ebay:Weiliang Dual X2 AK4399 DAC with LCD

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I have just ordered roe 100uf 40v gold caps which go after the LT085 because on the circuit pcb it says 100uf.
I thought I had these caps missing because all my roe caps are 10uf 10v.
I have noticed on the Internet pictures that people have put the roe 10uf capacitors in the 100uf places.
I have noticed they run in series.
I am not sure which is best use the 100uf capacitors or the 10uf capcitors ?
Would the 100uf capacitors be an upgrade or the 10uf be best.
I have also noticed some of the roe capacitors have wonky labels some say x7 and others say x6 but all are 10v 10uf.
Also the Elna silmic11 on the Elna site are black with silver writing and the writing is written the other way round on the capacitors in gold.
My ones are black with gold writing.
It's just I read something on the Internet about most capacitors coming out of hong kong being fakes.
Also they have sent me LT084 with slightly corroded legs instead of LT085 regulators.
Will these be ok or should I change them to something better?.
 
I would say: lower the heat. Use lots of flux and put some solder on the iron. Then shortly touch the pins of the IC, moving towards the pin ends. When flux has dried, apply again. There are some clips on youtube about soldering SMD with conventional iron. Be very careful and if possible use a lamp with magnifying glass.

Most components on the PCB are NOS. For example the Elna SilmicII, the older ones look differently, black/brown with gold writing. The SilmicII nowadays has matte brown color with silver writing. I don't think they're fake. ROE caps are also NOS. You can experiment with other capacitors, but I think that these NOS caps are picked for a reason, but you can always diy ofcourse.

regards, nino
 
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I would say: lower the heat. Use lots of flux and put some solder on the iron. Then shortly touch the pins of the IC, moving towards the pin ends. When flux has dried, apply again. There are some clips on youtube about soldering SMD with conventional iron. Be very careful and if possible use a lamp with magnifying glass.

Most components on the PCB are NOS. For example the Elna SilmicII, the older ones look differently, black/brown with gold writing. The SilmicII nowadays has matte brown color with silver writing. I don't think they're fake. ROE caps are also NOS. You can experiment with other capacitors, but I think that these NOS caps are picked for a reason, but you can always diy ofcourse.

regards, nino
Thank you for your reply and help I will take a look on YouTube.
I am going to use 2x transformers 15v and 9v at each transformer for the dac pcb.
I am going to use 4 diodes on make a dc circuit followed by two ROE 10000uf 50v 105c FYH low ESR caps.on each 15v output.
Then I am going to use 4 diodes to make dc circuit followed by two rubycon MXR 10000uf 16v capacitors for the 9v supplies.
That's going to give me 8 rubycon capacitors and 8 Roe capacitors to feed the dac pcb.
I was still going to fit the vishay 2200uf 40v capacitors that come with the kit onto the pcb but the diodes will be fitted at my other capacitors next to my transformers.
 
hi, I used the minishow ak4399 dacs. in fact, I'm reboxing them now and I'll post some pics later on once the boxing is closer to complete. I put 2 of them in a 1u rackmount and its working out well. for power, 2 toroids (amveco) give 5v and dual 12. for a while, I used 2 r-cores but then tried a single r-core for 2 boards and that was fine, no overheating or stressing at all. then found the r-core could not fit nicely in a 1u high rackmount so I used some on-hand trafo parts from amveco. with a 1u rack, I can put the 2 boards toward one end and the trafos toward the other. I always like to space those things apart, if I can.

for vol control, still my old trusty arduino cs3318. I'm hoping to be able to make a break-out board for it soon, after some other projects are done. it has been working out well the last year or two and so it has proven itself to me over enough time that I feel confident about that chip and circuit.
 
What is the best temperature to solder surface mount components mainly my AK chips.
Is it best to use a higher temp and solder faster so the heat is on the component for less time or use a lower heat to not damage the component.

it depends on your soldering iron, to some degree (degree, lol, that's a joke, son) ;)

for example, I recently converted to metcal and the 600F tips are more than enough. but the iron is a 'fast' iron (that high freq RF thingie that metcal is proud of) and so even at 600, the heat reacts fast and you don't need a lot. other irons, you might need 700 since you have to 'store' heat there and the heating process won't be as tight or fast-looped.

