Any fans of the TDA 1541 USB to RCA DACs?

[ampguy]

I've had some recording projects recently, so in my multi-room Roon setup, have had to remove the audio interfaces being used as DACs with proper stereo usage DACs. This had me reviving one DAC not recently used into service. It's a home made one in plain black metal box purchased off ebay several years ago with TDA 1541 chip with only a USB input. Gets it's power from USB, so only 3 connections L/R RCA out, and USB B in.

Listening to both old and new Wilco through it lately, it's come to be one of my favorite DACs. Curious if anyone else has these? I've given my last CD Player with TDA 1541 to a charity shop as the CD motor part was getting unreliable. Roon has to downsample most of my online library > 44.1 khz, so the status for higher than CD sampled (>16 bits is fine) get s the "green" status rather than purple star (high res) status for the Roon users out there.

If you have one, give it a try. You might be surprised. (Caveat - I am using an A300 SMSL amp with Kef LS-50s. The A300 is in E2 SDB mode)

 

[LTig]

You may read this thread first.

 

[audio_tony]

I've had some recording projects recently, so in my multi-room Roon setup, have had to remove the audio interfaces being used as DACs with proper stereo usage DACs. This had me reviving one DAC not recently used into service. It's a home made one in plain black metal box purchased off ebay several years ago with TDA 1541 chip with only a USB input. Gets it's power from USB, so only 3 connections L/R RCA out, and USB B in.

Listening to both old and new Wilco through it lately, it's come to be one of my favorite DACs. Curious if anyone else has these? I've given my last CD Player with TDA 1541 to a charity shop as the CD motor part was getting unreliable. Roon has to downsample most of my online library > 44.1 khz, so the status for higher than CD sampled (>16 bits is fine) get s the "green" status rather than purple star (high res) status for the Roon users out there.

If you have one, give it a try. You might be surprised. (Caveat - I am using an A300 SMSL amp with Kefl LS-50s. The A300 is in E2 SDB mode)

I built one several years ago, but it had a dedicated PSU and was coax and optical only.

I'm surprised a typical USB port can provide enough power for your DAC as the chipset used by the 1541 is quite power hungry.

 

[ampguy]

I built one several years ago, but it had a dedicated PSU and was coax and optical only.

I'm surprised a typical USB port can provide enough power for your DAC as the chipset used by the 1541 is quite power hungry.

If I end up opening it, I’ll post photos here.

 

[gvl]

There isn't a lack of folklore around the TDA1541 chip sound in the audio community, which almost makes me want to pick one and find out it sounds exactly like my other DACs.

 

[ampguy]

Yeah, it's worth a try. I can hear it, it might be lower res and less transparent than a $99 topping or smsl, but if you have original 80s and 90s music, these are the DAC's the artists/producers/mastering engineers used, and what they heard.

TDA1541A

TDA1541A DAC crown Philips

www.lampizator.eu

 

[sam_adams]

The TDA1541/TDA1541A DAC was very popular in the late 1980es. They can be found in CD players like B&O's BeoGram CDX2, CD3300, CD3500, CD4500, CD5500, CD6500, CD7000, BeoCenter 8000, 8500, 9000, 9300, and 9500; and selected models from Acoustic Research, Arcam, Cambridge Audio, Grundig, Magnavox, McIntosh, Mission, Naim, Rotel, SAE, Sherwood, Tandberg, and Tesla. Legend has it that the chips with two crowns stamped on them were extra special in their sound quality.

 

[gvl]

Yeah, it's worth a try. I can hear it, it might be lower res and less transparent than a $99 topping or smsl, but if you have original 80s and 90s music, these are the DAC's the artists/producers/mastering engineers used, and what they heard.

TDA1541A

TDA1541A DAC crown Philips

www.lampizator.eu

Is it? I was, at least somewhat, sarcastic. I doubt most mastering engineers of the 80s used any DAC chips at all, 90s maybe, but then it wasn't the 1541,

 

[ampguy]

I opened it up, and it is not a TDA-1541, which likely could not be powered by USB power alone, but by 4 socketed TDA-1543s 8 pins, the USB chip is etched over, perhaps it was an early xmos clone or reject. The DAC sounds great, but for this community, I don't think it would be appreciated much.

 

[Mikig]

I had a Marantz CD80 with the TDA1541 for years. Great player, a tank, it's really good sounding. I have great memories of it.

 

[Mikig]

CD80

 

[ampguy]

I donated my last 1541 CD Player a while ago. It was occasionally skipping, and not worth repairing. I thought about grabbing the chip, but cleaning up was more important and urgent, so someone is getting a great sounding CD Player for likely $10 or $20.

 

[audio_tony]

I opened it up, and it is not a TDA-1541, which likely could not be powered by USB power alone, but by 4 socketed TDA-1543s 8 pins, the USB chip is etched over, perhaps it was an early xmos clone or reject. The DAC sounds great, but for this community, I don't think it would be appreciated much.

They didn't even use turned pin IC sockets. How cheap is that!?

 

[ampguy]

They didn't even use turned pin IC sockets. How cheap is that!?

This was likely not meant to be opened for ic rolling. IIRC it was < $30 or so on ebay.

 

[withoutsuit]

This German Youtuber has recently uploaded a video, stating that old DACs from the 80s sound better then current ESS Sabre and AKM Dacs ("90 % of modern DACs sound crap").

When I get it right, he pinpoints that to:

- modern analog output stages / OP-Amps
- Oversampling of delta sigma dacs destroys the original signal

He opens several old (and a new alieexpress based on old philipps dac chips) devices and trys to explain it with that examples. I´m not knowledgable enough to validate the facts.

 

[audio_tony]

This German Youtuber has recently uploaded a video, stating that old DACs from the 80s sound better then current ESS Sabre and AKM Dacs ("90 % of modern DACs sound crap").

When I get it right, he pinpoints that to:

- modern analog output stages / OP-Amps
- Oversampling of delta sigma dacs destroys the original signal

He opens several old (and a new alieexpress based on old philipps dac chips) devices and trys to explain it with that examples. I´m not knowledgable enough to validate the facts.

He's wrong.

Modern analogue output stages (assuming he's referring to the DAC output stages) are broadly similar to a lot of DACs on he market today, many even still using the ubiquitous NE5532 opamp.

All modern DACs (delta sigma types) sound (and measure) better than the TDAxxxx series of chips (my subjective opinion).

The TDA1541 had a 'cult' following a few years ago, and some still believe it's the best sounding DAC (I have a Sony CD player that uses 2x TDA1541, I also have an Arcam Black Box DAC with a single TDA 1541 - neither of which sound better to modern DACs (subjective opinions of course).

The TDA1547 wasn't bad, but still not as good as modern DAC chips.

Not forgetting the various BB chips PCM17xx series etc. none of which match a modern DAC.

All opinions expressed here are my own subjective opinion.