Spartacus said:
Im kind of surprised too, because my "old" Opus sounds fantastic with none of the problems that Painkiller has. But its nice to hear that the new one if ok 🙂
To say that the 8740 is poor is a bit exaggerated. It ok. But in the USB setup, with the standard IC regulated supply, it's not great. It's of course better than any $1000 cd player I've heard, but it's not top of the line.
The 8741 and 8740 have the same sonic signature. Bass slam and detail are about the same. Transient response perhaps a tad bit better with the 8741. But the difference in 'naturalness' which at first can come off as subtle, is really quite big if one sits down for a late night critical listen. At this level of quality it's the small differences that draws the line between good and fantastic.
I should perhaps add that my system is very revealing, with extreme bandwidth in both pre and power amp. The lowest low pass Fc is at 500kHz. So the system will be very sensitive to HF noise.
The 8741 and 8740 have the same sonic signature. Bass slam and detail are about the same. Transient response perhaps a tad bit better with the 8741. But the difference in 'naturalness' which at first can come off as subtle, is really quite big if one sits down for a late night critical listen. At this level of quality it's the small differences that draws the line between good and fantastic.
I should perhaps add that my system is very revealing, with extreme bandwidth in both pre and power amp. The lowest low pass Fc is at 500kHz. So the system will be very sensitive to HF noise.
It seems that the DIY gene is usually linked to the perfectionism gene and often also to the thrift gene. 😀 All of these factors (plus others, naturally) influence our perceptions. Only when we're very happy with our projects can we forget about them and just enjoy the music. I'm glad you're there, and also glad you give the 8741s a nice review because mine are waiting in the 'to-build' queue.
Frank in Mpls.
Frank in Mpls.
OTTO voltage source
I only have the LCPS (which is set to 7.5v for dual dac etc). How can I get a source of 5v for the OTTO. Do I need to build a 5v power supply. Can I power it from the LCPS? How?
Thank you
Darren
I only have the LCPS (which is set to 7.5v for dual dac etc). How can I get a source of 5v for the OTTO. Do I need to build a 5v power supply. Can I power it from the LCPS? How?
Thank you
Darren
Re: OTTO voltage source
7.5V won't harm the OTTO. It should be fine. It would also be OK for the Opus to turn that voltage down to about 6.5V which would be very safe.
Cheers!
Russ
DarrenWadsworth said:
7.5V won't harm the OTTO. It should be fine. It would also be OK for the Opus to turn that voltage down to about 6.5V which would be very safe.
Cheers!
Russ
I have a 8740 board and never listened to the new 8741. I am not sure if my ears would be able to tell the difference between 8740/8741 through my system.
I have always thought using different output stage designs would make a whole lot more difference than comparing 8741/8740 chips. I have never tried this, so I am not sure either.
I am enjoying my 8740 at this moment, the next thing I would like to try in the future is using 2 IVY boards in dual-mono 😀
I have always thought using different output stage designs would make a whole lot more difference than comparing 8741/8740 chips. I have never tried this, so I am not sure either.
I am enjoying my 8740 at this moment, the next thing I would like to try in the future is using 2 IVY boards in dual-mono 😀
Without having heard the WM8741, I would agree that choice of output stage has a bigger effect on sound.
The analog stage and especially the filtering can make a huge difference, yes. The advantage with the WM8740/41 is that there's no need for filtering because of very little out of band noise. The chip is also able to drive a low capacitance cable-attenuator-preamp.
So with no filtering, no analog stage... the chip being the only difference, there is a distinct change is sound quality in a good system.
So with no filtering, no analog stage... the chip being the only difference, there is a distinct change is sound quality in a good system.
Painkiller,
you said your DAC with the 8740 was "noisy as **ell". Could you actually hear this noise as a hiss?
you said your DAC with the 8740 was "noisy as **ell". Could you actually hear this noise as a hiss?
If he could hear hiss there would have to be some sort of problem(hard to say where) as it's definitely not normal. I have been running the older Opus unfiltered direct to power amps (also unfiltered) and high (95+db) efficiency speakers. Of course I am also running them balanced output, perhaps he is getting some noise if he is running them directly SE.
It could be something as simple as wiring, or an oscillating cct. Who knows.
The WM8740 is nice an quiet normally. I am sure others would agree.
Cheers!
Russ
It could be something as simple as wiring, or an oscillating cct. Who knows.
The WM8740 is nice an quiet normally. I am sure others would agree.
Cheers!
