Twenty bucks for a complete DAC solution? How good could it sound?

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#5
Hi, I made quite a few DACs with that UDA1351TS chip and it sounds afwul. I don't say this because I sell DACs but just to warn you. It produces sound and nothing more. To be honest: I recently threw away a batch of these DACs I made myself as I could not even want to sell them. Spend a few more $ if you want something that sounds OK.
 
#7
Hi I think you will have even better results if you put a true voltage regulator in the FiiO instead of the too simple zener diode. There exist nice TO92 3.3 V regs for that purpose. The Wolfson is very good and it deserves a good power supply so it can perform optimally.


I do not understand why they are so positive about the zener diode in the link....
 
#10
scitizen17 said:
Thanks Jean-Paul. That's a great idea. I think I'll do that when I change out the op-amp. Can you recommend a good TO-92 3.3V regulator for this application?

Thanks,

Scott
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Hi Scott, I think MIC5207-3.3YZ is among one of the better ones if you can still find it (out of production). LE33C is OK too.

LE33CZ - STMICROELECTRONICS - IC, V REG LDO +3.3V, TO-92-3 | Farnell Nederland

Anything better than a Zener diode I would almost say. Please do not use LP2950, it is way too noisy.
 
#12
nope, doesnt mean it sounds bad either theres a full 8 channel spdif mux in the es9018/9016/9012

of course someone is going to email me now, threaten me with the backing of the NOS mafia, saying its sus me talking about ess again, steering the conversation, well **** hey i'm talking about the dacs ive done the most work with and own 3 of, fancy that
 
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#13
jean-paul said:
Hi Scott, I think MIC5207-3.3YZ is among one of the better ones if you can still find it (out of production).
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Thanks for the info Jean-Paul. I'm not too up on the newer v-regs these days, but after some research, the MIC5207 really does look like the way to go based on the noise specs. It is available in the SOT23-5 package, which can be done, although sorta kluged in there if you know what I mean. Should work fine.

@River757, this unit does sound really good right out of the box for $30. I certainly would select it over the unit in your original post, especially considering it's availability for upgrade mods.

Scott
 
#14
jean-paul said:
Hi, I made quite a few DACs with that UDA1351TS chip and it sounds afwul. I don't say this because I sell DACs but just to warn you. It produces sound and nothing more. To be honest: I recently threw away a batch of these DACs I made myself as I could not even want to sell them. Spend a few more $ if you want something that sounds OK.
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Hi,

Have you tried the UDA1321 ? It's usb, asynch with fifo, software controlled, 1-bit dac. I have a device with one of these - a Xitel MD-AN1 usb dac - and I've always wondered if it could be turned into something half decent. It also uses LMV358 so an AD8656 would be a reasonable first step to see if the DAC is any good.
 
#20
Technology marches on. Some (few) years from now they may have on one chip what is state of the art today.

Personally, I find the speakers 'most people' use to be the bottleneck in SQ, more so than the electronics behind them.

Then again, we (people on DIY forums) are not 'most people'.

My wife listened to my 8741 DAC the other day and said it sounded distorted. I suspect she means the distortion she is used to from listening to music on her cell phone is lacking.
 
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