AAK Blackbird Multi-Channel ES9018 DAC Group Buy

[micfre]

Al, is there anything you're doing that will reduce modularity or ability to swap out the MiniDSP in the future, in favor of a better USB receiver? (Ie, no hardwiring of Jens' board to the DAC or component changes on the DAC?)

 

[AAK]

Hi Mike,

Don't worry, there's no hard wiring on the DAC side or component changes. I hard wired just one end of the I2S input cable to the V2A board. To disconnect it from the DAC you just have to unplug it.

Best regards,

Al

 

[AAK]

Hi Everybody,

I wired the V2A board to one of the DACs and it works. The ES9018 lock is know solid at all the supported sample rates up to 192KHz. I'll finish wiring the V2A to the remaining two DACs during the week and than after some reliability testing they should be ready to ship. I'll provide and update later in the week.

If anybody has any questions please let me know.

Best Regards,

Al

 

[baMarek]

I received the multichannel DAC a few days ago and I can only praise Al's work. I'm going to work on my own output stage but even playing directly from the chip the sound quality is very good. Well done mate, and big thanks!

I have a small problem with the lock and I wonder if any of you have experienced similar things as I am not sure if it is DAC or PC related. Basically I have no lock for the first second after hitting play. You can see on the pcb that the lock diode goes off and also the screen shows no input. After about a second everything goes back to normal. I also noticed that everything is fine if the new signal (e.g. new song played) is delivered within 10 seconds after the signal is stopped which I think coincides with the DAC's "autosave" functionality. After 10 seconds without input signal the problem comes back and the lock is lost for about a second when the signal is delivered next. Any ideas?

FYI, I have tried 2 different laptops, and 2 different USB cables. Same behavior.

 

[Baffless]

Respect AKK to what you do and how you do! Have you considered this XMOS Multichannel high-quality USB to/from I2S/DSD SPDIF PCB - DIYINHK for usb to i2s solution. People say this thing doesn't have locking issues as amanero has.

 

[diyaudnut]

Have wanted to post some pictures, but day job has been very hectic lately.

Here are some pictures. Al's work on the boards, the quality of the finish is simply excellent.

The DAC itself sounds very clean and neutral, though there seem to be some issues in rest of my audio chain.

I have had occasional lock dropouts, but hard to pin point if its a SW issue or hw.

 

[baMarek]

Have wanted to post some pictures, but day job has been very hectic lately.

Here are some pictures. Al's work on the boards, the quality of the finish is simply excellent.

The DAC itself sounds very clean and neutral, though there seem to be some issues in rest of my audio chain.

I have had occasional lock dropouts, but hard to pin point if its a SW issue or hw.

Looks good!
Are you using a custom USB to I2S board?

 

[diyaudnut]

Looks good!
Are you using a custom USB to I2S board?

Its an ExaU2I.

 

[baMarek]

I spent a few hours today trying to find out what is causing the strange lock problems and I managed to identify that in my case the biggest cause of lock issues at the start of each song was my USB cable. I used my custom made 10cm long cable and there are no problems anymore. I need to stress that even a very well shielded 1m cable was no better than a standard printer cable of the same length.
While playing around I used a power bank battery as a PSU for my 5V PC. Strangely I had massive lock issues and this PSU was just not good enough for the computer to operate at its peak and it must have introduced latency that usbstreamer didn't like.

 

[diyaudnut]

Have my multichannel unit for sale.
from PC based DSP, I am moving to a standalone DSP unit.

ES9018 Multichannel USB DAC