V-out DACs output stage, Religion? Polities? Or technology of money?
Once upon a time in the wild west there was an audio company. Famous for the patented amplification technique called DNA. Then the company did a two pieces CD-player which was almost a disaster. The transport section Digital Drive SST-1, $1495 based on a cheapo Philips mechanism that even stopped manufacturing soon! And the SST-1 as well! The British magazine HiFi News & Record Reviews called the CD-player a Porsche with a Volkswagen motor!
But our DAC-1 was already in the market before the transport. Based on CS4328 from Cirrus Logic getting rank 3 from Stereophlie, not bad, $995 not a bargain.
This is the original DAC:
A little later you could for only $250 sent back the dac upgrading to the Deluxe Edition. You know, some Cardas sockets, Caddock and Vishay resistors, some high speed soft recovery diodes, different op-amps, and some FET current sources to push then further into Class-A operation, more salt and pepper according to the recipe. But no talk about the most important; moving the mains transformer away from the boards! Wow!
Then many things happened and our audio Co moved to another side of story. Began to rebuild his old amplifiers and DACs. People sent to him and he did acutely some changes to the machines and sent them back. He find some gold sand in the cases, $1700 - 2500 for his dac called UltraDac now.
Here is the “state of art” version of the same DAC according to the 6Moon Audio’s story-tellers here please, and see where is the art hiding:
What happens to the dac moving them from rank C to the “state of art”? Modern components? New clock technology, etc etc?
No, no, no, the main part of progress that is the heart of this tale is “Throwing away whole the output board”! As you can see above.
Wow! You pay 1700 - 2500 bux for just a couple of soldering job? Of course WBT Nextgen, Nichicone Mouse bipolars etc Wonderful! Guess the output transformers are just for the sake of XRLs or just visual effects? The diodes are not changed anywhay!
The chips have already its own LP-filter and yeh a MOSFET output stage too!
Okay our beloved engineer forgot to read the data sheet. Here our own dear diyer-friends have discussed it.
So dears, in the end of the tale you know something new about those nasty V-Outs.
Once upon a time in the wild west there was an audio company. Famous for the patented amplification technique called DNA. Then the company did a two pieces CD-player which was almost a disaster. The transport section Digital Drive SST-1, $1495 based on a cheapo Philips mechanism that even stopped manufacturing soon! And the SST-1 as well! The British magazine HiFi News & Record Reviews called the CD-player a Porsche with a Volkswagen motor!
But our DAC-1 was already in the market before the transport. Based on CS4328 from Cirrus Logic getting rank 3 from Stereophlie, not bad, $995 not a bargain.
This is the original DAC:
A little later you could for only $250 sent back the dac upgrading to the Deluxe Edition. You know, some Cardas sockets, Caddock and Vishay resistors, some high speed soft recovery diodes, different op-amps, and some FET current sources to push then further into Class-A operation, more salt and pepper according to the recipe. But no talk about the most important; moving the mains transformer away from the boards! Wow!
Then many things happened and our audio Co moved to another side of story. Began to rebuild his old amplifiers and DACs. People sent to him and he did acutely some changes to the machines and sent them back. He find some gold sand in the cases, $1700 - 2500 for his dac called UltraDac now.
Here is the “state of art” version of the same DAC according to the 6Moon Audio’s story-tellers here please, and see where is the art hiding:
What happens to the dac moving them from rank C to the “state of art”? Modern components? New clock technology, etc etc?
No, no, no, the main part of progress that is the heart of this tale is “Throwing away whole the output board”! As you can see above.
Wow! You pay 1700 - 2500 bux for just a couple of soldering job? Of course WBT Nextgen, Nichicone Mouse bipolars etc Wonderful! Guess the output transformers are just for the sake of XRLs or just visual effects? The diodes are not changed anywhay!
The chips have already its own LP-filter and yeh a MOSFET output stage too!
Okay our beloved engineer forgot to read the data sheet. Here our own dear diyer-friends have discussed it.
So dears, in the end of the tale you know something new about those nasty V-Outs.
Attachments
Maybe F baumli is corrupted or biased ?
Strange review... strange web print magazin than 6moons also... their model is not very clear for me (but is nice to read in the same time) as the motivation of the freelancer reviewers as their real independance & its concinstancy in time... real hifi is expensive !
WHat are the spidf input chip ? CS8414/16 ? DIR9001 ?
Nichicon Bipolar as main smoothing caps after the bridges ? No dangerous with long time ?
all those moods have to be listen to by many people to have a real opinion IMHO... Ok we know all than a dac chip with a good layout and adequate component can sound good. Own flavor taste, room and system of a reviewer is an important filter also. We know than even with a same device, two systeme can sound different... but maybe not from very bad to very good ? Some system have a bad equilibrium and good to very good DACS should not be change that and have justice about their own qualities here !
