looking to upgrade my current DAC board. What s a reasonably good chipset I might find in a relatively inexpensive board? I only need SPDIF. I have both 5vdc, 12vdc, and +-12vdc avalable, Would like a board with a separate op amp output that can be rolled.
Roger
Roger
Okay, lotsa looks, but not much else.
So, after some digging, can anyone help verify:
1. SPDIF is limited to 196khz data rate, and 24bits?
2. Right nowmy digital source my Sony blu-ray, DVD, cd player, via spdif cable. So anything more than 24bit 196(2?) KHz DAC is somewhat overkill?
Just looking for information. There are quite a few ChiFi boards out there, looking to upgrade my very basic CS series chipset to something better.
Roger
So, after some digging, can anyone help verify:
1. SPDIF is limited to 196khz data rate, and 24bits?
2. Right nowmy digital source my Sony blu-ray, DVD, cd player, via spdif cable. So anything more than 24bit 196(2?) KHz DAC is somewhat overkill?
Just looking for information. There are quite a few ChiFi boards out there, looking to upgrade my very basic CS series chipset to something better.
Roger
Most ChiFi boards in the lower price ranges are strongly optimized for minimum cost to the manufacturer. They use 2-layer boards instead of 4-layer. They may use a real brand name dac chip, but use fake electrolytic caps, use the worst possible ceramic caps, not even X5R, etc. Resistors are thick film instead of thin film, opamps are 5532 clones where even a real 5532 would not be appropriate for the circuit function, etc.
When you get into the mid-tier ChiFi boards that cost maybe $200-$300 then things start to get a little better, but often still a lot garbage and poor design that is not fixable because of the board design (e.g. mono AVCC routed on internal layers of a 4-layer board, while also using a less than an ideal AVCC regulator, say, for a ES9038PRO chip).
Anyway as it turns out, most of what makes a dac sound good is not primarily the dac chip itself. Its all the support circuitry around the dac chip. The dac chip itself mostly sets a limit on the maximum performance that can be had with very well designed and implemented support circuitry. Most ChiFi dacs boards to not achieve all that close to best sound from a name brand dac chip.
Therefore in most cases for low cost dacs, I have been recommending low cost reputable brands of finished dacs such as Topping, SMSL, etc. For really exceptional dacs, it may still be possible to diy something for less than you could buy it commercially. However, the leading high end dac project here in the forum at the moment is still under development. At its best it can sound quite remarkable but its not all that low cost to implement it in a way that I would consider to really good.
When you get into the mid-tier ChiFi boards that cost maybe $200-$300 then things start to get a little better, but often still a lot garbage and poor design that is not fixable because of the board design (e.g. mono AVCC routed on internal layers of a 4-layer board, while also using a less than an ideal AVCC regulator, say, for a ES9038PRO chip).
Anyway as it turns out, most of what makes a dac sound good is not primarily the dac chip itself. Its all the support circuitry around the dac chip. The dac chip itself mostly sets a limit on the maximum performance that can be had with very well designed and implemented support circuitry. Most ChiFi dacs boards to not achieve all that close to best sound from a name brand dac chip.
Therefore in most cases for low cost dacs, I have been recommending low cost reputable brands of finished dacs such as Topping, SMSL, etc. For really exceptional dacs, it may still be possible to diy something for less than you could buy it commercially. However, the leading high end dac project here in the forum at the moment is still under development. At its best it can sound quite remarkable but its not all that low cost to implement it in a way that I would consider to really good.
I have a very modest system. On the analog side, a 30 year old $20 estate sale Technics TT, with a 'de ent' Te hnics cart. My phono stage was a very cheap chifi board. I was just trying to get back into vinyl, as a hobby. Turns out it was not horrible! Also as part hobbyist activities built a 6LU8 compaction tube amp, and refurbed a pair of Advent Graduates. Added a chili dac and listened to streaming via a smart blu-ray.
All in all, I was fairly happy, but realized that I could incrementally improve system by gradually upgrading my 'weakest link'. I did so by buying a good phono stage (VSPS) and a handful of parts. This made a big improvement, even more than an upgraded cartridge and stylus.
So here I am trying to incrementally nudge my system along. I realize that the chifi boards have many compromises. I was thinking that if I bought a board that had the basic infrastructure, for example, I could improve the PS and in some cases the op amps.
I am going at this as a learning hobby. I will likely end up using a raspberry Pi and an i2s interface sound card.
I also have the basic limitations of my system and 71 year old ears. Though I WAS able to clearly hear the improvement of the VSPS.
Thanks for the feedback
,
Roger
All in all, I was fairly happy, but realized that I could incrementally improve system by gradually upgrading my 'weakest link'. I did so by buying a good phono stage (VSPS) and a handful of parts. This made a big improvement, even more than an upgraded cartridge and stylus.
So here I am trying to incrementally nudge my system along. I realize that the chifi boards have many compromises. I was thinking that if I bought a board that had the basic infrastructure, for example, I could improve the PS and in some cases the op amps.
I am going at this as a learning hobby. I will likely end up using a raspberry Pi and an i2s interface sound card.
I also have the basic limitations of my system and 71 year old ears. Though I WAS able to clearly hear the improvement of the VSPS.
Thanks for the feedback
,
Roger