I need guidance on dac design

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When I said smooth I meant clean and clear, not smooth in the way that you are talking about.
Smooth as in, the opposite of fatiguing. Clean would probably have been a better to word to use but the level anti-fatigue is on another level, it's difficult to describe.
The only goal I have when I build amps is to replicate real life sound, so if it was as you say then I would have not bothered with this design.
 
I keep running into the need to design my own dac PCB and I can't ignore the need anymore. The problem is I don't have any digital design experience or coding experience. I would kill for a one to one with someone that knows what they are doing but I know that isn't going to happen without paying someone so I'm hoping to get some help a bit at a time here.

I want to design an ESS9038 dac that takes I2S input with fixed settings. I don't need the XO on board because I'll be using IAN's fifo for that...at least until I can figure out how to design a fifo, god help me there.

So I just need a basic dac with no XO, only I2S input, and no output stage. Is it as simple as connecting the data lines and connecting an MCU to the dac with some third party software from the internet? How do I get access to the ESS9038 datasheet?
Also what are the pros and cons to using the DAC in regular stereo rather than stereo balanced?

Why the Ess dac? Why not a AD1865? (you can still get hold of these excellent R2R dacs and two can be used balanced using IanCanada's I2S to pcm pcb.
 
The sound all the way to the highest frequencies has this clean, clear, crisp, almost tangible attribute that is indescribable. Like when a violin is playing, I feel like I can reach out and touch it. It just sounds totally real. It wasn't smooth in an unnatural way, I guess the best way to describe it is it is the pure opposite of fatiguing. Not an ounce of fatigue even in the highest pitches and no dirtiness at all with all of the subtleties in tact. Tonality would probably be the next most noticeable thing. The realistism of the tone is crazy. Things like pianos, violins, and vocals are especially impressive..


I would ask what recordings can deliver this described quality? There are not a lot of or? Have you some favorites?
 
Why the Ess dac? Why not a AD1865? (you can still get hold of these excellent R2R dacs and two can be used balanced using IanCanada's I2S to pcm pcb.
Because my proprietary I-V stage is what gives the sound I described.
I also don't want to mess with variables before moving on to further experimentation.

I would ask what recordings can deliver this described quality? There are not a lot of or? Have you some favorites?
The quality is inherent to the design, not recording related.
The entire frequency range is mind bogglingly clean, in fact the higher the frequency the cleaner and clearer and less fatiguing it seems to get.

Even less than ideal recordings have this extreme clarity and realistic timbre for what they are. The timbre part of it is pretty impressive because non-ideal recordings that had unbelievable vocals now have this believable "presence" to them that I think I can only attribute to the timbre.
The "presence" aspect of the sound is possibly one of the most impressive aspects.
Of course better recordings are better. Listening to a good recording is like I'm "there".
I swear if I only had one person helping me that could fill in the holes in my expertise I could conquer the world. It's so frustrating.

Anyway this is as far as I've gotten with my ESS9038 dac design.
Still no datasheet yet but I've noticed that the ESS9038 pinout is the same as the ESS9018 so I began working on the PCB.
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I still need to connect the digital lines and the uC and I've decided to use the ES9311 for simplicity.
I've got one ground plane, and one VDD plane planned but not sure what to do with the last available plane.
I feel like I could get this design finished in a day or two but the digital programming is the part that scares me.
 
Be carefully with ESS!
I wanted to design an ES9016 DAC before some years, and I was suprised:
if you buy an ESS chip, you must sign a statement that you do NOT share any part of the datasheet (this includes design details too)!! If you do so, you are making an illegal activity that can be penalized! My opinion: never ever ESS...:(
For example AKM offers indeed a very good and innovative alternatives I think...
 
Thank You zarandok,
I have this copy since I signed for ES9038PRO and ES9311 datasheets.
English is not my native language and I don't speak or understand well English language.
In near future I would like to share gerber files of my design and this is the reason I asked if we can share gerber files.

Regards Dori
 
I would like to share gerber files of my design and this is the reason I asked if we can share gerber files.
I have read the NDA posted by zarandok. If this is the same document you signed, the answer is "maybe." Assuming that the NDA's broad definition of "Confidential Information" is enforceable, then you could only share your gerber files (by which I assume you mean a graphical representation of the layout of the PCB) under section 2(iv) of the NDA, i.e., that the layout was independently developed by you without any use of ESS's Confidential Information. I don't know what documents you received from ESS after you signed the NDA, but if you didn't use any of ESS's documents to develop your layout, then you can share the gerbers.
You also could ask ESS if it is OK to share.
 
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