I kept my styroflex as they seem to be the most transparent. I have forget what the returns was all about 
Sorry, cant help you with your 0,1 ohm :-D
After measurements had been presented I did the mods mainly to get any poles out of the audio band - I didn't care for the varying output impedance of the DC source. Then I got rid of a ceramic placed parallel on the output as I believe that a cap does effect things in both its pass- and stopband. Ceramics as decoupling for HF is OK - even necessary as other type caps just don't do the job up there.
As I discuss this I feel an urge to do something to my two 1121 - more cap on vref and clock + get the some styroflex in there.
Did you try to put some damping goop ontop of the SI- clock? I have found these boards to be quite sensitive to mechanical vibration.
//
Sorry, cant help you with your 0,1 ohm :-DAfter measurements had been presented I did the mods mainly to get any poles out of the audio band - I didn't care for the varying output impedance of the DC source. Then I got rid of a ceramic placed parallel on the output as I believe that a cap does effect things in both its pass- and stopband. Ceramics as decoupling for HF is OK - even necessary as other type caps just don't do the job up there.
As I discuss this I feel an urge to do something to my two 1121 - more cap on vref and clock + get the some styroflex in there.
Did you try to put some damping goop ontop of the SI- clock? I have found these boards to be quite sensitive to mechanical vibration.
//
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In the past few days I've spent more time than I had planned for to learn more about our dam dac. The sound of the dac I really enjoy. And if you haven't tried already I recommend that you use it on a virtual surround input, e.g. Window's Dolby Atmos with DTS soundtracks. The clarity of details, precision of imaging, realism of sound, overall spaciousness and dynamic reproduce the physical surroundings as well as the intended emotions supported by the finest of movements and nuances in voice of the characters, are simply wonderful. This is certainly aided by the fact that the newer soundtracks are very well mastered, and that the small signals the virtual surround algorithm relies on to recreate the spatial information are perhaps a strength of the dam dac. But the experience from the inside is simply transformed. I would not call myself a movie-lover though I've seen quite some movies, many of them quite a few times; I've even sworn off movies in the past because most of them seem a waste of time more than anything else. But the experience is simply taken to the next level, and far beyond what I remembered the loud and distorted movie theatre audio to be capable of. I believe it is perhaps worth a minute to mention because as much as I love music which is the primary purpose of the system, the impression of audio quality from music is just not as immediate as this is. It is perhaps less about the suitability of dam dac as a music playback system than about what I and maybe some others look for in our music - it is simply not as emotional and straightforward. This is especially true for me as my critical listening skills are still far from satisfactory.
There's no need to repeat all the positive qualities that might make some of us feel that we made a good decision on this purchase and spending time on this personal project, though others might find it even less relevant as it is the DIY process itself that pleases and makes it all seem worthwhile. However, I have to admit that my current dam1021 setup still lacks clarity in the bass and perhaps extends to the lower-mid regions. I still believe that the move to add the capacitors to stock rev.4 made the music much more natural and dynamic, but there is something to be desired. Were it the case that this sound is all dam1021 has to offer (with my current cans), I would happily walk away from this thread and use the dam dac in all my musical enjoyments. But as our confusions and hesitations have all suggested to us through intuition, this may not be the end of the project for some of us; there may still be something to be done. As I mentioned in an earlier post to Soren, the last article on moredamfilters by Paul contains evidence from our best theory-based simulations that perhaps the value of the series resistor could be impactful, and Paul also offered speculations on how it might explain bambadoo's observation that his dam dac with 4*1000uF per rail added and factory modded to be consistent with all newer revisions sound woolly or overly bassy. To the best of my current knowledge after spending countless hours reading, searching posts, and catching up on some basic theory, I believe this might well be the last mod that many of us would intend to perform on the system. And all we need, I believe, is some simple simulation results on very well-defined modifications to guide our experiments and narrow down our search space to reasonable sizes.
What is it that makes many of us DIYers and not just audiophiles? More than a handiness with soldering irons or the confidence to install exotic components, is the power to improve what we hear and in turn what we can make of it through deep modifications to our audio system. There is also certainly for many of us a pride in assembling and sometimes designing how the parts in our system fit together and how everything looks. But this is far less special than our unique agency in determining how good our system can sound. It is not the adjectives and seeming perfection and sophistication in appearances that drive us. It is the numbers, it is the models, it is the simulations that guide our choices and turn us to the soldering stations. It does not make us DIYers being able to drop in a lightbulb anywhere because someone told us it would sound more musical - that is no different from any other audiophile whose self-esteem rests on the purported clarity and dynamics of a new exotic USB cable purchase. We read the theories to the best of our personal levels of expertise, and if the claims seem to suggest a cleaner power, less jitter or a faster signal, and if we find the modifications to be justifiable to ourselves in cost based on our unique circumstances, it is then, and only then that we take out our soldering irons with the hope that we can hear an audible difference afterwards. Of course, sometimes the theoretical justifications we believe in turn out to be incomplete or simply false, and sometimes the improvement just isn't audible. We do our best to avoid these, but are also quite capable of having a good laugh at our mistakes and moving on.
