Does anyone have any advice on how I would perhaps build a high quality Optical DAC? I've been trying many of the inexpensive units on amazon and ebay, and they always have just a terrible Signal to Noise ratio, I'm wanting something that will be dead silent when it's supposed to be silent. They are so bad that in fact I get much much better results by running a 50foot extension from my headphone jack on my computer to where my amplifiers are than using the optical cable! Seems to defeat the whole point of using an optical cable if the DAC output stage is not of very high quality. I see there are a few high end DACs available but they are quite pricey, so I though I would explore a DIY solution first.
Which ones have you tried and what SNR are you looking for? I seem to recall the FiiO D3 had a fairly respectable SNR but I didn't measure it. It did though ship with a noisy switching supply - maybe that's the reason you're not getting a silent background.
I've tried some very inexpensive ones so I wasn't too surprised they weren't the highest quality, the latest one I tried was this one:
Amazon.com: Panlong 5.1 Audio Rush Digital Sound Decoder Converter - Optical SPDIF/ Coaxial Dolby AC3 DTS to 5.1CH Analog Audio (6RCA Output): Electronics
it claims 120db SNR, but I really don't think so... I get less noise out of my headphone output from my PC. I haven't actually put my scope on it to measure the noise level yet. Besides the static sounding noise, I also seem to be getting a little 60Hz Hum from it, so a better power supply would probably help it.
I'm looking at things like the Cambridge audio DAC magic 100 but dang $300 seems like a bit much to me.
I was hoping some DIYers here made up their own DACs.. I see I can buy Burr-Brown dsd1796 DAC chips on digikey for like $9 but I would have to figure a lot of things out, instead of re-inventing the wheel I thought I would ask if anyone else has tried to build their own 🙂
Amazon.com: Panlong 5.1 Audio Rush Digital Sound Decoder Converter - Optical SPDIF/ Coaxial Dolby AC3 DTS to 5.1CH Analog Audio (6RCA Output): Electronics
it claims 120db SNR, but I really don't think so... I get less noise out of my headphone output from my PC. I haven't actually put my scope on it to measure the noise level yet. Besides the static sounding noise, I also seem to be getting a little 60Hz Hum from it, so a better power supply would probably help it.
I'm looking at things like the Cambridge audio DAC magic 100 but dang $300 seems like a bit much to me.
I was hoping some DIYers here made up their own DACs.. I see I can buy Burr-Brown dsd1796 DAC chips on digikey for like $9 but I would have to figure a lot of things out, instead of re-inventing the wheel I thought I would ask if anyone else has tried to build their own 🙂
The DAC I've just bought has an optical input, sounds quieter than the recordings I've been playing through it. Under $105 shipped - L1387DAC 8X eight TDA1387 Hifi won the TDA1541 parallel decoder works! (note you have to select the higher priced black option to get it cased)
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