I have an unused, unopened Buffalo III 9028 board for sale, if anyone is interested - it's listed in the swap meet. PM me for details or respond there. David
HI.
Better late than never.
In the photo is my build of the DAC:
Btw. feeding an external power supply to the amanero brought a really great improvement in sound - I did not expect such a big difference.
Overall, I am very pleased with the sound.
Better late than never.
In the photo is my build of the DAC:
- Buffalo III SE pro (9038) +Mercury+Amanero.
- Power supply: Super Reg for mercury and LT1963 for Buffalo and amanero - local regulators for buffalo are, as can be seen, tridents from twisted pear
Btw. feeding an external power supply to the amanero brought a really great improvement in sound - I did not expect such a big difference.
Overall, I am very pleased with the sound.
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No. I connected the external power to the cable.
For the DAC input, I used the cable as shown in the photo.
I cut the cable insulation lengthwise near the plug. Then I extracted the power cables (they were black cable for ground and red cable for +5Vdc). This must be done carefully so as not to disturb the signal cables (in my cable they were the white and green cables twisted together).
Then you should cut the red cable and connect the external +5Vdc power supply from the side that will be connected to the amanero. the black ground cable must remain connected. I additionally soldered here 220uF polymer capacitor (between the red and black cable).
Since I used the same power supply that also powers the Buffalo board, I did not connect the ground from the external power supply at the plug. In this way I avoided creating a ground loop - the amanero and Buffalo grounds are connected from the input terminals anyway.
Best
Marek.
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I am posting two measurements from my dac (pictures of dac in post )
These are single ended measurements , the negative output of the balanced connector is measured.
I think the values are very good.
The measurement made with the USB - amanero input is better (THD by 7dB better) than from the spdif input. The spdif input was fed from the HiFace 2 interface.
Measurements from the single ended mercury output are much worse (10dB worse). In addition, in my unit there is a big difference between the channels - the right channel has a noticeably higher third harmonic which results in further deterioration of the results by another 4-5 dB for the right channel.
I use the dac in a sinleended configuration, but I use the negative pin of the balanced output for the above reasons.
Measurements were made with a resistor for the 2V output installed on mercury - with 4V output the results are much worse - THD around -90dB.
Best
Marek
These are single ended measurements , the negative output of the balanced connector is measured.
I think the values are very good.
The measurement made with the USB - amanero input is better (THD by 7dB better) than from the spdif input. The spdif input was fed from the HiFace 2 interface.
Measurements from the single ended mercury output are much worse (10dB worse). In addition, in my unit there is a big difference between the channels - the right channel has a noticeably higher third harmonic which results in further deterioration of the results by another 4-5 dB for the right channel.
I use the dac in a sinleended configuration, but I use the negative pin of the balanced output for the above reasons.
Measurements were made with a resistor for the 2V output installed on mercury - with 4V output the results are much worse - THD around -90dB.
Best
Marek
Attachments
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