ESS Sabre Reference DAC (8-channel)

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BTW, the ESS9018 is not an microprocessor which need more current/power, get hot, or is been stressed when one overclocked it... Is necessary to precise here that this chip is an digital to analogue converter? Only an very sophisticated one. The microprocessor in it is not affected by the (f. ex.) 25% overclocking... but the sound out of it, it is... in a better way.
In my experiments I have used even 150Mhz to clock this chip, and nothing exploded... Only the sound out of it it were not usable.
 
I've already purchased one along with a fast USB to I2S board for this DAC from the same vendor, and received both of them today.

DAC board looks neat! The hybrid components are fairly apart from each other, I don't see a big challenge in putting them on, even few mandatory SMD parts. There are few ambiguous spots that I couldn't figure totally yet, though! Few components need to be identifed or clarified, but I think they don't pose a problem either.

I believe this board have already attracted some DIYer's attention, there will be more to respond here soon!

In any case I'm not very experienced with DAC boards, and have limited experince with SMD stuff,but I think it would be much appreciated if someone who is more apt and experienced can share the experience with this board.

How's the build going ? Is it working yet ? How about the BOM - any problem getting parts etc ?

Qusp/Coris - the other thing worth mentioning is that it is US$7 compared to the US$30 for a Crystek. I'll get one of the Ebay boards and try both a Crystek 22.5792MHz and the Epson Saw 125Mhz, and a Euroquartz XO91 50Mhz.
 
I am observing values of 8 and 9 on register 27 (ES9018 Status (Read-only)) on my EV board. In the Help of the Sabre GUI I can only find that values 0-3 are described and 4-7 are reserved. Where can I find more detailed information on the meaning of the ES9018 registers and register 27 in particular?

"glt" is unlikely to answer your question. (I would thought he was the best person.)

I'm afraid you have the read-out decimal values confused with bit-position definitions.

If the observed values 8 and 9 are in a decimal expression, bit patterns in binary expression are;
decimal 8: binary 0001000
decimal 9: binary 0001001

On the other hand, the datasheet of ES9018 shows;
[7:4] RESERVED
[3] dsd_pcm
[2] spdif_valid
[1] spdif_en
[0] lock

The numbers used above define not decimal values but positions of the flag bits.
Therefore, the decimal value 8 and 9 mean,
[DSD mode] & [unlock] and [DSD mode] & [lock],
respectively.

Or are you asking undocumented meaning of the RESERVED bits?
 
BTW, the ESS9018 is not an microprocessor which need more current/power, get hot, or is been stressed when one overclocked it... Is necessary to precise here that this chip is an digital to analogue converter? Only an very sophisticated one. The microprocessor in it is not affected by the (f. ex.) 25% overclocking... but the sound out of it, it is... in a better way.
In my experiments I have used even 150Mhz to clock this chip, and nothing exploded... Only the sound out of it it were not usable.

right, so we have established that you dont know how the dac works, nor have you at any time checked what the power consumption is, or how your mods effect it.

its also pretty logical that running higher speed uses more power. the ESS actually DOES contain a microprocessor.

how do you explain a device that switches with relation to each clock cycle and uses energy doing so, not using more energy if it has to switch more often? perhaps ESS have discovered perpetual motion?

I did not expect to have to explain such basic science to you....

ahh I see your testing methods extend to whether or not the dac chip explodes, or stops working correctly and you deemed it OK to simply run it at as high a speed as you can while it still outputs sound?

mad science...

Bunpei, I havent got the double speed clocks yet, Acko needs to do more work integrating it with fifo. i'm talking about the Turboclock with NDK
 
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How's the build going ? Is it working yet ? How about the BOM - any problem getting parts etc ?

Qusp/Coris - the other thing worth mentioning is that it is US$7 compared to the US$30 for a Crystek. I'll get one of the Ebay boards and try both a Crystek 22.5792MHz and the Epson Saw 125Mhz, and a Euroquartz XO91 50Mhz.

$7 is still a waste of money (and hobby time, which matters more to me) if it provides no benefit. I recommend getting the Crystek in the 45.1584MHz even if you are only running 44.1
 
I have thought why the method[synchronous master clocking] is better than an asynchronous master clocking for a long time. I'd like to explain my considerations on a series of posts and to request your frank comments.

I think I got no negative comments on this topic.
RayCTech and qusp told us about their trials on synchronous master clocking and, at least, they did not show their negative opinions on the method.

My basic message is;
"ES9018 architecture has no mean to generate any shorter timing than one tick of master clock, for example 10ns for 100MHz MCLK. An asynchronous master clocking method brings the maximum 10ns quantum error along a time axis. On the other hand, a synchronous clocking can make the error to zero in theory."

If you think the message is incorrect, please post your idea with any certain supporting facts.
 
synchronous mode is different, I think better yes, definitely not worse. I thought I had already commented on this earlier in the thread; though at that time I had a worrying glitch associated with sync mode that I had never had with Async. I have not had this since changing to the 45.xx/49.xx clocks. its hard to describe the difference, a definite bonus is there is much less warm up time on the DAC and the dropouts are zero. imaging seems to be more solid and high frequency retains detail, but never hyped. sorry i'm not very good at the flowery audiophile prose.

no worries Bunpei, i'll update when I receive the AK701, i'm looking forward to it.

