Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

tony sayer wrote:
In article , Serge Auckland
writes
Andy Evans wrote:
What I did when I needed an ADC, is to get a Crystal Semiconductors
evaluation board. They do them also for their DAC chips. This is a
complete ADC or DAC on a board, with DIP switches for setting it up.
All you need is a power supply and a box to put it into. They cost
about
the same as the DAC-AH, but you get the latest chipset.

How do you get such a thing? Knock twice and ask for Crystal?

In your case, what was your receiver chip and what was the DAC chip?
How long ago? Did it sound good? Do tell us more. Andy

The best thing to do is to look up www.crystal.com Find the chip you
want and see if they do an evaluation board. You can download the manual
for the chip and the board, and make sure it's exactly what you need.

Then, find a Crystal Semiconductors distributor in your territory, get a
price and buy one. I bought the CS5335 ADC board about 7 years ago when
I got my Meridian D1500 'speakers as these only have digital inputs, so
I have to convert my analogue sources. The CS5335 is a 20 bit ADC, and I
leave it on 48k sampling, which is fine for my vinyl and FM radio.

As to sound, I compared it with one commercial unit, the Lindos LSC24
A-D/D-A converter and couldn't hear any difference with the sources
available. I also put it back-to-back ( Digital out from CD to LSC24,
analogue out of the LSC24 to Crystal ADC, digital out to 'speakers) with
the LSC24 and sent a digital signal to my 'speakers and again, it was
transparent using a CD as a source. This, to me, means that I wouldn't
be deriving any benefit from something "better".

S.


Any idea of suppliers Serge?...
--
Tony Sayer

A friend built a couple of these and lent them to me.A complete waste
of time I reckon.
Any well executed modern budget CD player would probably sound
better.They sound quite smooth but very two dimensional.

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

wrote:
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Serge Auckland
writes
Andy Evans wrote:
What I did when I needed an ADC, is to get a Crystal Semiconductors
evaluation board. They do them also for their DAC chips. This is a
complete ADC or DAC on a board, with DIP switches for setting it up.
All you need is a power supply and a box to put it into. They cost
about
the same as the DAC-AH, but you get the latest chipset.

How do you get such a thing? Knock twice and ask for Crystal?

In your case, what was your receiver chip and what was the DAC chip?
How long ago? Did it sound good? Do tell us more. Andy

The best thing to do is to look up www.crystal.com Find the chip you
want and see if they do an evaluation board. You can download the manual
for the chip and the board, and make sure it's exactly what you need.

Then, find a Crystal Semiconductors distributor in your territory, get a
price and buy one. I bought the CS5335 ADC board about 7 years ago when
I got my Meridian D1500 'speakers as these only have digital inputs, so
I have to convert my analogue sources. The CS5335 is a 20 bit ADC, and I
leave it on 48k sampling, which is fine for my vinyl and FM radio.

As to sound, I compared it with one commercial unit, the Lindos LSC24
A-D/D-A converter and couldn't hear any difference with the sources
available. I also put it back-to-back ( Digital out from CD to LSC24,
analogue out of the LSC24 to Crystal ADC, digital out to 'speakers) with
the LSC24 and sent a digital signal to my 'speakers and again, it was
transparent using a CD as a source. This, to me, means that I wouldn't
be deriving any benefit from something "better".

S.

Any idea of suppliers Serge?...
--
Tony Sayer

A friend built a couple of these and lent them to me.A complete waste
of time I reckon.
Any well executed modern budget CD player would probably sound
better.They sound quite smooth but very two dimensional.

Any idea what measurable parameters would account for a two-dimensional
sound?

S.

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

Serge Auckland wrote:
wrote:
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Serge Auckland
writes
Andy Evans wrote:
What I did when I needed an ADC, is to get a Crystal Semiconductors
evaluation board. They do them also for their DAC chips. This is a
complete ADC or DAC on a board, with DIP switches for setting it up.
All you need is a power supply and a box to put it into. They cost
about
the same as the DAC-AH, but you get the latest chipset.

How do you get such a thing? Knock twice and ask for Crystal?

In your case, what was your receiver chip and what was the DAC chip?
How long ago? Did it sound good? Do tell us more. Andy

The best thing to do is to look up www.crystal.com Find the chip you
want and see if they do an evaluation board. You can download the manual
for the chip and the board, and make sure it's exactly what you need.

