to inaudible levels without having to slave the source. The phase noise of this novel clock source is totally independent of power supply noise. This results in a phase noise spectrum that cannot be achieved with conventional master clocks.
USB streaming is no problem, we developed the XTOS module for that, it supports up to 192/24 just like with the existing Mosaic USB DAC so functionality remains the same.
We could develop a separate SD-transport but this would make little sense now as we can choose between many existing digital audio sources without having to worry about source interference or jitter.
Hi Jaffrie,
Yes, you get sound quality that is comparable with very good analogue audio sources regardless of the interference and jitter produced by the source. We listened -very- carefully while swapping between various Toslink sources, for example the XTOS USB to Toslink converter, Onkyo CD player / streamer, old iMac G5 that still had Toslink, mackbook that still had Toslink very old Sony CD player, and so on.
This is achieved by blocking all source HF interference and eliminating ground loops by Toslink, and by the unique properties of the Mosaic T DAC.
The only requirement is that the source offers bit-perfect playback. This can be verified with the bit-perfect test on the XTOS USB to Toslink converter. Toslink sources can be tested for bit-perfect playback by routing Toslink to USB, then check with the XTOS.
Why so much fuzz about bit-perfect playback? Because one can -clearly- hear the degrading and it is so bad that listening to music is not enjoyable anymore. But if a DAC already distorts heavily (dynamic distortion) we would not even notice this as introduced flaws would be masked.
Touching the digital volume control, up / oversampling and other manipulations in the digital domain have direct impact on the infinitely complex spectrum of the audio signal. When creating an algorithm for manipulating these infinitely complex signals it is understandable that we might fail to see or predict the damage we are going to cause to this infinitely complex signal.
We may not have tested long enough but with Windows XP we only get bit-perfect playback with iTunes for Windows. With Windows 7, 8, and 10 we were only able to get bit-perfect playback up to 96/24 with JRiver. Many popular programs and drivers like foobar and Thesycon driver for example did not manage to offer bit-perfect playback in our test setup.
Windows only supports UAC1 (USB Audio Class 1) up to 96/24. For higher sample rates and bit depths we need drivers and test showed these drivers often fail to offer bit-perfect playback.
Linux and mac OSX support both, UAC1, UAC2 and offer bit-perfect playback without any problems, we tested up to 384/24.
Source can also (temporarily) fail to offer bit-perfect playback when CPU load is high, during indexing for example. When the CPU load is very high, the higher sample rates are likely to go wrong first.
The bit-perfect test on the XTOS is a go / no-go test, that gives one 100% certainty that the source offers bit-perfect playback or not. The bit-perfect analyser is based on the XMOS multicore processor. Test file (can be downloaded from our website) is required for this bit-perfect test. This test file has to be played on the source that is being tested. Playing the bit-perfect test track automatically initiates the bit-perfect test.
Summary, when playback is bit-perfect, source & ground loop HF interference is blocked and source jitter is reduced to inaudible levels, we have source independent sound quality. Then and only then digital = digital.
Yes, you get sound quality that is comparable with very good analogue audio sources regardless of the interference and jitter produced by the source. We listened -very- carefully while swapping between various Toslink sources, for example the XTOS USB to Toslink converter, Onkyo CD player / streamer, old iMac G5 that still had Toslink, mackbook that still had Toslink very old Sony CD player, and so on.
This is achieved by blocking all source HF interference and eliminating ground loops by Toslink, and by the unique properties of the Mosaic T DAC.
The only requirement is that the source offers bit-perfect playback. This can be verified with the bit-perfect test on the XTOS USB to Toslink converter. Toslink sources can be tested for bit-perfect playback by routing Toslink to USB, then check with the XTOS.
Why so much fuzz about bit-perfect playback? Because one can -clearly- hear the degrading and it is so bad that listening to music is not enjoyable anymore. But if a DAC already distorts heavily (dynamic distortion) we would not even notice this as introduced flaws would be masked.
Touching the digital volume control, up / oversampling and other manipulations in the digital domain have direct impact on the infinitely complex spectrum of the audio signal. When creating an algorithm for manipulating these infinitely complex signals it is understandable that we might fail to see or predict the damage we are going to cause to this infinitely complex signal.
We may not have tested long enough but with Windows XP we only get bit-perfect playback with iTunes for Windows. With Windows 7, 8, and 10 we were only able to get bit-perfect playback up to 96/24 with JRiver. Many popular programs and drivers like foobar and Thesycon driver for example did not manage to offer bit-perfect playback in our test setup.
Windows only supports UAC1 (USB Audio Class 1) up to 96/24. For higher sample rates and bit depths we need drivers and test showed these drivers often fail to offer bit-perfect playback.
Linux and mac OSX support both, UAC1, UAC2 and offer bit-perfect playback without any problems, we tested up to 384/24.
Source can also (temporarily) fail to offer bit-perfect playback when CPU load is high, during indexing for example. When the CPU load is very high, the higher sample rates are likely to go wrong first.
The bit-perfect test on the XTOS is a go / no-go test, that gives one 100% certainty that the source offers bit-perfect playback or not. The bit-perfect analyser is based on the XMOS multicore processor. Test file (can be downloaded from our website) is required for this bit-perfect test. This test file has to be played on the source that is being tested. Playing the bit-perfect test track automatically initiates the bit-perfect test.
Summary, when playback is bit-perfect, source & ground loop HF interference is blocked and source jitter is reduced to inaudible levels, we have source independent sound quality. Then and only then digital = digital.
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FWIW, Ive talked to Christiaan Punter about the Mosaic dac.
Here is what he had to say:
''
Indeed I will review the Mosaic and some ancillaries as soon as a production sample is available. From what I heard from the pre-production models this DAC is the most lifelike/unforced/analog/neutral-and-articulate-yet-completely-natural DAC I've heard ever, no matter the price range. It is also better than the Aeris in more than a few areas. I will indeed get a Mosaic for myself and it may well become my overall reference. For now I think it will be the best DAC in the sub 8000 euro price range.
The full review will reveal all.
my conclusions are somewhat premature as I have not yet heard the production version. I don't have the DAC yet so cannot start on the review.
''
he seem to find it better then the jeff rowland Aeris which sells for 11 500 Eur. http://www.hifi-advise.com/Jeff-Rowland-Aeris-review.html
Not bad!!!!
Here is what he had to say:
''
Indeed I will review the Mosaic and some ancillaries as soon as a production sample is available. From what I heard from the pre-production models this DAC is the most lifelike/unforced/analog/neutral-and-articulate-yet-completely-natural DAC I've heard ever, no matter the price range. It is also better than the Aeris in more than a few areas. I will indeed get a Mosaic for myself and it may well become my overall reference. For now I think it will be the best DAC in the sub 8000 euro price range.
The full review will reveal all.
my conclusions are somewhat premature as I have not yet heard the production version. I don't have the DAC yet so cannot start on the review.
''
he seem to find it better then the jeff rowland Aeris which sells for 11 500 Eur. http://www.hifi-advise.com/Jeff-Rowland-Aeris-review.html
Not bad!!!!
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