Hi Guy,
I met 100% same problem of dam2941 as you mentioned. And I also did not get Soekris's replay. It is most likely a firmware problem.
Hi @soekris, a quick question please:
dam1941 has up to +10dB volume gain - I'm looking for a bit extra gain in my system. Does the DAC have additional bits to increase volume (assuming 24bit USB input) without clipping and does the 1.3VRMS SE output have more headroom to support?
thank you.
dam1941 has up to +10dB volume gain - I'm looking for a bit extra gain in my system. Does the DAC have additional bits to increase volume (assuming 24bit USB input) without clipping and does the 1.3VRMS SE output have more headroom to support?
thank you.
Hey everyone.
I just picked up a Jay's Audio DAC2-MK3, which is built around a dam1941. I'm just listening for the first time, so still getting my 'bearings' on what I'm hearing, but in general I have a very positive impression so far. There is one hiccup, however, that is bothersome to me. For some reason, my left / right channels are swapped. Yes, I could just switch the interconnects around, but it kind of feels like a hack / duct tape job... I buy high end gear hoping it works as intended, of course. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this -- is it a known issue? I'm clueless here, and have checked my cabling a dozen times now to verify that I didn't switch my interconnects by accident.
I've done hours of troubleshooting on this already. At first, I thought it might be a driver issue on my PC... but then I tried another input and the inputs were still switched.
Thanks for any input!
I just picked up a Jay's Audio DAC2-MK3, which is built around a dam1941. I'm just listening for the first time, so still getting my 'bearings' on what I'm hearing, but in general I have a very positive impression so far. There is one hiccup, however, that is bothersome to me. For some reason, my left / right channels are swapped. Yes, I could just switch the interconnects around, but it kind of feels like a hack / duct tape job... I buy high end gear hoping it works as intended, of course. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this -- is it a known issue? I'm clueless here, and have checked my cabling a dozen times now to verify that I didn't switch my interconnects by accident.
I've done hours of troubleshooting on this already. At first, I thought it might be a driver issue on my PC... but then I tried another input and the inputs were still switched.
Thanks for any input!
What does Jay's Audio say about the switched channels? The two first possible causes that spring to mind are incorrect wiring in their chassis between PCB connector J14 and back panel RCAs or a firmware issue in the dan1941's code. Given how many open source firmwares exist floating around for Soekris' DACs I would want Jay's Audio to confirm which code they shipped with.
I just e-mailed them. It will be interesting to find the cause -- I've never run into this issue before.
I'm thinking along the same lines. In defense of Jay's Audio, it could be a really difficult issue to catch... the simplicity is the veil. I'm picturing all this high end wave analysis gear, with everything lining up to desired tolerances, yet with no possible indication that the channels are simply swapped... one would have to just listen to known material or to a L/R test track.
Maybe, but looking at the layout of the boards, it looks like it would be hard to accidentally switch a wire... I could be wrong of course.
Interesting -- it would be great if it were such an easy fix. Is there a guide posted somewhere on how to do this? I have ample experience generally, but zero experience or knowledge updating Soekris DACs.
Well I found this on the Soekris site:
http://www.soekris.dk/update_dac1xxx.html
Maybe a good first attempt would be to just update the firmware to the latest version, which seems like a good idea regardless of the possibility that it may also fix / reset the channel swap issue... So a win with the possibility of it being a win/win.
Agree? Disagree?
http://www.soekris.dk/update_dac1xxx.html
Maybe a good first attempt would be to just update the firmware to the latest version, which seems like a good idea regardless of the possibility that it may also fix / reset the channel swap issue... So a win with the possibility of it being a win/win.
Agree? Disagree?
Wow, that is a dedicatedly complex and over-the-top implementation by Jays. P. Sky I admit to being a little envious (even with the swapped outputs). Could not resist looking at how JAL is connecting the outputs to their output board to the right of the dam1941. A little zoom/crop/paste and we get this.
