ES9018 in stereo or mono, is completely unchanged, nothing at all changes in the dac or analogue stages unless you want to adjust for lower voltage, or if your IV stage uses parts that cannot cope with the increased current.
all is identical except for the signal is all left or all right, its even sent the same signal in most dual mono dacs, the registers are simply set to identify as device 0 or device 1, depending on which one the dac will decode the left or right channel portion based on which Mono setting is used, there are 3. if there is more than 2 chips you need some sort of MCU and often a DSP, the Accuphase uses a completely custom digital filter and DSP on FPGA to run with the DSD signals interleaved and increase resolution I gather
It sounds like its not your experience, rather other peoples anecdotal reports or advertising.
myself i've been using it for ~3 years and have built myriad IV stages (have used transformers, passive Zfoil IV, NTD1 (highish voltage common gate mosfet), SEN and CEN jfet, several opamp based multiloop IVs) have 4 different USB-i2s convertors, the i2s fifo, 2 master clocks run synchronously and asynchronously and currently own 5 ess dacs... 2 buffalo II, 2 Ackodac AKD12P, and the 32S as well as a few built for others
it is much more sensitive to jitter than once thought, it is particularly sensitive to the quality of AVCC and DVCC supplies, i2s and clock quality and grounding is absolutely critical. Because it operates at quite high speed for a dac this puts demands on the layout and power supply decoupling, the Burson is a mess...
a well implemented single chip does not sound dry, or brittle, not in the slightest.
it really is ALL about the implementation with ESS, many designers get lazy with this dac because its such a turnkey solution with integrated digital filter, receiver and MUX. and produces sound acceptable to some with little effort
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hes got one thing right though, its absolutely not about increased SNR or THD, there are reasons to go dual mono with it, but thats not one of them, its hard enough to make -120dB THD+N count, i'm just saying it doesnt magically change the sound signature, because its just more of the same
yep, its not a magic bullet, ive heard a few shockers and the popular notion that an ESS dac is automatically great sounding is delusion. of course there are all manner of other solutions to good sound, i'm a tinkerer at heart and I do like the results with ESS, so it does suit me, I like the flexibility as well as the analogue performance when done right.
OT warning: i'm particularly interested in your experiments with DSPs and ARM, are you looking at going all the way and implementing a custom crossover and dac all in one FPGA+ARM solution? lazy? lol, just different priorities/obsessions. I was disappointed the ARDA stuff never made it into DIYERs hands, but maybe it saved me a whole world of new pain... I need to focus my efforts on other areas of my system for now; I have enough dacs
abraxalito said:
yep, its not a magic bullet, ive heard a few shockers and the popular notion that an ESS dac is automatically great sounding is delusion. of course there are all manner of other solutions to good sound, i'm a tinkerer at heart and I do like the results with ESS, so it does suit me, I like the flexibility as well as the analogue performance when done right.
OT warning: i'm particularly interested in your experiments with DSPs and ARM, are you looking at going all the way and implementing a custom crossover and dac all in one FPGA+ARM solution? lazy? lol, just different priorities/obsessions. I was disappointed the ARDA stuff never made it into DIYERs hands, but maybe it saved me a whole world of new pain... I need to focus my efforts on other areas of my system for now; I have enough dacs
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The test are finished, the new ES9018 DAC with the Amonero module is able to play 44,88,96,192,384KHz, DSD file and SACD iso images.
The firmware remap the DAC to share the same input pin for PCM and DSD without hardware changes.
We will integrate the Amonero module to get a very short I2S wire.
See news on:
ES9018 USB DAC - Hi-Resolution System
The firmware remap the DAC to share the same input pin for PCM and DSD without hardware changes.
We will integrate the Amonero module to get a very short I2S wire.
See news on:
ES9018 USB DAC - Hi-Resolution System
The ES9018 DAC will be an assembled module without output stage and it will cost about 300$, Amonero USB-I2S/DSD module cost 97$
There are 2 options for the output stage, the vaccum tube stage is very simple and it can be assembled on air without pcb.
After the first definitive test on the last pcb we think to start a list of pre-order to reduce the cost of production.
There are 2 options for the output stage, the vaccum tube stage is very simple and it can be assembled on air without pcb.
After the first definitive test on the last pcb we think to start a list of pre-order to reduce the cost of production.
Do you think the price would go down a bit if theres a lot of interest, for the introductory price of this DAC? Can you give us the dimension of the DAC board? How about the controller module? I think that's a cool feature to include on this DAC. How much do you think would it cost?
Sorry for the asking to much question.
Thanks,
Fred
Sorry for the asking to much question.
Thanks,
Fred
The DAC module develop with Quanghao use separated fast shunt for all the power supply of ES9018 and for the oscillator.
It have 4 input: spdif RCA, spdif toslink optical, AES/EBU XLR professional standard and USB to play PCM and DSD files.
Here some more info about:
ES9018 USB DAC - Hi-Resolution System
A controller module is integrated to display on LCD Volume level, input type and more info about the configuration.
All the controller mode functions can be changed with a simple remore control.
It have 4 input: spdif RCA, spdif toslink optical, AES/EBU XLR professional standard and USB to play PCM and DSD files.
Here some more info about:
ES9018 USB DAC - Hi-Resolution System
A controller module is integrated to display on LCD Volume level, input type and more info about the configuration.
All the controller mode functions can be changed with a simple remore control.
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