So I bought this DAC

I am using a wall wart from an old harddrive (better made than most) plugged in to a good line filter, which significantly improved the sound of my old Micromega.

I am going to power the dac with batteries to see if there is any improvement.

The dac sounds decent on good sources, but less so on red book cds. objectively, it is performing as it should, but as I am very sensitive to high frequency digital distortion, it needs a little sweetening.

does anyone know how to build a warm, smooth and sweet tube buffer?
 
The dac sounds decent on good sources, but less so on red book cds.

'Good sources' means higher sample rates and more bits than 16?

objectively, it is performing as it should, but as I am very sensitive to high frequency digital distortion, it needs a little sweetening.

Got any more details on what 'high frequency digital distortion' might mean? Could it be intermodulation products from imaging for instance? A tube buffer isn't going to undo distortion but it might add more of its own as a distraction.
 
'Good sources' means higher sample rates and more bits than 16?



Got any more details on what 'high frequency digital distortion' might mean? Could it be intermodulation products from imaging for instance? A tube buffer isn't going to undo distortion but it might add more of its own as a distraction.
DSD primarily. The distortion appears with nearly every dac regardless of its cost or technology (especially on redbook). The resulting negative effects of quantization is most likely to be responsible.

Smoothing and sweetening this type of distortion can go far to alleviate its negative impact.
 
If you were able to pack a DSD file into a PCM stream (which is what gets sent over S/PDIF) then you'd only hear noise, not music when piping that into a 1387.

Audacity has a 'Project rate' box in bottom left - what number was showing in that box when you were playing your recording?
 
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