Seeing JAL is using the balanced model of dam1941 the outputs (+L,-L,+R,-R, GNDs) are brought out to three different headers J11, J13, and J14. On the right we see an example using 0.1" headers soldered into J13 connected to the matching buf1961 op-amp output board designed by Soekris. In the JAL implementation it appears to me they opted to solder a header (or ribbon cable?) to dam1941 bottom side of J14. It appears there is a ribbon cable aligned with J14 headed under the red PCB of the output amps' board. Interesting note (and another instance where channels could get confused) I just noticed that I took the numbers added to pics above from the dam1941 manual revision 2018-10-08 PCB image on page 3. In the same manual J14 is mislabeled as J7 on page 5. J7 is actually the +-5 & GND power connector as shown back on page 3. No smoking guns, but perhaps interesting details for those of us who geek out on Soekris' excellent DACs.
Seeing JAL is using the balanced model of dam1941 the outputs (+L,-L,+R,-R, GNDs) are brought out to three different headers J11, J13, and J14. On the right we see an example using 0.1" headers soldered into J13 connected to the matching buf1961 op-amp output board designed by Soekris. In the JAL implementation it appears to me they opted to solder a header (or ribbon cable?) to dam1941 bottom side of J14. It appears there is a ribbon cable aligned with J14 headed under the red PCB of the output amps' board. Interesting note (and another instance where channels could get confused) I just noticed that I took the numbers added to pics above from the dam1941 manual revision 2018-10-08 PCB image on page 3. In the same manual J14 is mislabeled as J7 on page 5. J7 is actually the +-5 & GND power connector as shown back on page 3. No smoking guns, but perhaps interesting details for those of us who geek out on Soekris' excellent DACs.
Oh good! I'm glad you think so too! I purchased it unseen and unheard, just based on the few reviews that are out there and my own impression of what I could see Jay's had built... I've been interested in hearing discrete R2R for a while too, and have had my eye on Soekris for years. My gamble seems to have paid off, as I think I'm listening to the best DAC I've ever heard, with my other two 'in house' DACs being a Schiit Yggdrasil LIM and a Yamamoto YDA-01. It's a tough call, of course, because everything has it's strengths and weaknesses, and maybe I'm a bit intoxicated with 'new sound excitement'... But from what I can tell so far, there is something extraordinarily different about the sound -- like my focus is drawn more to really finely nuanced microdetails and layering, and I'm deeply drawn in to the textures of sounds... like being able to feel the little dimples in the skin of an orange peel as opposed to just feeling the smoothness of it. It does this while never being glaring or strident, nor bloated. It's close to the tone that I remember hearing in my limited experience with a good reel to reel setup. I'm waxing poetic, but I have to in order to communicate differences in sound perception.
It's weird to me that there isn't more chatter or popularity about this DAC in particular... especially when Srajan at 6moons reviewed it as performing toe to toe with the Denafrips Terminator Plus... It's a bit of a dark horse for some reason. Maybe the bulk of the Audiophile community don't know or don't trust Jay's Audio yet... and product popularity seems to follow an exponential curve where people are interested in what other people are interested in, and visa-versa where without much chatter people are scared to take a leap. Maybe some people have trouble getting over stereotypes about 'made in China' as well, sadly... yet Denafrips seems to have jumped that hurdle.
I digress...
What you pointed out about the pinouts is very interesting. I took a closer look and see what you mean -- there are three 'built in' connection points along the same trace for the analog outputs, and Jay's used the middle ones with the largest contact area, verified by looking closely at a couple more photos (posted below). It looks like it could be easy to accidentally flip the two connections running to the output stage, which might go unnoticed if the wire was hidden once they soldered the leads and screwed the boards down.
If this is what happened, I'm not going to go so far as to desolder / resolder, nor do I want to get into the project of removing the boards. I think my corrections will either be to correct for a wire flip by reversing the channels in the firmware, as you mentioned, or to just swap my interconnects (easiest of all, but still bugs me a little, just by theory of everything not being 'perfect' by design). Could it actually be that the channels were just flipped by accident in the particular version of firmware that is on this dam1941, or is this highly unlikely / unheard of?
I purchased the cable to connect to the board today... should be here in a week or so. I figured it's a good idea to update the firmware anyways -- or am I wrong about this? You mentioned people making custom firmware, and perhaps Jay's did this and I shouldn't overwrite it... Hmmm, what think you about this?