Then, find a Crystal Semiconductors distributor in your territory, get a
price and buy one. I bought the CS5335 ADC board about 7 years ago when
I got my Meridian D1500 'speakers as these only have digital inputs, so
I have to convert my analogue sources. The CS5335 is a 20 bit ADC, and I
leave it on 48k sampling, which is fine for my vinyl and FM radio.

As to sound, I compared it with one commercial unit, the Lindos LSC24
A-D/D-A converter and couldn't hear any difference with the sources
available. I also put it back-to-back ( Digital out from CD to LSC24,
analogue out of the LSC24 to Crystal ADC, digital out to 'speakers) with
the LSC24 and sent a digital signal to my 'speakers and again, it was
transparent using a CD as a source. This, to me, means that I wouldn't
be deriving any benefit from something "better".

S.

Any idea of suppliers Serge?...
--
Tony Sayer

A friend built a couple of these and lent them to me.A complete waste
of time I reckon.
Any well executed modern budget CD player would probably sound
better.They sound quite smooth but very two dimensional.

Any idea what measurable parameters would account for a two-dimensional
sound?

S.

Serge,
My apologies.i was refering to the kits using the phillips 1543 non
oversampling kits .
I have a Pioneer 705 with many modifications including a Crystal
CS43122 chip in place of the original.
If you are interested in the other mods I can give the details.
I am yet to hear a better sounding CD player or DAC.I used to own a
Metaxas MASDAC that cost $5000 which was also very good, but not as
good as this moded Pioneer.
So the CS43122 must be pretty good.

JT

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

wrote:
Serge Auckland wrote:
wrote:
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Serge Auckland
writes
Andy Evans wrote:
What I did when I needed an ADC, is to get a Crystal Semiconductors
evaluation board. They do them also for their DAC chips. This is a
complete ADC or DAC on a board, with DIP switches for setting it up.
All you need is a power supply and a box to put it into. They cost
about
the same as the DAC-AH, but you get the latest chipset.

How do you get such a thing? Knock twice and ask for Crystal?

In your case, what was your receiver chip and what was the DAC chip?
How long ago? Did it sound good? Do tell us more. Andy

The best thing to do is to look up www.crystal.com Find the chip you
want and see if they do an evaluation board. You can download the manual
for the chip and the board, and make sure it's exactly what you need.

Then, find a Crystal Semiconductors distributor in your territory, get a
price and buy one. I bought the CS5335 ADC board about 7 years ago when
I got my Meridian D1500 'speakers as these only have digital inputs, so
I have to convert my analogue sources. The CS5335 is a 20 bit ADC, and I
leave it on 48k sampling, which is fine for my vinyl and FM radio.

As to sound, I compared it with one commercial unit, the Lindos LSC24
A-D/D-A converter and couldn't hear any difference with the sources
available. I also put it back-to-back ( Digital out from CD to LSC24,
analogue out of the LSC24 to Crystal ADC, digital out to 'speakers) with
the LSC24 and sent a digital signal to my 'speakers and again, it was
transparent using a CD as a source. This, to me, means that I wouldn't
be deriving any benefit from something "better".

S.

Any idea of suppliers Serge?...
--
Tony Sayer
A friend built a couple of these and lent them to me.A complete waste
of time I reckon.
Any well executed modern budget CD player would probably sound
better.They sound quite smooth but very two dimensional.

Any idea what measurable parameters would account for a two-dimensional
sound?

S.

Serge,
My apologies.i was refering to the kits using the phillips 1543 non
oversampling kits .
I have a Pioneer 705 with many modifications including a Crystal
CS43122 chip in place of the original.
If you are interested in the other mods I can give the details.
I am yet to hear a better sounding CD player or DAC.I used to own a
Metaxas MASDAC that cost $5000 which was also very good, but not as
good as this moded Pioneer.
So the CS43122 must be pretty good.

JT


Some years ago, the company I was working for was developing high-end
studio AD&DA converters. The electronic design wasn't too difficult, but
the PC board layout was hyper-critical if the circuits were to be
totally stable. The great benefit of using Crystal's evaluation boards
was that the layout is optimised, so you know what you're measuring and
listening to is the best that chipset can do. When you have your own
boards made, you can compare them with the Crystal reference to make
sure that nothing has been degraded. That's what gave me the idea of
using an evaluation board when I needed an ADC as I had confidence that
the design was optimised.