For those of us still looking to mod our dam dacs, our individual justifications are almost certainly different. But what is important to all of us is the evidence that suggests there could be not only a couple of theoretical improvements we can easily make, but also ones that are clearly audible. With this we are differentiated from those who have concluded that their dam dac has sounded as best it could, or that is no longer worthy of attention altogether. I hope that in the following days, weeks, or months, we can all obtain the knowledge of what the best mod is, and then as DIYers, we each find out for ourselves whether the mod is really perceptible and worthwhile. Regardless of the outcome, I wish us all good luck in getting to know what mod is truly best for each of us and keep the dam dac singing!
There's no need to repeat all the positive qualities that might make some of us feel that we made a good decision on this purchase and spending time on this personal project, though others might find it even less relevant as it is the DIY process itself that pleases and makes it all seem worthwhile. However, I have to admit that my current dam1021 setup still lacks clarity in the bass and perhaps extends to the lower-mid regions. I still believe that the move to add the capacitors to stock rev.4 made the music much more natural and dynamic, but there is something to be desired. Were it the case that this sound is all dam1021 has to offer (with my current cans), I would happily walk away from this thread and use the dam dac in all my musical enjoyments. But as our confusions and hesitations have all suggested to us through intuition, this may not be the end of the project for some of us; there may still be something to be done. As I mentioned in an earlier post to Soren, the last article on moredamfilters by Paul contains evidence from our best theory-based simulations that perhaps the value of the series resistor could be impactful, and Paul also offered speculations on how it might explain bambadoo's observation that his dam dac with 4*1000uF per rail added and factory modded to be consistent with all newer revisions sound woolly or overly bassy. To the best of my current knowledge after spending countless hours reading, searching posts, and catching up on some basic theory, I believe this might well be the last mod that many of us would intend to perform on the system. And all we need, I believe, is some simple simulation results on very well-defined modifications to guide our experiments and narrow down our search space to reasonable sizes.
What is it that makes many of us DIYers and not just audiophiles? More than a handiness with soldering irons or the confidence to install exotic components, is the power to improve what we hear and in turn what we can make of it through deep modifications to our audio system. There is also certainly for many of us a pride in assembling and sometimes designing how the parts in our system fit together and how everything looks. But this is far less special than our unique agency in determining how good our system can sound. It is not the adjectives and seeming perfection and sophistication in appearances that drive us. It is the numbers, it is the models, it is the simulations that guide our choices and turn us to the soldering stations. It does not make us DIYers being able to drop in a lightbulb anywhere because someone told us it would sound more musical - that is no different from any other audiophile whose self-esteem rests on the purported clarity and dynamics of a new exotic USB cable purchase. We read the theories to the best of our personal levels of expertise, and if the claims seem to suggest a cleaner power, less jitter or a faster signal, and if we find the modifications to be justifiable to ourselves in cost based on our unique circumstances, it is then, and only then that we take out our soldering irons with the hope that we can hear an audible difference afterwards. Of course, sometimes the theoretical justifications we believe in turn out to be incomplete or simply false, and sometimes the improvement just isn't audible. We do our best to avoid these, but are also quite capable of having a good laugh at our mistakes and moving on.
For those of us still looking to mod our dam dacs, our individual justifications are almost certainly different. But what is important to all of us is the evidence that suggests there could be not only a couple of theoretical improvements we can easily make, but also ones that are clearly audible. With this we are differentiated from those who have concluded that their dam dac has sounded as best it could, or that is no longer worthy of attention altogether. I hope that in the following days, weeks, or months, we can all obtain the knowledge of what the best mod is, and then as DIYers, we each find out for ourselves whether the mod is really perceptible and worthwhile. Regardless of the outcome, I wish us all good luck in getting to know what mod is truly best for each of us and keep the dam dac singing!
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I kept my styroflex as they seem to be the most transparent. I have forget what the returns was all about
After measurements had been presented I did the mods mainly to get any poles out of the audio band - I didn't care for the varying output impedance of the DC source. Then I got rid of a ceramic placed parallel on the output as I believe that a cap does also effect things in its passband. Ceramics as decoupling for HF is OK - even necessary as other type caps just don't do the job up there.
As I discuss this I feel an urge to do something to my two 1121 - more cap on vref and clock + get the some styroflex in there.
Did you try to put some damping goop ontop of the SI- clock? I have found these boards to be quite sensitive to mechanical vibration.
