Suitable Ebay dac for LL1690 output
I already got a pair of LL1690 output trafos. And I have been looking into what DAC-board to buy and replace the output opamps with my Lundahls.
im not interested in the latest DAC chip but a very good sounding one that can drive LL1690 directry.
I have looked into several threds about this but struggle to find a good pic right now. Please help me.
BTW i will use it in my (self build) rigg with tube preamp and amp driving horns.
Regards Kalle G
I already got a pair of LL1690 output trafos. And I have been looking into what DAC-board to buy and replace the output opamps with my Lundahls.
im not interested in the latest DAC chip but a very good sounding one that can drive LL1690 directry.
I have looked into several threds about this but struggle to find a good pic right now. Please help me.
BTW i will use it in my (self build) rigg with tube preamp and amp driving horns.
Regards Kalle G
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Kind of busy now with other things. If you want to come over to ES9038Q2M board thread, we are working on an output stage there. A transformer could be connected across the outputs of the I/V opamps. Or, there is a way to use resistors for I/V conversion. http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/314935-es9038q2m-board-251.html#post5535148
I am in the process of making three dac boards to use with my transformers (Sowter 9545 - designed for balanced dac use)
dual Tda1541, dual AD1865, quad AD1862. All have current output, of +/-1ma for the AD dacs and 4ma for the 1541.
So I would think that any of these old school dacs would work well and probably sound better than the latest dacs. But I assuming your LL1690s will work with a ma or two.
I will have some spare 1865 and 1862 boards (bare) if you want to build your own dac.
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I'm not starting a debate on which is best apart to say that I did buy an ESS9023 dac board off Ebay and compared it to my Nos Tda1541 with transformer I/V.
I was not impressed by the ESS at all, and liken the difference to that between a 4K UHD led tv and a 4K UHD Oled tv. The led version is like viewing a scene on a PC or laptop screen and the oled, like looking through a window at the scene. The specs were similar but it takes a viewing to see the massive difference.
I also would not regard a consumer Dac such as from CS as providing anything approaching audiophile sound quality. Its easy to be seduced by the specs...
If using any kind of ES9038, it will probably sound best if using an AK4137 board to upsample all content to 11.2MHz DSD. Also, the Chinese dac boards always cut corners on power supplies (including for AVCC), clocks, output stages, and firmware, so please be aware that for best SQ a modern dac should be able to produce, if starting with a Chinese dac board, you might need to perform some mods to get to best SQ. Things like that may be the biggest reason people think the very latest dacs don't sound as good as some much older ones. Even many non-Chinese implementations are not done with very good quality parts or design. Doing it right can get costly, and most dacs are built to a price point. Many of them only use chips with the letters and numbers, ES9038PRO, in order to help sell more product to unwary consumers, rather than to provide the best sound quality the dac chip is capable of. If you would like to know more about modding ESS dacs to improve SQ, the ES9038Q2M Board thread goes into great detail on that. In addition, if you were to decide to connect the transformers at the outputs of I/V stages, then an ES9038Q2M board might work fine for you. The only reason for using ES9038PRO in most cases is so that resistors can be used for I/V conversion instead of opamp. But opamps can work very well if the circuit it properly designed they can be biased to operate in class A, so distortion is always at a minimum. Besides, there is always some kind of amplification after transformer outputs anyway, so it shouldn't necessarily hurt if little bit of that is before the transformer instead. I think it makes sense if you think about and look into it.
EDIT: Also, unfortunately the Chinese dac board manufacturers often straight out lie about specs. They often quote the best specs a dac chip is capable of in an ideal, near-perfect implementation, not in the board being sold.
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