At the time, the AKM D-A chips had a better spec than the equivalent
Crystal D-As but it was the other way round for A-Ds. I would expect
that today they would be so close as to be indistinguishable.

S.

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

Serge Auckland wrote:
At the time, the AKM D-A chips had a better spec than the equivalent
Crystal D-As

Did you try the Wolfson chips?

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

Andy Evans wrote:
Serge Auckland wrote:
At the time, the AKM D-A chips had a better spec than the equivalent
Crystal D-As

Did you try the Wolfson chips?

No, at the time we didn't know about them.

S.

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

On 2006-07-08, Andy Evans wrote:

Serge Auckland wrote:
At the time, the AKM D-A chips had a better spec than the equivalent
Crystal D-As

Did you try the Wolfson chips?

The Wolfson WM8740 (which is now a few years old and getting on a bit
for a DAC) is technically a great looking device although I have only
ever listened to it as a part of several Arcam CD payers. See the Wolfson
DAC list at http://www.wolfson.co.uk/products/digital_audio/dacs/.

A 24-bit capable device it seems to get about 18 to 19 bits of real
performance which is more than enough for a "perfect" CD-DA DAC.

I can echo the advice to get hold of an evaluation board for DIY DAC
experiments. That saves a great deal of effort getting the PCB layout
right for a 117 dB SNR.

--
John Phillips

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

On 2006-07-08, Andy Evans wrote:
Thanks, Serge. Looks like Crystal style the CS4398 as their 'flagship'
DAC (though I know at least one designer who prefers the CS4397). there
does seem to be an evaluation board. These references may help:

I believe I have a CS4396 in my Quad 99 CD-P and to my ears it comes
out fine. It's a 1999 design and the 2003 CS4398 has a few dB better
THD+N (and DSD input and an integrated volume control IIRC) but I suspect
we have reached the point where DAC performance can (if carefully
chosen and designed) be considered technically perfect for CD audio.
Performance may well now be dominated by what's used around the DAC chip
and how well it is laid out on the PCB.

However I would not normally use a non-upsampling DAC today (as per the
original list). Upsampling makes the reconstruction filter far simpler
and it is easier to avoid excessive phase angles in the audio band.
I am not sure about the audibility of phase lag at high audio frequencies
but I would try and avoid it on principle.

Also I would consider using an asynchronous upsampler chip in front of
the DAC chip in a stand-alone DAC. This would allow me (in theory -
I have not actually done a design) to keep a clean master clock close
to the DAC, rather than design a multi-stage PLL to derive a low jitter
DAC chip clock from a jittery SPDIF input.

--
John Phillips

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

"Andy Evans" wrote in
message
oups.com

Arny - what's the best currently available chipset?

Probably typified by the AKM 4394 or 4395, or Crystal CS4398 .

What would you suggest building?

Nothing - there's plenty of reasonably-priced off-the-shelf equipment that
gets the job done brilliantly.

The hidden agenda in building DACs is the fact that they are what is known
as "mixed-signal" equipment. Mixed- signal equipment can be and often is
highly dependent on non-obvious features like circuit card trace layout and
chassis design.

Just *not* the thing that amateurs should try their hand at unless they have
good facilities for evaluating the performance of finished products, and
lots of time to invest in the project. Note that almost none of the online
construction projects include complete technical test results on the
finished projects.

Anybody built a DAC kit?
 

"John Phillips" wrote
in message
On 2006-07-08, Andy Evans
wrote:

Serge Auckland wrote:
At the time, the AKM D-A chips had a better spec than
the equivalent Crystal D-As

Did you try the Wolfson chips?

The Wolfson WM8740 (which is now a few years old and
getting on a bit
for a DAC) is technically a great looking device although
I have only ever listened to it as a part of several
Arcam CD payers. See the Wolfson DAC list at
http://www.wolfson.co.uk/products/digital_audio/dacs/.

A 24-bit capable device it seems to get about 18 to 19
bits of real performance which is more than enough for a
"perfect" CD-DA DAC.

I can echo the advice to get hold of an evaluation board
for DIY DAC experiments. That saves a great deal of
effort getting the PCB layout right for a 117 dB SNR.

Notwithstanding UK charuvinism, Wolfon's best is outperformed by products
from AKM and Cirrus.