//
Hmmm maybe the caps could help with the clarity of my system, not that I know it to be faulty. In all likelihood I think once I get a pair of HD800 all the little dissatisfactions I have now would turn into merits. Still I'm curious how the caps affect things in passband, and of course which one might sound/measure better than a ceramic - doesn't sound impossible at all. Something to do maybe in the near future.
I think we should wait for some simulation results if possible. More caps definitely help but it seems the circuitry is more complex and performance is not just linear with capacitance. E.g. no factory mod + 1000uF per rail might be almost the same as larger capacitance, whereas factory mod + low-res mod could benefit from caps up to 4800uF per rail, and if you adjust the remote sensing resistor, Paul predicted you can do even better with 10000uF per rail but that's about it. I think 1121 probably has the same vref circuits as 1021 minus differences in vref caps. But without word from Soren I'm not sure if we can say.
Have not tried putting goo on my board... In general I don't think the implementation is highly jitter dependent. I don't doubt there will be a measurement difference. But the current evidence seems to be that you can't hear it maybe because the R2R is more jitter resistant and/or the FPGA has already made things beyond salvageable with some goo?.... Open to suggestions though!
I think I am much more likely to identify with DIY especially because my listening skill just isn't enough in my opinion to drive decisions in many conceivable situations. Perhaps if sweetness in sound is all that one looks for things would be somewhat easier. But I have no complaints
Cheers!
I think the SILab guy will be quite disappointed to find that we learned from the video why we should worry about the SI514/570 negatively affected by vibration rather than not. I think it was a very good presentation btw
The noise does seem relatively small though to be honest....20 db in the worst offset frequenciesIt also occurred to me that you were thinking about a speaker system... It is highly unlikely that my SI514 will dance to my cans no matter how bad the leakage... If there's something else I'll be happy to try the mod when I get the chance. But I'm not sure if lower noise is something easily heard without A/B?...
Can't really feel it... But it's getting really late here so it's hard to feel anything lol
Btw, what if we crowdfund Soren to prototype a linear compensator for the ladders, something like a calibrator that can either be factory-based or sold. Probably consists of a good ADC, a test suite and software, plus FPGA support. I personally would be really curious to find out how much better we can get, even just in the THD numbers, but definitely also in the sound. Note Denafrips get 0.0008% THD+n in their AP measurement. Even if they cheated by keeping the ladders at 25C it's still an accomplishment. I know I wouldn't mind spending some small sums of money to support Soren in his efforts
I read with interests again this thread... ynmichael deceided to go deep into dam research again.
I can*t say much about al this mods again because it was long time ago, i tried but sound was not in the right way so i keep on modifying the dac. I used transistor mod and silmic capacitors plus 47uf x7r on each smd register supply, because FP polymers were too harsh for my ear. ok bass was improved but all drums had similar tone note all music has some plastic sounden note. Therefore i am interest in dc software mod result.
New soft filter quazi NOS is strange as i described in post 7702 so i swich back to minimum filter.
I wrote ... it is not a hardware problem in that way because i did huge number of modifications and spent a lot of time trying to change caps and regulators in every single point ...they were differences, but dac don*t want to open their wings and play full, large open 3d stage with for my ears right timbre... so i wrote the last reason could be sofware limitation...and i think it is. We read how muuuch problems were in software...to bring the dac to level that had no playing problems.
To sing right ...is another thing that Soren don*t have time to play with. He has other things to do, music is not his n*1 passion and he don*t care how dac plays. It works, measure ok and that is enough, for that price ...Fair.
That is how i see the whole picture ...
I can*t say much about al this mods again because it was long time ago, i tried but sound was not in the right way so i keep on modifying the dac. I used transistor mod and silmic capacitors plus 47uf x7r on each smd register supply, because FP polymers were too harsh for my ear. ok bass was improved but all drums had similar tone note all music has some plastic sounden note. Therefore i am interest in dc software mod result.
New soft filter quazi NOS is strange as i described in post 7702 so i swich back to minimum filter.
I wrote ... it is not a hardware problem in that way because i did huge number of modifications and spent a lot of time trying to change caps and regulators in every single point ...they were differences, but dac don*t want to open their wings and play full, large open 3d stage with for my ears right timbre... so i wrote the last reason could be sofware limitation...and i think it is. We read how muuuch problems were in software...to bring the dac to level that had no playing problems.
To sing right ...is another thing that Soren don*t have time to play with. He has other things to do, music is not his n*1 passion and he don*t care how dac plays. It works, measure ok and that is enough, for that price ...Fair.
That is how i see the whole picture ...
4K linear. But I agree with living sounds observation on soft filter, only it really is soft enough already to my ears so I’m not changing filters for now.
glad you found this potentially interesting again. I personally don’t have the expertise to lead the research and I was hoping that Soren could share with us his original simulation results. For vref I think theory matters quite a bit