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Bargain DAC Suggestions?

DonH56

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Taking the (+) signal and running it through an inverter to generate the complementary (-) signal is fairly common and one of the schemes I refer to as "quasi-balanced". Since noise is uncorrelated signal doubles but noise goes up by ~sqrt(2) so there is some benefit. Since each amp depends upon the single-ended input the CMRR and PSRR may not be as high as a truly differential design, and there is phase lag through the inverting path relative to the non-inverting path. Hopefully not enough phase shift to matter at audio frequencies.

Routing the ground return for each side of the headphones is not balanced to me; it is simply two independent single-ended runs. Yes, it isolates the signal paths to each side, but does not provide better common-mode rejection etc. Looks like marketing to me.
 

sejarzo

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sejarzo

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That part about using a TRS plug in their TRRS jack still providing a benefit absolutely confounds me, though. Even if the two channels somehow had truly independent grounds, those would end up tied together within a few inches at most from the star point. What am I missing?
 

DonH56

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milokinni

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I'm so eager to see measurements of the Melokin DA9.1 that I signed up. :)Thanks for all the good work!
 
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amirm

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Well, speaking of that :), they extended me a bit of a discount for Melokin DA9.1 but that is it. It still cost a few hundred dollars. Is it a popular device as to merit purchasing it versus a few of other devices at lower cost?

And oh, welcome aboard.
 

milokinni

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Well, speaking of that :), they extended me a bit of a discount for Melokin DA9.1 but that is it. It still cost a few hundred dollars. Is it a popular device as to merit purchasing it versus a few of other devices at lower cost?

And oh, welcome aboard.

From the point of view of a headphone user it seems pretty interesting. Nice functionalities. Maybe not as popular as Schiit products but for a DAC sporting a ESS9038pro chip it seems well made and might be another discovery after Topping. There are some 40 odd watchers of the DAC/amp on eBay, but I don't know if that merits as popular or not...

A good DAC/headphone amp will be of interest to most headphone users, but as of now at headfi it doesn't seem to generate much hype...
 

dwalme

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Well, speaking of that :), they extended me a bit of a discount for Melokin DA9.1 but that is it. It still cost a few hundred dollars. Is it a popular device as to merit purchasing it versus a few of other devices at lower cost?

I know I'd like to see one or two ES9038Pro devices measured. Not sure this is the one, but if it tested well the price is reasonable.

Single ES9038Pro is supposed to perform better than a dual chip ES9028Pro (assuming all else is equal).
 

milokinni

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Amir, I'm not sure if they are confident enough to send a unit to you for review, they seemed to have done so to Soundperfection reviews. If this measures well I'm sure their products will get more attention.
 
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amirm

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OK, I will proceed to order it. I hope you guys spread the word on it when the review comes out. :) I could have bought 10 USB thumb drives for the same price! :D
 
D

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I just registered, but I've been visiting the site for a few weeks.

I had them send me a copy of the Melokin DA9.1 manual https://ufile.io/5miox

I'm close to buying one of these because it's an affordable ESS 9038 Pro implementation that includes a headphone amp with an adjustable output impedance, and allows for disabling some ESS chip features via jumpers. It also has balanced outputs on the PCB that you can break-out. I'm thinking about getting one of these and adding XLR jacks to the side of the case.
 
D

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You do very good performance measurements, which are desperately needed a world full of snake oil, marketing, subjective listening tests, etc.

Ebay has 20% off everything right now. https://pages.ebay.com/promo/2018/0309/7020.html

I bit on the Melokin DA9.1 with the 20% off... hope I don't regret it :)
 
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RayDunzl

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Wow, I wonder how ebay can afford to give away 20%.

By making lots of 80%?


Ok, I bit too... Thanks for the heads-up...

upload_2018-3-9_13-34-20.png
 
D

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Wow, I wonder how ebay can afford to give away 20%.

They usually do ebay bucks promotions near the end of each fiscal quarter to boost their numbers, so maybe they really need to boost them this quarter.
 
D

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Ok, I bit too... Thanks for the heads-up...
View attachment 11208

Hmm, that device looks really neat. I need something like that, but will present to Windows as a 7.1 sound device. Then I could use the HRTF impulse recordings I use with Equalizer APO and do that all in a dedicated device for my 7 channel to 2 channel virtual surround.

Do you know of any such devices?
 

RayDunzl

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