Well, I finished an experiment during the weekend that consisted of Philips CD610 (model from the beginning of 90's) used as a transport and I2S taken from the players servo SAA7310. I also replaced the clock with a four pin in can unit from ELFA. I don't have any verified audiophile clock on hand, but this ought to be better than the original oscillator inside the SAA7220 digital filter.
The I2S was fed through some logic IC's into 2 BurrBrown PCM1702 DAC's. I own a big thanks for interface schematic to my frind Sulo. The DAC chips were fed with +/- 5V created with LM317/LM337 regulators sepparately for digital and analog. Before regulators the supply had LC filtering - 10H indictor and 10000uF of cap.
The analog stage of the DAC - well there wasn't any. At first I fed the signal straight from the DAC output pin to my passive attenuator (10k) and then into JLH'96 amps. As it turned out the DAC clipped with 0dB sinewave with this configuration, although it was very soft tubelike clipping. So by experimenting the final value of the resistor from output pin to ground was 680 ohm. This still showed a little distortion with 0dB signal but it was about 0.1% of second harmonic so I didn't go any lower. There rarely is any information on cd to reach 0dB anyway.
The only techical remark till this was that the output of the DAC without any active stage is about 400mV - a little low
Enough of backround... what did it sound like?
***
WAUUU, if one would put it into one word. This configuration had some qualities unheard of before from any commertial or DIY project. Only player coming close is my frinds project with CD-PRO transport and TDA1541 + tube stage.
The most struck the air and freedom of the soundstage. I had always felt that most players, even if they play for example vocals quite well when there are few instruments on backround loose the beauty when there is a lot of instrument and action going on. This setup seemed to have no such problem at all. There was such ease all the music was played that it was quite astounding.
Also the human voice, both male and female sounded the best I have ever heard. There was no kind of hardness in the vocals that's usually there.
All the little nuances and details seemed to be just in the right place giving a wonderful presentation of Art Ensemble of Chicago live recording I use to evaluate such qualities. And the soundstage was deeep. I have tweaked my Marantz CD67 for about two years gradually and tought I had come to quite a good level, but this showed me I was anywere near the potential on the information on CD....
***
All things considered, this was a real eyeopener (or should I say earopener). It seems that there still is something that goes wrong in digital part of the player besides Jitter. This kind of nonoversampling seems to be so much better for the ear than all the present day conventional approaches though the BurrBrown DAC's here are great.... Anyway I really recommend to try out something similar and hear for yourself
My friend Sulo, who is also a very experienced audiophile, was also astounded by the results. I will go to the local HiFi shop in near days and let the guys hear it out too, but it seems it is not my imagination, but that needs to be confirmed.....
Ergo
The I2S was fed through some logic IC's into 2 BurrBrown PCM1702 DAC's. I own a big thanks for interface schematic to my frind Sulo. The DAC chips were fed with +/- 5V created with LM317/LM337 regulators sepparately for digital and analog. Before regulators the supply had LC filtering - 10H indictor and 10000uF of cap.
The analog stage of the DAC - well there wasn't any. At first I fed the signal straight from the DAC output pin to my passive attenuator (10k) and then into JLH'96 amps. As it turned out the DAC clipped with 0dB sinewave with this configuration, although it was very soft tubelike clipping. So by experimenting the final value of the resistor from output pin to ground was 680 ohm. This still showed a little distortion with 0dB signal but it was about 0.1% of second harmonic so I didn't go any lower. There rarely is any information on cd to reach 0dB anyway.
The only techical remark till this was that the output of the DAC without any active stage is about 400mV - a little low
Enough of backround... what did it sound like?
***
WAUUU, if one would put it into one word. This configuration had some qualities unheard of before from any commertial or DIY project. Only player coming close is my frinds project with CD-PRO transport and TDA1541 + tube stage.
The most struck the air and freedom of the soundstage. I had always felt that most players, even if they play for example vocals quite well when there are few instruments on backround loose the beauty when there is a lot of instrument and action going on. This setup seemed to have no such problem at all. There was such ease all the music was played that it was quite astounding.
Also the human voice, both male and female sounded the best I have ever heard. There was no kind of hardness in the vocals that's usually there.
All the little nuances and details seemed to be just in the right place giving a wonderful presentation of Art Ensemble of Chicago live recording I use to evaluate such qualities. And the soundstage was deeep. I have tweaked my Marantz CD67 for about two years gradually and tought I had come to quite a good level, but this showed me I was anywere near the potential on the information on CD....
***
All things considered, this was a real eyeopener (or should I say earopener). It seems that there still is something that goes wrong in digital part of the player besides Jitter. This kind of nonoversampling seems to be so much better for the ear than all the present day conventional approaches though the BurrBrown DAC's here are great.... Anyway I really recommend to try out something similar and hear for yourself
My friend Sulo, who is also a very experienced audiophile, was also astounded by the results. I will go to the local HiFi shop in near days and let the guys hear it out too, but it seems it is not my imagination, but that needs to be confirmed.....
Ergo
