GALA DAC - New Product, Coming Soon

[orchardaudio]

@orchardaudio, is there a way to completely bypass the SRC4193 when not using the volume control?

Yes, but you would need to do some soldering and white wires. I would be able to tell you how.

 

[pos]

SMD soldering? I am not up to the task
Having the option to bypass it with a jumper would be nice.
I would be curious to see the impact on the measurements too: I have a feeling that this chip might not be as innocuous as it seems, even when not asked to do rate conversion.

 

[watchnerd]

Where are the network inputs?

It's 2018...Raspberry Pis have networking built-in....

Why is this gimped?

 

[pos]

@watchnerd, IMO spidf/AES3 is the right input interface for a future proof product, much more so than USB or any current audio networking protocol (especially in the consumer realm...)

You can use a cheap USB to spidf adapter to connect it to a computer, or a Dante AVIO AES3 interface to make it AES67 compliant (and then you could even power the DAC with PoE as it is a 12V device).

 

[watchnerd]

@watchnerd, IMO spidf/AES3 is the right input interface for a future proof product, much more so than USB or any current audio networking protocol (especially in the consumer realm...)

You can use a cheap USB to spidf adapter to connect it to a computer, or a Dante AVIO AES3 interface to make it AES67 compliant (and then you could even power the DAC with PoE as it is a 12V device).

I don't mean audio networking protocol.

Just regular TCP/IP over wifi or ethernet.

 

[pos]

@watchnerd, so you mean a streamer?
Those things are even shorter-lived than a USB/firewire/thunderbolt DAC

 

[watchnerd]

@watchnerd, so you mean a streamer?
Those things are even shorter-lived than a USB/firewire/thunderbolt DAC

Short lived in what way?

My $99 Roon bridge running on a Raspberry Pi has been running without failure for probably about 2 years now.

 

[orchardaudio]

My $99 Roon bridge running on a Raspberry Pi has been running without failure for probably about 2 years now.

You can make a high performance room bridge with the ApplePi DAC. I have multiple customers who have done this, and been very happy with it.

I am waiting for Amir to finish his testing of the ApplePi DAC with the balanced output and also ApplePi Volume-Clocker.

We are drifting from this topic, if you have any questions on that please post in the ApplePi DAC section.

 

[pos]

Did you send a new unit to Amir for testing?
I'd be curious to see if bypassing the SRC4193 chip makes a difference...

 

[rajapruk]

SRC4193, is that for volume control?

(I do not need volume control in the dac)

 

[orchardaudio]

Did you send a new unit to Amir for testing?
I'd be curious to see if bypassing the SRC4193 chip makes a difference...

I have not received Amir's unit back, when I get it back I will repair it. And then I will test it before sending back to him. This will most likely not happen until early November because I'm not able to get an audio analyzer before October 29th.

I have done the testing with and without the 4193 on a different PCM1794A implementation, and there was no difference. On this design it is not a trivial matter to bypass the 4193, but it should not cause any degradation to the audio.

I already know for a fact that Amir's unit has wrong power supply voltage.

 

[orchardaudio]

SRC4193, is that for volume control?

Yes for volume control.

 

[rajapruk]

If that volume control might affect performance, I also vote for a jumper setting to be able to disable it.
Is it too late for pcb changes like that now?

 

[orchardaudio]

If that volume control might affect performance, I also vote for a jumper setting to be able to disable it.
Is it too late for pcb changes like that now?

Per my previous post, the volume control will not affect perfermance.

 

[pos]

Are you sure the ASRC part of that chip can be completely avoided?
Is it explicitly stated as bit perfect when used with no volume attenuation in your configuration?

 

[orchardaudio]

Are you sure the ASRC part of that chip can be completely avoided?
Is it explicitly stated as bit perfect when used with no volume attenuation in your configuration?

The device is configured to output the same sampling frequency as it is given.

Audio performance is not affected, if anything it is improved because the 4193 also decreases jitter from input to output.

 

[pos]

So that would mean the ASRC is still operating, even with the same target sampling frequency, right?

 

[rajapruk]

pos, is it noise or distortion an SOTA implemented ASRC typically adds? Or both?
I remember you prefered your next dac to have ASRC some time ago, referring to Benchmark Dac3. Have you changed your mind about this?

 

[orchardaudio]

So that would mean the ASRC is still operating, even with the same target sampling frequency, right?

The datasheet does not explicitly state what exactly the device is doing in this configuration.

 

[rajapruk]

The datasheet describes how ASRC bypass is enabled, with pin 9.
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/src4192.pdf