IanCanada's Latest RPi GB Goodies Impressions... and your tweaks, mods and hints...

The idea came from post #1382 where Umacus took away all SMD caps and claimed it sounded much better.



I simply followed his bold modding and I was extremely pleased with the result.

I told my friend to do the same and he was surprised with the improvement.



I told my friend it would be even better to have a 10,000uF decoupling cap in place of SMD cap (Panasonic low esr type). He did and very happy with these two mods.



I now added the second cap there....

So much fun and surprise!
Oh nice, and quite simply to do, will try it in coming days. [emoji4]
 
The idea came from post #1382 where Umacus took away all SMD caps and claimed it sounded much better.



I simply followed his bold modding and I was extremely pleased with the result.

I told my friend to do the same and he was surprised with the improvement.



I told my friend it would be even better to have a 10,000uF decoupling cap in place of SMD cap (Panasonic low esr type). He did and very happy with these two mods.



I now added the second cap there....

So much fun and surprise!
It's working great I must say. Nice & easy mod[emoji4] JPEG_20200907_183510_8003786364146374221.jpg
 
Hello Ian (or anyone who knows these things)

I attached a simple schematic that describes my intention of implementing an external clock source in place of the existing clock in Ian's FiFoPi board. The reason for this is that I have a DAC project using some older technology and only clock frequency of 11.2896MHz is supported and it will be used to play 16bit/44.1kHz material only.

The question is will this work with only one external clock source as shown in my schematic?
 

Attachments

  • FiFoPi with ext clock to DAC.png
    FiFoPi with ext clock to DAC.png
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You can definitely run FIFOpi with one clock. That clock can be 11MHz.
I would think the preferred hookup would be to connect the clock to FIFOpi and run master clock from FIFOpi to your DAC. I suspect your way will also work, but I know that what I suggest works as that is how I run my system. In my case with 45MHz but same setup.
We know from all the jitter measurements from Ian and Andre that masterclock comes out of FIFOpi without any degradation, so there is no need to connect to both the DAC and FIFOpi.
 
It has been revealed to me that it might not be the RPi causing my interference since I was able to reproduce it with another I2S source. The interference follows in a way the music signal and can be heard only in more silent parts of the music. E.g. in Massive Attack's Angel song in the beginning of the track the "buzz" rides on the low bass signal.
 
Hi UMarcus,
I followed your mod of removing all 5 E-caps in your post #1382.
WOW! What a surprise!
The finest details resurface!
Realism emerges!

I did put a Panasonic low ESR cap Of 10,000uF in one of the empty cap spot and it won’t hurt.
I tried 1.5F supercap before but it rendered my RPI unbootable.
I supply Fifopi with LT3042 @ 3.3V using Ian’s pcb.
I also put in a Rubycon PMLCAP of 0.1uF for each clock.

I have both Accusilicon and NDK clocks for comparison.
After 100 hours of burn in time, I think I like Accusilicon a bit more.
Accusilicon is more in the front row while NDK is in the mid row.
I am very happy about this!
Thanks.


It is some time ago since I'm here, but nice to read that this mod seems to be helpful and positive in other systems too :)
I'm also on the same track by using the Accusilicon Clock instead NDK :)
This DAC sound amazing in my system. I also suggest to try the different filters of the DAC, it is somehow a possibility to fine tune the sound characteristic in the individual system.

Regards
Marcus
 
For me the tda1541a was a bit of a gamble. It was the first time to build a dac/streamer. Pcm1704 was also on the list but using the tda1541a looked simpler to implement. Never regretted the choice.


I have a dual 1541 in balanced, nos mode using Ian's fifo2, clock and I2S to PCM boards and Sowter output transformers.


I've listened to various Cd players from Wolfson 8740 delta sigma (Arcam CD73), BB PCM in a Teac PDH01, Techincs Mash Dac and my own dual AD1862 and dual balanced 1865 (using Ian's boards).


I keep returning to my 1541 dac for reasons I cannot explain.


This week I bought a SU8 Ess9038q2m triple input dac from Shenzen Audio on Amazon and I must admit I like the results for Youtube videos using the optical input from my tv.


HIFI Decoder SMSL SU-8 2ES9038Q2M USB PCM32 768kHz: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics



Its a well built product with built in mains psu, so no wall wart needed but the display is too small for my old eyes.


But will it oust the 1541 or the dual 1865 I am just rebuilding?
 
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That is my expeience too. All those xtalls cchd957: ndk. Of that quality are so close that you faster to tweak the sound by working on decoupling than to go from a littke more expensive one like the accusilon...the gap is more marketing and spec for the brain than real improvment imho. YMMV.
 
This week I bought a SU8 Ess9038q2m triple input dac from Shenzen Audio on Amazon and I must admit I like the results for Youtube videos using the optical input from my tv.


HIFI Decoder SMSL SU-8 2ES9038Q2M USB PCM32 768kHz: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics



Its a well built product with built in mains psu, so no wall wart needed but the display is too small for my old eyes.


But will it oust the 1541 or the dual 1865 I am just rebuilding?

I have the SMSL M400, it's very good. The new SU-9 gets highly rated on Audio Science Review also.

SMSL SU-9 Balanced DAC Review | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum