Help choosing right integrated amplifier for Snell Type C/V

[edoardoz]

Ok, you are a computer programmer and mention yourself you can use Camilla DSP for free, to create audio processing pipelines for applications such as active crossovers or room correction. Then you already know what ZolaIII mentioned that I asked him to elaborate on.

Ok, I'm a computer programmer but as I said I'm new in this field, I've never used CamillaDSP as I don't have the Protodac in my hand yet. I think I will take some time to think about all the information you have given me before making a choice. I'll get back to you as soon as I understand better what to do. For now I thank everyone for your kindness!

EDIT:

yesterday I met the old who sold the ECI-1, he had a very elaborate system, not having been able to make a comparison with another amplifier it is very difficult to give a verdict. What I know for sure is that the he is 80 years old, he is an enthusiast, the amplifier is perfect both aesthetically and in practice, it was revised 3 years ago. I turned the volume up to maximum to hear noise, I didn't hear any, except something almost imperceptible. It didn't heat up as I expected, much, much less. I told him I would think about it. As I said, I want to study all the information received better and understand it a little more.

 

[Blumlein 88]

@Blumlein 88 As I'm new in this field, I don't know if you are right or not, because I've absolutely not idea without a proper knowledge about DACs.
But, what I can tell if about what that FB group said te me about DACS: you can build DIY something that is better than commercial solution, because:

- you can choose chip, in this case you try to replicate TDA1541 without using the same amount of discrete components because you are using 8 x TDA1387 in parallel: this will reduce the distorsion rate of the conversion.
- you can choose a reclock that is way better than in commercial solution, like Ian Canada reclokers to reduce jitter
- you can choose best quality components, that are few, like condensers and resistors, hand crafted resistors by Charcroft, that will clean and purify interferences and distorsions
- you can choose to separate power supply (galvanic isolation)
- you can choose the power supply
- you can use Camilla DSP for free, to create audio processing pipelines for applications such as active crossovers or room correction
- you can modify settings in Raspberry, as you have the full control of the software like Moode or Volumio, and a lot of settings

So, you have something in hand that you can modify to accomplish everything you have in mind, and you can build something that can getting better and better.

smsl-d-6-dac is really good, as based on ak4493, that peoples in FB pages said that is one of the best that thay have testes, along with ESS9038Q2M and CS43198.
But when they tried TDA1387 they replaced all of those dacs and used it as reference dac, because sounds better.
In general, I heard that delta sigma is more modern design but r2r have more vintage/old style sound so a lot of people prefer it

What I've learned in this forum is that you should test to know which dac is better. So, I don't see the test for Protodac, until proven otherwise we cannot say whether it is actually better or worse than what you say. I don't understand how you can affirm with scientific certainty that this is so.

I'm a computer programmer, the only way that I know if my software is working are called unit testing and functional testing.

Unit testing is test each components separately, if every components works properly I've more chance that my software will work.

So, using this logic, I assume that to understand is one chip is better than another one I need to test it to prove that the conversion is better, I can't find such test, so I can't have any prove.

Well I could approach this a few ways. Let me start with this.

8th generation ADC/DAC loop vs the original.....can you hear it?

Download this zip file. It will unzip into a folder with three 30 second snippets of a Fiona Apple song. Two are the original digital file. One is an 8th generation loop thru DAC/ADC. Pick the odd file out on the poll...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Listen and choose the 8th generation digital copy.

Each of these zip files will open into three wav files. One is labeled Reference, one is A and one is B. These are 30 second snippets of full songs. The originals were from CD so all 44.1 khz and 16 bit. Either A or B has been thru 8 generations of DA to AD copying. The other is identical...

www.audiosciencereview.com

You can listen for yourself. See if you can hear differences. I took a digital music file, played it thru a DAC, sent the analog output to an ADC and recorded. I repeated this using the copy as the source and repeated until I had an 8th generation copy. 8 times the noise, 8 times the jitter etc. etc. 8 times the sound signature if the DAC or ADC has one. The first one is from 2016 and the second from 2019. Different gear used in each. Different chips and different brands.

