Hi
i not much into diy audio, but off late have been doing a bit of research on diy dac kits. i have a cambridge audio cdp 640 and im happy with, which uses dual wm8740. this led me onto the wolfson audio card for the rpi and finally onto weiliang assembled dacs. was first interested in the dac 5 / 7 (due to the fact that it used the wm8741, but after reading a couple of threads on this forum i understand that the dac9 with the ak4399 is a better setup. it has is the wm8805 digital input and the xmos usb card that i wanted. below is a link of the product
Finished DAC Decoder AK4399 WM8805 Coaxial Optical Input DAC9 by Weiliang | eBay
it also has options of upgrading the output amp to the opa627 which i am definitely going with. can also upgrade to tcxo .5ppm (not sure what this is about but its listed and if it makes sense i dont mind going with it - its 20 dollars). if he gives an option for upgrading the capacitors i would go with that as well. in total with the upgrades and the xmos card, the dac would come to about 210-225 dollars excl shipping
to give you an idea of my setup, i've got monitor audio rs6 speakers and a nad c272 amp. in the process of upgrading the amp to an acoustic portrait. not sure if youve heard of this brand - its a small indian company that makes it, but very high quality sound and build. source would be a laptop.
wanted to know your opinions on this particular dac. also is there anything else out there that i could look at, including the dac 5 (wm8741) or the dac 7 (dual wm8741)
if i dont go the dac kit route, my other option is the arcam rdac which is selling for 300 dollars (this is the old model and not the newer irdac). would only go with the weiliang if its significantly better
i not much into diy audio, but off late have been doing a bit of research on diy dac kits. i have a cambridge audio cdp 640 and im happy with, which uses dual wm8740. this led me onto the wolfson audio card for the rpi and finally onto weiliang assembled dacs. was first interested in the dac 5 / 7 (due to the fact that it used the wm8741, but after reading a couple of threads on this forum i understand that the dac9 with the ak4399 is a better setup. it has is the wm8805 digital input and the xmos usb card that i wanted. below is a link of the product
Finished DAC Decoder AK4399 WM8805 Coaxial Optical Input DAC9 by Weiliang | eBay
it also has options of upgrading the output amp to the opa627 which i am definitely going with. can also upgrade to tcxo .5ppm (not sure what this is about but its listed and if it makes sense i dont mind going with it - its 20 dollars). if he gives an option for upgrading the capacitors i would go with that as well. in total with the upgrades and the xmos card, the dac would come to about 210-225 dollars excl shipping
to give you an idea of my setup, i've got monitor audio rs6 speakers and a nad c272 amp. in the process of upgrading the amp to an acoustic portrait. not sure if youve heard of this brand - its a small indian company that makes it, but very high quality sound and build. source would be a laptop.
wanted to know your opinions on this particular dac. also is there anything else out there that i could look at, including the dac 5 (wm8741) or the dac 7 (dual wm8741)
if i dont go the dac kit route, my other option is the arcam rdac which is selling for 300 dollars (this is the old model and not the newer irdac). would only go with the weiliang if its significantly better
At this point, the AK4490 and AK4495 based boards are becoming available, which from what other people have been saying are another step up from the 4399, so I would suggest looking at them.
thanks mrslim. was also looking at the es9018 based boards. any idea how they would fare over the ak4495.
also from a price point, would these dacs punch say 2-3x their weight when compared to branded dacs?
also from a price point, would these dacs punch say 2-3x their weight when compared to branded dacs?
Although I do not have any experience with them myself, I have read a number of other opinions that the AKM dacs are much smoother (more analog like?) than the es9018. Some comments on hear have said that the 449x versions are quite a noticeable step up from the 439x versions as well. The 9018, although very detailed sounding, tends to impart something artificial to the sound(and this will vary according to the implementation, as well as the type of filtering used). Check out the headfi posts by Baldr (Mike Moffat of Schiit Audio, and formerly Theta Digital), to get his opinions on a particular DAC chip that remains nameless..(he is not known for holding back his opinions).
I would go with this board (and the xmos and led board kit) : 768kHz/32Bit AK4495SEQ DAC, I2S/DSD input - DIYINHK as well as their ultra low noise power supplies that include a hybrid choke.
It's not as cheap as the boards that include the power supplies that you see on ebay, but the quality of the parts is higher, and they have put effort into their own designs(at least much closer to the AKM reference designs), rather than a bunch of companies just piggy backing on someone else's board designs, with questionable parts quality.
I think a DAC based on the above boards would complete favorably with commercial products at 2-3 times the cost..
It's not as cheap as the boards that include the power supplies that you see on ebay, but the quality of the parts is higher, and they have put effort into their own designs(at least much closer to the AKM reference designs), rather than a bunch of companies just piggy backing on someone else's board designs, with questionable parts quality.
I think a DAC based on the above boards would complete favorably with commercial products at 2-3 times the cost..
thanks for the link mrslim. though it seems that they dont sell a finished product which i was interested in since im not an engineer myself with no soldering experience
with your help and other reading, i've narrowed it down to 2 options
1. Finished AK4495 AK4118 DAC Decode LM49860 High Quality New Design for Audio | eBay
2. rDAC / rDAC-kw - USB DACs - Arcam
the ak4495 assembled one would work out to around $250 plus $50 for transport (not sure about customs duty).
the arcam rdac used to retail for about 450 dollars and now is on sale at $300. i have two questions that i was hoping you could help me with - if not from personal experience, from what you have read / heard
a) will the assembled kit ak4495 sound a lot better than the arcam rdac, or would they be closer in sound quality
b) a major concern for me is the build quality and other parts quality of the assembled dac. would it last - i dont want to be junking it in a year or two
im going into this blind with no chance of any audition, so any views that you share will be very helpful
thanks
with your help and other reading, i've narrowed it down to 2 options
1. Finished AK4495 AK4118 DAC Decode LM49860 High Quality New Design for Audio | eBay
2. rDAC / rDAC-kw - USB DACs - Arcam
the ak4495 assembled one would work out to around $250 plus $50 for transport (not sure about customs duty).
the arcam rdac used to retail for about 450 dollars and now is on sale at $300. i have two questions that i was hoping you could help me with - if not from personal experience, from what you have read / heard
a) will the assembled kit ak4495 sound a lot better than the arcam rdac, or would they be closer in sound quality
b) a major concern for me is the build quality and other parts quality of the assembled dac. would it last - i dont want to be junking it in a year or two
im going into this blind with no chance of any audition, so any views that you share will be very helpful
thanks
also the rdac supports only upto 96khz/24 bit playback. is that going to be a big drawback going forward with digital music. does that mean it will not play 192khz or will it downsample it and play at 96khz
There are lots of opinions about whether a limit of 24/96 is a drawback or not. In reality though, probably 98% of the music you are going to buy/listen to is going to be at 24/96 or less.. Higher res music is more expensive, and even those that claim to be able to hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 tend to be divided on whether there is enough improvement to go to the next step (24/192). If you had 192Khz music, the software music player you are using would have to perform the step of downsampling the music to 96Khz, since I think the DAC itself wouldn't know how to handle the Higher frequency data.
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