Weiliang DAC9 with AK4399

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#221
in fact, that's the guy I bought mine from and he claims he does not have anything else. pretty lame; the seller does not even have the right schematic? all too typical of china ebay sellers. they are not involved in technology directly, they simply buy from taobao and resell. they could care less what the function of the board is; they just are salesmen ;(
 
#223
the schematic I got in pdf form needed 400x magnification to be able to read anything. the chips were not labeled and it was just barely usable, if it were the actual product I bought, that is.

its really a shame that pride is absent from most of these products. really really a shame that people don't care about their own designs enough to do a proper schematic entry (on things that are sold; I rarely draw schematics on my own DIY one-off builds, but if I was SELLING a board, you better believe the schematic would be proper and accurate and actually helpful, too).

weiliang: if you are reading this, please increase the quality level, here. people WANT to buy from you and your stores, but when sellers don't even care if they send the right documentation, you may want to step in and make things right yourself, to save your own reputation.
 
#226
I've been thinking of pulling the trigger on a AK4399 DAC for a while, but I seem to read a lot of reports of problems here.

As of May 2014, what's the best supplier and completed DAC board available? I have a Mac Mini and would want to use the USB interface, so either an included or a stand alone XMOS board (or the like) would be required also.

My amplification is single ended, but I'd consider a dual AK4399 board with a SE output capability.

Grateful for any help here.
 
#227
I always recommend decoupling the usb part from the dac part. spdif is a fine audio transport, when done even just reasonably well.

m2tech usb/spdif dongle

and then pick your dac (or change the dac, later, if you want). keep the m2tech since its great and needs no changes, it just plain works (linux and win7; likely mac, as well but I don't know).

dacs change a lot and in a year, a new version of this or that will be along. pick any 4399 build you like and supply your own op-amps and you should be ok.
 
#230
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#231
#233
ak4399 vs es9018

spvc500vn said:
I have just bought Weilang's Dual AKM4399 Dac from taobao. I'm extremely impress with the improvement of sound quality. Bass and treble are controlled quiet well, sound stage became more widely. I'm so grateful for Weilang product. Recently, I'm think about offer another DACs to compare with AKM4399 and so notice to ES9018 DAC. Anybody tried both akm4399 and ES9018 could share me some experiments and advices?
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Max Martin said:
I'm actually thinking trying this out. I saw that there is a new version out with softwarecontrol and maybe a bit more optimized design.
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I still wondering about sound comparison and comment between akm4399 vs es9018 seems ak4399 less famous than es9018 (IMO), but it's very interesting DAC.

weiliang said:
Hello, new XMOS support DSD usb card, using on my ES9018 DAC 4 layers board one. XMOS DSD, and new dual AK4399 with AK4118
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I thought you already have build many and listen dac, could you give a comment for this dac 4399 ? or which one the best in your honest opinion, as newbie and limited budget I can't try all kind of DAC 😀

satrio
 
#234
I haven't heard both ES9018 and AK4399 either, but I made my choice in favor of the AK4399.

After some investigation here on the board and elsewhere, I noticed that in general people were enthusiastic about the sound of the AK4399 DAC (surprised perhaps) and that the sound of the ES9018 wasn't that much talked about, but instead a lot of technical enthusiasm.

Also implementations of the ES9018 output stage are not as simple as can be done with the AK4399 with its SCF outputs : Better no (or two single) opamps than 6 opamps for I/V conversion IMO. Also in the Buffalo DAC a lot of hi-tech regulators, output stage, clock etc etc. From a technical point of view very nice, but quite costly ($) and complex as well.

I believe the analog stage after the DAC chip is very important to preserve the best out of the DACs' specs, so I chose to set my focus on that.

But I agree, if someone has both DACs, preferably from WeilLiang, I would be interested as well in his/her findings when comparing the two, of course.

Just my 2 cents...
 
#235
NinoSimona said:
Also implementations of the ES9018 output stage are not as simple as can be done with the AK4399 with its SCF outputs : Better no (or two single) opamps than 6 opamps for I/V conversion IMO. Also in the Buffalo DAC a lot of hi-tech regulators, output stage, clock etc etc. From a technical point of view very nice, but quite costly ($) and complex as well.

I believe the analog stage after the DAC chip is very important to preserve the best out of the DACs' specs, so I chose to set my focus on that.
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I also had same considering like you were,because seems it's lower budget than implement ES9018.

let's wait comment from people had experience with both of this chip.
 
#237
Any word on whether people like the sound of this better than JDSLabs ODAC? After it's all said and done, it is going to cost me about the same. I'm building a small desktop amp. The inside will obviously be tight on space. Both ODAC and these designs are going to be quite large if I mount internally, and will significantly increase the size of my chassis. If I do a standalone DAC, ODAC has an external trafo making it smaller on my desk, these kits are quite large as standalones. Thoughts? Opinions? Would be buying with the XMOS 10pin USB card.

If anyone saw this show up over in the 4396 post, sorry, deleted. Cant keep them straight.
 
#238
The JDSLabs ODAC uses the Sabre ES9023 chip. It is a good chip I believe it was designed for mobile devices and is indeed very compact. If you want compact and have no intention on tweaking, buy it. If you want options for expansion e.g., Toslink, coax and XMOS get a Weiliang product.
 
#239
not sure about the 9023 chip. there was a really crapy ESS chip on the 'audio widget' and we all found out that it does not deal gracefully with gibbs issues (levels very close to 0db that, when sustained, cause overflows and clipping or worse, phase inversion!)

then we tried a TI budget chip and THAT also had the same problem!

I've given up on budget dollar-dac chips. they suck and they seem to require some db of atten (digitally) BEFORE the dac chip. that pretty much removes them from any serious consideration.

the high end ess chips are totally different. but the budget ess chips are crap and not worth using, imho.
 
#240
linuxworks said:
not sure about the 9023 chip. there was a really crapy ESS chip on the 'audio widget' and we all found out that it does not deal gracefully with gibbs issues (levels very close to 0db that, when sustained, cause overflows and clipping or worse, phase inversion!)

then we tried a TI budget chip and THAT also had the same problem!

I've given up on budget dollar-dac chips. they suck and they seem to require some db of atten (digitally) BEFORE the dac chip. that pretty much removes them from any serious consideration.

the high end ess chips are totally different. but the budget ess chips are crap and not worth using, imho.
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what DAC chip as your experience and worth to use ?
 
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