So what is the good conclusion here ? The Player jump to the last rank to the first ?
review or magasin is biased ? tweaker and/or factory (don't understand from whom come the moods,) did a magnific job or had good feeling by chance ?
Strange review... strange web print magazin than 6moons also... their model is not very clear for me (but is nice to read in the same time) as the motivation of the freelancer reviewers as their real independance & its concinstancy in time... real hifi is expensive !
WHat are the spidf input chip ? CS8414/16 ? DIR9001 ?
Nichicon Bipolar as main smoothing caps after the bridges ? No dangerous with long time ?
all those moods have to be listen to by many people to have a real opinion IMHO... Ok we know all than a dac chip with a good layout and adequate component can sound good. Own flavor taste, room and system of a reviewer is an important filter also. We know than even with a same device, two systeme can sound different... but maybe not from very bad to very good ? Some system have a bad equilibrium and good to very good DACS should not be change that and have justice about their own qualities here !
So what is the good conclusion here ? The Player jump to the last rank to the first ?
review or magasin is biased ? tweaker and/or factory (don't understand from whom come the moods,) did a magnific job or had good feeling by chance ?
There is something that looks deeply scary in that last big picture.....
Look at the IEC inlet, now is it just me or is that a switch LIFTING THE MAINS SAFETY GROUND connection?
My take is that all this just goes to show that Barnum was an optimist.
It looks like some sort of half arsed tweeker has been in there to me, and frankly the design did not look that great to begin with, only the first photo even looks like what I would consider to be a finished product, but it would appear there is a market for any old junk if you slap a big enough price tag on it and add some marketing fluff.
Regards, Dan.
Look at the IEC inlet, now is it just me or is that a switch LIFTING THE MAINS SAFETY GROUND connection?
My take is that all this just goes to show that Barnum was an optimist.
It looks like some sort of half arsed tweeker has been in there to me, and frankly the design did not look that great to begin with, only the first photo even looks like what I would consider to be a finished product, but it would appear there is a market for any old junk if you slap a big enough price tag on it and add some marketing fluff.
Regards, Dan.
the tweeker is the manufacture himself. it is the whole meaning!
the SPDIF input chip was CS8412 in the first version.
the SPDIF input chip was CS8412 in the first version.
Has anyone ever read a bad review of anything on 6moons ?
> So what is the good conclusion here ? The Player jump to the last rank to the first ?
That the opamp board was junk to begin with.
By the same logic, the sound quality would probably increase another order of magnitude by removing the DAC board 😀
> So what is the good conclusion here ? The Player jump to the last rank to the first ?
That the opamp board was junk to begin with.
By the same logic, the sound quality would probably increase another order of magnitude by removing the DAC board 😀
OUARF OUARF ! 🙂, it is a Swiss review maid into a bank...
And using cells for big ghetto box player !
CS8412 has great jitter in relation to newer one :8416, WM8804 or DIR90001...
I think it becomes hard to make a DAC nowadays, because a lot of good manufacters, or good designers do good qualitie (T. Loesch, P. Rodric, B Putzey, etc)
Reviews need adds to survive and for free reviews, question has not to be asked... of course they need thoose money. Just expensive professional newsletter unknown from the mass market are able to earn enough money with just anual subscription. In many countries adds are bought by the import companies... marge are so massiv than to be visible, it helps for Mr everybody to know what is the best brand new product... (or best margin). Great devices do not need too massive adds today with social networks (sometimes biased by bad people). AMR, audial, etc. Anyway the most famous need to sustain the desire to buy and the rank of the brand... competition is hard on the top level as well ! But here the companies are like Coca Hola... need to be on top and give the desire to move from the house to hear the last bubles with better taste...
And using cells for big ghetto box player !
CS8412 has great jitter in relation to newer one :8416, WM8804 or DIR90001...
I think it becomes hard to make a DAC nowadays, because a lot of good manufacters, or good designers do good qualitie (T. Loesch, P. Rodric, B Putzey, etc)
Reviews need adds to survive and for free reviews, question has not to be asked... of course they need thoose money. Just expensive professional newsletter unknown from the mass market are able to earn enough money with just anual subscription. In many countries adds are bought by the import companies... marge are so massiv than to be visible, it helps for Mr everybody to know what is the best brand new product... (or best margin). Great devices do not need too massive adds today with social networks (sometimes biased by bad people). AMR, audial, etc. Anyway the most famous need to sustain the desire to buy and the rank of the brand... competition is hard on the top level as well ! But here the companies are like Coca Hola... need to be on top and give the desire to move from the house to hear the last bubles with better taste...
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