It works extremely well 😉 Most of the time I am listening to anywhere between -13dB to -30dB of FS attenuation and I am not losing any sleep over not having a post DAC analog volume control which would just add it's own post DAC colorations 😉
cheers
Yes, exactly what I was concerned about. That, and a good analog attenuator would require a 24 or 36 step attenuator with a zillion metal film resistors, and then stepper motors and the associated drive mechanism so it could be adjusted from the remote device.. $$$$ and a huge mess!
The ESS site doesn't exactly exude information.. I guess I need to call them to get a detailed data sheet.
Did you folks write your own driver for the DAC, or do they have drivers available? I am thinking for Linux I2C control.
Scott
It's all written in-house 😉 You will need to sign an NDA to get the datasheet.
cheers
Post DAC "volume control" can be justified when intended for optimizing of gain structure. For this purpose however, 3-6dB steps are sufficient.
My DAC drives nc400 and uc400 modules. With these high power amps, my nominal listening level digital volume setting is -30.
I have actually considered adding a fixed balanced passive 12/15db attenuator to the XLR interconnect to improve the S/N at the amp.
Hope someday Hypex and others implement buffers with gain control in their kits. Lack of gain adjustment on majority of amps makes gain adjustment on the DSP outputs a great advantage. Passive attenuator does its job, but need to be tailor made for each setup and channel.
A lot of DACS perform near their best at - 20 dB. (best at -6 dB)
If you play at -30 and can play at 0dB Fs then your poweramp has 1000x the power it needs.
Looks like you could suffice with a <1 W amp with low gain in everyday life. (Like many of us🙂 I play normally at -25 dB with a MiniDSP crossover. The MiniDSP is after a resistorladder pre-amp (cambridge) (The reason for me to use resistor ladder is even balancing at all levels)
Not sure what you are trying to say here, but if you are running your DAC at -20 db from full scale, then you are essentially operating your system at 66 dB dynamic range (this is the whole point pif this recent volume control discussion). Ideally, you want to have the DAC "loaded" so that you are using its full resolution. The idea of the ESS DAC discussed above is that it is operating at 32 bits, which is way more range that you can hear, and way more range than the analog components of the systems can support, which means it is essentially out of the picture. With that device you can back off 16 bits in the DAC loading and still have 16 bits of resolution (which is 96 dB of dynamic range...right at the limit of most human hearing). At -30 dB the DAC will still be providing 162 dB of dynamic range, and the system will be dominated by analog noise, not digital quantization.
In addition, assuming you have a 100 watt amplifier, then -30 dB will be 0.1 watt output. That does not mean that you could replace the amp with a 1 watt, or a 0.1 watt amplifier. If you did that, then you would have zero headroom for any dynamics.
I use the MiniDSP too. It's a nice little device. I use it with the MiniDigi, so I can use digital outputs however, and run that into a better quality DAC. If you haven't explored it, you might look at the Curryman DAC they sell. That's a device developed by one of the MiniDSP forum folks that uses a 24 bi ESS 9023 DAC. Sells for about $40.
Scott
Just for the argument. If your system gives 1000 watts at 0 dbfs. And you set a digital preamp to -30 dbFS, then you are not using 999 of those watts. Only one.
Actually not far away from everyday life of active system where the watts do not go into resistors and xover coils.
Most of us dont listen at 110 db with 80 db elements on a daily basis. We listen to 90 db elements at 90 db. And we dont need the noise to be at -20 db. 10 db noise is "silence" unless you have baby ears and a soundproof chamber.
So then you need 80 dB S/N or 14 bits.
My experience from actual system and everyday listening on TV high dynamic content
Also beware of johnson noise of resistorbased attunators. High input impedanse gives noise. But only a problem if high gain is needed....
Actually not far away from everyday life of active system where the watts do not go into resistors and xover coils.
Most of us dont listen at 110 db with 80 db elements on a daily basis. We listen to 90 db elements at 90 db. And we dont need the noise to be at -20 db. 10 db noise is "silence" unless you have baby ears and a soundproof chamber.
So then you need 80 dB S/N or 14 bits.
My experience from actual system and everyday listening on TV high dynamic content
Also beware of johnson noise of resistorbased attunators. High input impedanse gives noise. But only a problem if high gain is needed....
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There hasn't been any update to the website since 21 November 2016 and no response to my query about progress posted on the Facebook page three days ago. It doesn't look good.
I believe it's still going - I contacted Tranquility Base via PM and he's had a hell of a time by the sound of it, with moving house and suppliers messing up etc. etc., so it's probably going to be delayed a little... That's no problem for me.
Oh me either; I just had high hopes for the future🙂.
His idea is the one I am betting on. It sounds perfect for what I have in mind and I wish him (them) success as well.
Thanks
Matt
I cannot see any message on facebook from you that matches your country of origin ?
A lot of facebook notifications sent to my inbox get trashed by the spam filter so unless I actually look at facebook sometimes I may miss some notifications.
Just to bring people up to date, after significant delays I have been able to build and test the Analog combo board and have implemented the RIAA EQ in the DSP and got my old vinyl records playing through it using a Moving Magnet cartridge (Ortofon OM-10 on a Technics SL-D2 record player). Also I have ported the latest version of Audioweaver over to my board but needs some more testing. I will post some pictures when I get time.
The people building the case for me hasn't worked out well so I may have to look elsewhere for another supplier 🙁
Regards
David
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If you have to pay a license fee to use it then I don't think you will see to many takers for it considering that it is just going to chew up more DSP resources which could otherwise be used for other purposes. If there is a MQA code library available for SHARC DSP's then it may be worth looking at but if it is anything like Dolby or HDMI licensing I think I will pass on that.
cheers