Obviously I simplified the 25% faster clock = 25% more power consumption, its not so exact, but along those lines on many of the pins, not all though. the pad ring and logic supplies more than others. I havent done any further measurements, but 100MHz async clock uses more power than 80MHz did. depending on the power supplies it may not stress them, but with some of the flea type voltage reference + opamp followers, the opamps dont have large current capacity/overhead.

it does stress the dac more though, usually warnings for max operating conditions have some basis.... it seems to have been confirmed by not working at 150. i'm not a Dac whisperer though, I need to make measurements of such things, I cannot tell the exact extent and health of the dac by listening to it or touching it.
 
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Hello qusp,

Can you explain a little bit about your setup, are you using the AKODAC. what other boards do you use to run this unit synchronously.

Can you operate synchronous mode using spdif source, or is synchronous mode only available on the USB input interface.

Can I ask you about the bass sound of the ESS9018 DAC in the synchronous mode , is it any different to what it sounds like in the asynchronous mode in your opinion .
 
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ESS9018 is not working at all at 150Mhz, but is not working either very well at 133Mhz... The conversion and the audio out of it is very good at 133Mhz, but spikes are quite frequent when useful signal is not present. As the chip have something to convert, then is working very well... As such perturbations appear over the usefully signal, I considered as a not safe functioning zone at 133Mhz. The max clock frequency it may be somewhere in the range 130 - 128Mhz. At 125Mhz is working very well.

As I`ve wrote many times about this subject, those presented here are informations which it may be analyzed and detailed further by the DIY community (those who may be interested in this). I think is just unfortunate that someone just deny apriori such informations and declare it as fullish things, mad science or so...
One may not expect that everything will be done or come by/from one member here, who have to come out with everything about: solutions, measurements, theories, explanations, answers to all questions, and so on. Such enterprise is very time consuming and represent lot of work. What is wrong if this huge work is shared between many DIY interested peoples?
So, everybody's contribution will leads more fast to better results, conclusions...
 
Hello qusp,

Can you explain a little bit about your setup, are you using the AKODAC. what other boards do you use to run this unit synchronously.

Can you operate synchronous mode using spdif source, or is synchronous mode only available on the USB input interface.

Can I ask you about the bass sound of the ESS9018 DAC in the synchronous mode , is it any different to what it sounds like in the asynchronous mode in your opinion .

hey mate, sorry I had a partial reply for this done and forgot then we had power outage, i'll send you a PM, or alternatively you could send me your email.
 
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Hi Coris,

I'm planning to try the overclock to 125Mhz. I'm trying to choose a part. Is it important to get a SAW or is phase noise/jitter more important ?

I thought I might try this part because it seems to have slightly lower phase noise than the Epson SAW. What do you think ?

FXO-HC736R-125. - FOX ELECTRONICS - HCMOS OSCILLATOR, 125MHz, SMD | e絡盟 Hong Kong

Cheers

Tom

Hi Tom

For the first time is not so important to chose an SAW oscillator. My personal opinion is that experimenting is the best way to go forward, to find new ways. Jitter is important of course in this case, so just chose what do you think is the best for your experiments. Then if the results are as you expect, may you try an SAW oscillator to notice the difference (if you will notice that...). SAW oscillators are quite cheap also. You may then try another overclocking frequencies, to learn more about those aspects. I can not say for the moment that 125 Mhz may be the best overclocking frequency. As you maybe have read, Joe got some glitches in the resulting sound using this clock frequency... For me it works just fine this way, but I`ve noticed good results too with lower frequencies than this (but higher than 100Mhz). I just had not something else (SAW) between 100 and 125Mhz... and my (today) conclusion is that it sounds better with SAW even though the parameters of the SAWs are some how lower than another type oscillators. It is quite interesting if one may find out why... It is also interesting to have more comments (confirmations or not) from DIYer who have done something in this direction, rather than from they who only have opinions about...
If you will want at last publish your conclusions/results, it will only be fortunate for all of us...
 
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Hi,

Thanks for the comments. I'll start by using all the same type of oscillator - the Fox Xpresso. It's very cheap and the jitter seems okay. I will try 45.X, 49.X, 100 and 125. This way I might get an idea about frequencies, synch, asynch etc. Then I can move on to different types of xo and lower jitter ones, already having some idea about freq.

I'd be very interested to know if/why a saw might be better - I guess we need a clock expert with detailed knowledge and experience of this IC to make comment.... maybe there are application notes about this somewhere ?

cheers
 
I suppose the GUI-based filter design software might be "Filter Designer" included in "Sabre32 GUI" software. When you buy ESS ES9018 Evaluation Board, you can obtain the benefit of those programs. Moreover, if you tweak the board and add external I2C extensions, you can connect your own ES9018 chips. The "Filter Designer" seems very powerful and convenient.

I am very interested of using an ESS ES9018 Evaluation Board with the HifiDUINO to control the registers of the ES9018 chip. Standard there is an USB connection (for use with the Sabre GUI). Is there any reading material on how tweak the board (I2C) so I can connect it to the Arduino?