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So it appears on the Jays Audio Lab DAC dam1941 J14 is used to connect to analog stage via header soldered to PCB bottom side. Is the connector shell on wires to analog stages PCB keyed or simply plugged into a six contact 0.1" right angle pins header? If the latter we may have the smoking gun. Look at J14's pinout from dam1941 manual, if that white contacts shell connector can be unplugged, rotated 180 degrees and reconnected the L/R channels will swap.
BTW I have no personal knowledge of effects swapping dam1941 firmware may have, I have never changed code my PCB shipped with. Would welcome reports from those who have explored firmwares. On "http://www.soekris.dk/download.html" all I see for dam1941 is "dam1941 firmware and filters rev 1.24 beta - now with DSD support on 2nd I2S port.". Am I missing other available firmwares?
BTW I have no personal knowledge of effects swapping dam1941 firmware may have, I have never changed code my PCB shipped with. Would welcome reports from those who have explored firmwares. On "http://www.soekris.dk/download.html" all I see for dam1941 is "dam1941 firmware and filters rev 1.24 beta - now with DSD support on 2nd I2S port.". Am I missing other available firmwares?
I don't think so. Custom filters only, not firmware. There is a substantial choice of filters to try and choose. Unlikely there is something unique there atm.
Ok, good progress here. I received the interface cable this week and updated the firmware last night to 1.24 beta. I was hoping but not actually expecting this to fix the channel swap issue right away, and was suspecting a swapped internal cable... To my surprise, it DID fix it! The channels are now 'un-swapped'.
I'm a bit confused... if there is no option in uManager (that I can see) to swap channels, how would this happen? Perhaps the board was shipped with a firmware version that had a bug? Or, perhaps as 'analog_sa' suggested earlier, there used to be a 'mode = invert' command that would swap channels, and that was enabled by default for some reason. As nobody had opened the DAC since it's original purchase, it wasn't the result of an end user 'tinkering'. The DAC is about 2.5 years old, which means the firmware must be a little older (at least). I believe the reported version before I did the update was 1.23.
Moving forward, I'm still not at 100% functionality here. Even though I'm glad that the channels are fixed, I've now lost complete functionality of my remote control (Apple Aluminum). Here's a list of my attempts to solve this one:
Switching the DAC between volume control mode and full output mode.
Hold "XFeed" for 4 seconds, pressing a button on the remote, then holding "Filter" for 4 seconds (as instructed in the manual). I did this multiple times.
Power cycling (multiple times).
Holding "Menu" and "Right" on the Apple remote. Also, doing this while immediately following with the "XFeed" hold method.
Taking the battery out of the remote for 30 seconds, then replacing it.
Remote control functionality is a must for me.... I'm wondering if I lost it because 1.24 is a 'beta', and this is one of the unsorted bugs. Perhaps I should revert to the latest 'non-beta' version? If so, I wouldn't know where to download it, as it seems only 1.24 beta is available on the Soekris site.
I'm a bit confused... if there is no option in uManager (that I can see) to swap channels, how would this happen? Perhaps the board was shipped with a firmware version that had a bug? Or, perhaps as 'analog_sa' suggested earlier, there used to be a 'mode = invert' command that would swap channels, and that was enabled by default for some reason. As nobody had opened the DAC since it's original purchase, it wasn't the result of an end user 'tinkering'. The DAC is about 2.5 years old, which means the firmware must be a little older (at least). I believe the reported version before I did the update was 1.23.
Moving forward, I'm still not at 100% functionality here. Even though I'm glad that the channels are fixed, I've now lost complete functionality of my remote control (Apple Aluminum). Here's a list of my attempts to solve this one:
Switching the DAC between volume control mode and full output mode.
Hold "XFeed" for 4 seconds, pressing a button on the remote, then holding "Filter" for 4 seconds (as instructed in the manual). I did this multiple times.
Power cycling (multiple times).
Holding "Menu" and "Right" on the Apple remote. Also, doing this while immediately following with the "XFeed" hold method.
Taking the battery out of the remote for 30 seconds, then replacing it.
Remote control functionality is a must for me.... I'm wondering if I lost it because 1.24 is a 'beta', and this is one of the unsorted bugs. Perhaps I should revert to the latest 'non-beta' version? If so, I wouldn't know where to download it, as it seems only 1.24 beta is available on the Soekris site.