Russ
fierce_freak said:
The first time I fired up my Opus (without the Ballsie), I compared the sound with my 12-year old CAL Icon Cd player and wondered.... hmmm..... not much progress for the last 12 years.
After I installed the Ballsie, the sound gets MUCH better (most noticeable more defined bottom end). I believe, there are still things can be done to extract more performance out of the 8740. I have already used dual-mono and metronome, so I am not sure if there is much left to be done on digital side - that's the reason I am interested to experiment with different analog stage.
Many consumer CD players use WM8740 from the $600 Onkyo to multi-kilobuck player. I am wondering what's the difference in their implementation that their sound is a lot different - anyone has any insight/experience here? 😕
Attachments
I used these with the WM8740/41:
Available here:
SKpre
They are discrete, class A opamps with on board discrete regulators/PSUs. They can easily be configured for balanced operation, and sound very good indeed, although it's impossible to gaurantee they will beat the LM4562s.
I'd also recommend supplying the clock on the Metronome with a dedicated low noise reg such as can be bought from Tentlabs, NewClassD or similar.
Dan
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Available here:
SKpre
They are discrete, class A opamps with on board discrete regulators/PSUs. They can easily be configured for balanced operation, and sound very good indeed, although it's impossible to gaurantee they will beat the LM4562s.
I'd also recommend supplying the clock on the Metronome with a dedicated low noise reg such as can be bought from Tentlabs, NewClassD or similar.
Dan
Spartacus, I've thought about providing the clock with its own reg several times. Do you supply a different reg to the whole Metronome board, or do you pipe the power from a separate reg straight to the clock?
-edit- I've eyed that pre in the past...I'm a fan of Greg's OptiVol
-edit- I've eyed that pre in the past...I'm a fan of Greg's OptiVol
freak,
The metronome has local regs, and if you use the LCDPS it is pre-regged too. 🙂
The clock is connected to the VD local reg.
You would have to cut a trace to separately regulate the clock.
Cheers!
Russ
The metronome has local regs, and if you use the LCDPS it is pre-regged too. 🙂
The clock is connected to the VD local reg.
You would have to cut a trace to separately regulate the clock.
Cheers!
Russ
Thanks Russ, that's what I thought. I was wondering if Spartacus had done just that and cut the trace.
In my setup, I used a separate clock altogether fed directly to the Opus DAC, then linked back to the ASRC. This way the clock's earth return won't be modulated by other signals.
Spartacus said:
Sure that would work fine, and all you need to do in that case is disable the clock (that's why the "Disable" header is there).
Then you can go hog wild with whatever clock scheme your heart desires. 🙂
Cheers!
Russ
Russ White said:
Interresting. You could actually use another clock alltogether and connect this directly to the Opus? Which clock inputs would you connect it to really?
The SKpre is really good, and a real easy load for the dac. That's a must if you want to run the Opus without an output stage. Capacitive load should be as light as possible. No long shielded cables and heavy input filters on the following amp.
When I said the WM8740 was noisy, I didn't mean a hissing noise. It's more like an unnatural distortion, which makes it feel unpleasant and tiring during longer listening sessions. And as said, there are no other changes than the chip, so cables, preamp, wiring and everything else is the same. Just changed the Opus board. So unless I had a faulty board, I doubt there were any problems.
But as said, I have very little filtering in my system. So there might be some out of band noise in the WM8740 which creates unwanted noise in the audio band. This won't be present in many other systems. Most commercial gear uses rediculously heavy filtering.
No Love for Opus?
With all the superlatives reserved for the Sabre DAC is there still room for second best? Once of the features of the 8741 is the configurable filters (5 per each of low,mid,high sampling rate resulting in 15 combinations). The data sheet shows the response for each filter. I don't really know what those curves mean. Can anyone explain the theories/expected sound behind each response curve? Thanks.
With all the superlatives reserved for the Sabre DAC is there still room for second best? Once of the features of the 8741 is the configurable filters (5 per each of low,mid,high sampling rate resulting in 15 combinations). The data sheet shows the response for each filter. I don't really know what those curves mean. Can anyone explain the theories/expected sound behind each response curve? Thanks.
Painkiller said:
That's right. You can feed the clock into the Master clock input on the Opus then link it back to the Metronome.
That sounds pretty likely to me. Plus some high feedback amps are more sensitive to out of band noise than others. Is your amp DIY? Perhaps you could reduce the F-3dB somewhat? 500KHz seems unnecessarily high.