Hello all,
I just roughly assembled a HQ Audio ES9038PRO DAC. Lundahl LL1684’s are connected to the output but without resistors or capacitors as I have seen in some I/V converter designs. It plays well for about a minute or so then starts cutting in and out and develops static. I was wondering if anyone else had a similar problem before and could this be due to a lack of an I/V converter? It’s currently connected via optical cable from the TV playing Amazon Music from a Roku. I touched the heatsink attached to the ES9038PRO chip and it feels slightly warm. Thank you!
Bao
I just roughly assembled a HQ Audio ES9038PRO DAC. Lundahl LL1684’s are connected to the output but without resistors or capacitors as I have seen in some I/V converter designs. It plays well for about a minute or so then starts cutting in and out and develops static. I was wondering if anyone else had a similar problem before and could this be due to a lack of an I/V converter? It’s currently connected via optical cable from the TV playing Amazon Music from a Roku. I touched the heatsink attached to the ES9038PRO chip and it feels slightly warm. Thank you!
Bao
Do you have a scope? One can help greatly for investigating some kinds of dac issues.
Regarding the dac chip itself, ESS dac outputs can operate in voltage more, current mode, or somewhere more or less in-between. Driving a transformer can look like different kinds of loads depending on frequency and on what is connected to the transformer output.
By using a scope to look at dac input and output signals and at power supply voltages, and also possibly by looking at data in dac registers it should be possible to figure out what the problem is.
Or you could try experimenting to see how much you can figure out that way.
Regarding the dac chip itself, ESS dac outputs can operate in voltage more, current mode, or somewhere more or less in-between. Driving a transformer can look like different kinds of loads depending on frequency and on what is connected to the transformer output.
By using a scope to look at dac input and output signals and at power supply voltages, and also possibly by looking at data in dac registers it should be possible to figure out what the problem is.
Or you could try experimenting to see how much you can figure out that way.
Thank you for the suggestions! I purchased a scope but have never used it. I guess it a good time to test it out.
Bao
Bao
I was able to figure it out. The main board required separate 6.3v AC for each channel. Making a rookie mistake, I used a 12.6v center tapped transformer and split the center tap. Well, the transformer did not like that very much. I replaced it with a dual secondary transformer and that solved the problem.