Experience with this DIY DAC ?

It shouldn't be. However I've been experiencing all kinds of frustrations. At first I had no sound at all with Edcors on a 4398 board. Then, this morning I switched everything over to a 4397 board and it worked beautifully. All that remained to be done was to install a couple of 0.001uf caps on the primaries and enjoy which I did as soon as I got home this afternoon. Suddenly I was getting no sound from one channel so I removed the cap on that channel but still no sound. At one point sound became very faint so I unplugged it and decided to remove resistors and caps on secondaries and check all connectors - everything looked OK. I plugged it back in and now there's still no sound on one channel and the other is back to "normal" but appears to have lost some of its presence(probably due to removing caps and resistors on RCAs). I don't know where to go from here. Board specifies 8-10v - I'm using a10v transformer. Edcors where originally hooked up to 4 x 500r and 2 x 0.001uf caps across primaries. RCAs were with 1K resistors and 0.001uf caps. The caps were PIO (if that makes any difference)
One thing I can say is that for the brief time it was working I did sense the enormous potential vs modded opamp version. I'm awaiting a couple of UTCs which should be arriving any day and would really like to have this thing figured out by then.
I know this is DIY but as a newbie I am getting desperate and would probably be willing to pay someone with more experience to fix it so that I can relax and start listening to some music.
 
Could be Bill. I have very little soldeding experience but have nonetheless managed a few successful mods in the past. The Edcors are $9.00 PCB mount type and the soldering pins fall inwards and appear to become loose when heat is applied. I'm losing patience with these. I'll wait and see how things work out with the UTCs.
 
piero7 said:


It's too hard desolder four caps and wiring 4 cables? :bigeyes:

Nope, but the trannies are hard for me to source...where in Europe can I get these Edcors, Monacors at a reasonable price?

Oh yeah - I was about to buy an Asus Xonar Essence soundcard before I read this thread. Does anyone have experience how well this modded DAC fares (with output trannies) vs the soundcard?

Thanks again,

Mike
 
mlihl said:


Nope, but the trannies are hard for me to source...where in Europe can I get these Edcors, Monacors at a reasonable price?

Oh yeah - I was about to buy an Asus Xonar Essence soundcard before I read this thread. Does anyone have experience how well this modded DAC fares (with output trannies) vs the soundcard?

Thanks again,

Mike

Oh, now I understand. Do you want my couple of Digitec trannies?
 
Lundhal mounted and tested. Not bad at all! The high section is really great, but about the very low frequency, UTC rulez! :D

Ah, I'have removed all resistors and caps on trannies. I like very very much as is, without any filter.
 

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I have the small CS4397 dac kit which doesn't upsample but does accept 24/192 (according to the spec). I have UTC transformers on the output.

I noticed that the audio level drops when I upsample CD to either 24/96 (using my SRC2496) or 16/176.4 (using upsampling on my Philips DVD player). This seems to be a good thing, as the signal running through the transformers is lower. This seems to increase bass weight and depth...

Maybe the transformers like a smaller signal, maybe less quality is lost in the volume control, maybe the dac sounds better with upsampling....

Worth a try if you have trannies and the capacity to upsample...
 

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I just received my Edcors (XSM600/600) last week and installed them using the Jensen scheme. Initially the bass was lean and the sound stage was somewhat compressed. After a few days I must say I am very possitively supprised. Bass is low, full and very well defined. The imaging is superb and there is a huge improvement in the low level detail and dynamics.

I can now safely say that the sound is a huge improvement over the 4562 mod I had previously. With a good recording I can hear the players playing form well beyond the room boundries.

This is definitly a worthwhile investment given the low price of the Edcors. I did not have other transformers on hand so I could not compare but the Edcors are substantial in size and seem to handle the full frequency range well.

Maybe someone else can comment on how they compare with other tranies.
 
ronenash said:
I just received my Edcors (XSM600/600) last week and installed them using the Jensen scheme. Initially the bass was lean and the sound stage was somewhat compressed. After a few days I must say I am very possitively supprised. Bass is low, full and very well defined. The imaging is superb and there is a huge improvement in the low level detail and dynamics.

I can now safely say that the sound is a huge improvement over the 4562 mod I had previously. With a good recording I can hear the players playing form well beyond the room boundries.

This is definitly a worthwhile investment given the low price of the Edcors. I did not have other transformers on hand so I could not compare but the Edcors are substantial in size and seem to handle the full frequency range well.

Maybe someone else can comment on how they compare with other tranies.

I second that, as I told you guys on my post #891 it just a matter of burning in for a couple of days and you get the results. Well, I think it's subjective and depends on your taste. Some guys prefer more on bass and some prefer more on highs. I think it depends of what sound quality or sonics your looking for. If you have the money and can afford to test more trannies that would be great. That will at least give you the option to decide which trannies fit on your taste. :D

Cheers!

Fred
 
Re: Trannies with TDA1541

Praudio said:
Is it possible to use trannies with TDA 1541 ? Get a Curcio with double crown:D need similar trannies or ? it's an other story.

TDA 1541 can be used with transformers but we will need more that 1:1 transformer ratio. Maybe 1:2 to 1:5 should be great. With 1:1 transformer, output signal could be low and noise could be a problem. As this dac is current output, we have to load it correctly with the transformer to do I/V

I plan to try it with an old Arcam Alpha dac.