Love the dim glow from the IR LEDs there George! Very useful way to check they're all soldered OK, I've had more than one instance where one IR LED in the string hadn't been properly soldered.
PM Sent for board minus the DAC chips. Can I bypass the digital from end and connect IanCanada's I2S to PCM board?
Its DIY so yes you can do that, but the result will look rather messy. What are the signals coming out of IanCanada's board and what connector does he use for them?
This picture shows the suggested connections. Clock, LE and Data signals for each channel L+- and R+-
I'd go that way myself as ripping up the PCB tracks and fitting new connectors isn't going to be elegant and for an unclear advantage.
My Quad PCM58 DAC + Dark LED I/V first audition after the assembly.
The DAC was with zero hours.
High mids and treble were almost missing.
After two hours with music, they came to the surface.
It needed some twenty hours playing music for sound to set.
Big sound, very good low end. Well balanced mids and pleasant highs.
I see that sound still settles more from day to day.
I took some FR measurements. Input was SPDIF,
E-MU 0404 sound card. SPDIF out (so Sampling Rate was up to 96kHz), to analog in
Two measurements at each SR. One unfiltered (9th order filter of the DarkLED bypassed) and one filtered (9th order filter of the DarkLED installed).
Quad PCM58 DAC in SE configuration
DarkLED output load: 20kOhm
George
The DAC was with zero hours.
High mids and treble were almost missing.
After two hours with music, they came to the surface.
It needed some twenty hours playing music for sound to set.
Big sound, very good low end. Well balanced mids and pleasant highs.
I see that sound still settles more from day to day.
I took some FR measurements. Input was SPDIF,
E-MU 0404 sound card. SPDIF out (so Sampling Rate was up to 96kHz), to analog in
Two measurements at each SR. One unfiltered (9th order filter of the DarkLED bypassed) and one filtered (9th order filter of the DarkLED installed).
Quad PCM58 DAC in SE configuration
DarkLED output load: 20kOhm
George
Attachments
Step level measurements.
1kHz signal. -130dBFS to 0dBFS
E-MU 0404 sound card. SPDIF out, to analog in.
SR 44.1kHz
I find linearity to be excellent. - 0.5dB at 15bit depth, +0.5dB at 17bit depth.
Distortion profile is very close to Abraxalitos TDA1387 DACs.
All these with no trimmer installed yet.
George
1kHz signal. -130dBFS to 0dBFS
E-MU 0404 sound card. SPDIF out, to analog in.
SR 44.1kHz
I find linearity to be excellent. - 0.5dB at 15bit depth, +0.5dB at 17bit depth.
Distortion profile is very close to Abraxalitos TDA1387 DACs.
All these with no trimmer installed yet.
George
Attachments
To jump on the recommendations of the others, I have Richards 4 x PCM58 dac in balanced mode (8 x PCM58) and it is exquisite. Im enjoying it more than my previous best reference dac the Bricasti M21 (€18k RRP at the time, I bought it used). The PCM58 dac renders music with more emotion and beauty than the M21, without any obvious short falls, except convenience; M21 had every type of connection including ethernet for internal streaming, which I miss but can be jimmy'ed up with other boards/sources.
I did find a more powerful power transformer to be beneficial to sonics(40 VAC toroidy). I have never heard a single PCM58 per channel setup so could not comment on how much better 4 per side makes, I do trust Richards knowledge and the data that supports lower SNR etc. No component changes have been made but perhaps experiments will be made in the future.
Highly recommend this dac, thanks Rickard.
I did find a more powerful power transformer to be beneficial to sonics(40 VAC toroidy). I have never heard a single PCM58 per channel setup so could not comment on how much better 4 per side makes, I do trust Richards knowledge and the data that supports lower SNR etc. No component changes have been made but perhaps experiments will be made in the future.
Highly recommend this dac, thanks Rickard.
A typo here. It is -0.05dB at 15bit depth, +0.05dB at 17bit depth.I find linearity to be excellent. - 0.5dB at 15bit depth, +0.5dB at 17bit depth.
(Thanks to JKiriakis who made me look back at the measurements 😉 )
George
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