I recently got a metcal smtc-006 'tip' and that can solder a whole chip at once, in seconds. or effectively unsolder it, same amount of time ;) that's a 600F tip, too.
 
it is pure hardware mode, only, but I don't see what benefit I'd get from software, on this kind of dac, anyway. maybe some filter choice, which I would not care about, anyway.

Yes, this was exactly my hesitation if to take this dual 4399 (just for being DUAL for better SNR) or take a proven single 4399 in HW mode. The volume control is obviously not implemented and I do not like the blue LCD. As I would probably discard the control & LCD anyway and build a new one I tend to the SINGLE one. Your arduino cs3318 volume control is sweet and I am hoping for a breakout board for a long time as I am too fainthearted to solder it myself. If you should have one spare on an 48LQFP>DIL board please give me a note...;-)
 
I could definitely solder up a cs3318 for you, but it would make a lot more sense to use a real board (with local psu, bypassing, etc) than to do what I did. I did that only because I didn't yet have a board but it was a lot of work hand soldering all that.

re: the software dac; I don't think that added SNR is worth anything. remember: audio is not mixed or mastered nearly as well as these dacs are capable of. shaving some db in snr is kind of absurd and really just there to show off on 'specs'. I doubt there is anyone who can audibly tell the diff.
 

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fwiw, here is my current setup using a pair of the ak4399 dac boards. each board is a single ak4399 chip and so I'm not using the software based dual-mono things; just regular 4399 boards sharing a single set of trafos.

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I'm doing the vol control using that silver box with the lcd 'large font' display. that's my DIY cs3318 box and it controls a lot more than just volume.

the reason I'm using a pair of the ak dac boards is that I am running a fully digital crossover system. my source is spdif (always always always) ;) and that goes directly into the spdif-in of the behringer dcx2496 (top fancy box). from there, I split high and low audio into 2 spdif-out streams, using a board I designed and built. it sits inside the dcx box and I have 2 bnc's on the rear that give me spdif-out.

those 2 bnc's go into that middle black box that has the 2 ak dac boards. 2 spdif's go in and 2 stereo pairs of line-out come out ;) there's more than that going on, but that's another thread (selection between phones mode and spkr mode; a bit more complex than you might think).

after the pair-of-dacs box, the line outs go to my multichannel DIY vol control, the lcd red display box. that varies volume in analog domain and gives me up to 4 pairs of line-out. I use 2 pairs, still high/low for my 2-way DIY spkrs. the vol controlled line-outs go to the parasound multichannel amp and each of the 4 amp channels goes to a woofer or tweeter in my 2way cabinets. no passive XO used; just 4 wires going to each cabinet with clean HP or LP signal for each spkr driver.

it did not cost a lot, but its extremely high performance, this whole setup. keeping things pure digital for the XO helps a lot and keeping the HP/LP separate the entire way also helps.
 
Hi kukynas, I also ordered this DAC via eBay 2 weeks ago. It is still underway. I have a plan to try 4 shunt regulators in order to have clean power supply of 5V analog and 5V digital part of DAC. It should make good impact on PLL stability.
I am going to use UTC A20 transformer directly connected to DAC outputs and won't use OPAs because I have these transformers already from other project. Of course I will audition DAC as it is but with AD797 and then will try the described mods. I will report results here.
 
Hi, mine is also on the way together with 2x r-core transformers and case, I will try ADA4627 and LME49710HA OPAs with it, keep me posted about your impression of it especially from untouched version ;)

Do not spent money for 49710 I compared the lm49710 ha metal and the ada4627, the ada4627 is the best it outperform the lm49710 in resolving low frequency and neutrality. I like the lm49710 highest frequency but the ada4627 is in another class. Naturally imho.
Also tried lm49990 in weiliang akm dac, it seems good at first listening but in long session appear not natural as the ada4627.
The cheap ne5534 is not bad if you like a sweet and relaxed sound.
 
thanks for your info, I did already :) , it's always better compare more of them in every project as it might sound different so if it won't be used here I can use it elsewhere ;) , never tried NE5534, how does it handle soundstage and dynamics compare to i.e. those mentioned or OPA627 or AD825 which I got as well?
 
Never tried ad 825. The ne5534 is not very good in dinamic and resolving I prefer the opa627 in this direction ne5534 is more like tubey sound but I repeat in the weiliang akm 4399 dac the best for my tast is the ada4627 it is more energic and tridimentional, with it the Piano rendering are very beatufiful and realistic.
I would speaking more about difference but my english is not stellar.
Ciao
 
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