The files are still there for download. You get one which is the digital original. You get another copy of it and you get the 8th generation copy of it. So two of them are the same unaltered digital file and one is not. See if that different one is something you can hear. '

The question you are asking about the DAC is do all those premium components and different approaches change the sound. Despite the popular consensus the answer is no for the most part. But you can try it for yourself.

Once a DAC is designed well enough it has no audible signature of its own. When that has been achieved, any design sounding different is because it has a sound. By definition if it is audibly different it is a coloration. Maybe it is one you like. That is okay, but different at that point is not better performance. Not in terms to fidelity to the signal. So if you cannot even hear 8 times the degradation how likely is it you'll hear a signal played straight thru once? Listen for yourself.

DSP is useful. An if you just like the idea of a custom DIY DAC then fine nobody is trying to be a buzz kill. I don't know what it will cost you, but you are happy then enjoy. Much more could be said about all this. You might not be ready to hear it or might have more understanding of it than I think. There are $200 and $300 DACs that offer startlingly excellent performance.

Here is Amir's review of the D6.

SMSL D-6 DAC Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL D-6 balanced stereo DAC with Bluetooth. It was sent to be by Shenzhenaudio and costs US $169.99. I like the compact enclosure even though there is a built-in power supply and balanced outputs. Included volume control lets you bypass a...

www.audiosciencereview.com

This is not quite a state of the art set of results. But it is very, very, very good. If you understand this set of measurements, there is not much room for sounding better as in more accurate. If something sounds different it will be because it is audibly inaccurate. That gets us to paying attention to people on FB and other audio pages. Most of those reviews are heavily about sighted bias and hearing things that aren't in the sound. It is normal for people to listen like those reviewers or users do and come to such conclusions which won't hold up to scrutiny. Now we are into learning about psycho-acoustics.

As someone who was around when CD first became available it is quite the comedy to see how many people buy into the idea of using the old r2r type dacs to get that older, better vintage sound. When the audiophile press at the time started harping on how bad digital sound was. Each step of the way talking about jitter and bitstream, and finally sigma-delta DACs the sound was improving, digital was getting better. Now that almost everything is sigma delta we suddenly get the old NOS and/or R2R DACs giving us that good old vintage digital sound which people prefer. Pretty funny.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Ok, I'm a computer programmer but as I said I'm new in this field, I've never used CamillaDSP as I don't have the Protodac in my hand yet. I think I will take some time to think about all the information you have given me before making a choice. I'll get back to you as soon as I understand better what to do. For now I thank everyone for your kindness!

EDIT:

yesterday I met the old who sold the ECI-1, he had a very elaborate system, not having been able to make a comparison with another amplifier it is very difficult to give a verdict. What I know for sure is that the he is 80 years old, he is an enthusiast, the amplifier is perfect both aesthetically and in practice, it was revised 3 years ago. I turned the volume up to maximum to hear noise, I didn't hear any, except something almost imperceptible. It didn't heat up as I expected, much, much less. I told him I would think about it. As I said, I want to study all the information received better and understand it a little more.

If by revised he means brought up to date with new caps or whatever. I wouldn't be afraid of it. If you like it, give a try. I'm a little less afraid of old gear like that than some. It can malfunction at any time, but I've had a number of old pieces and it never gave any trouble. But I may have been lucky and I'd hate for someone on a strict budget to buy something and then need to repair it.

 

[DanielT]

A few years ago I tested various used amplifiers in the budget segment. At first because I thought I would hear a difference and because it was fun.
I bought and sold them them for more or less the same price. I mostly ended up getting more and more confused as I found it harder and harder to hear any difference. In the end, I don't know if I was just imagining that I was hearing differences, which I most likely did. The only thing I could notice was if they had big differences in power, but not more than that. In any case, speaking of used amplifiers and their durability, I was lucky, none broke.
Sometimes I had to exercise the potentiometers and then spray them with electronics spray to get rid of crackling sounds, but I didn't have more than such small problems.

What happened, if I may brag a little, is that I got damn good at packing boxes. Heh heh.

 

[Count Arthur]

Looking at your list:

- you can choose chip, in this case you try to replicate TDA1541 without using the same amount of discrete components because you are using 8 x TDA1387 in parallel: this will reduce the distorsion rate of the conversion.
- you can choose a reclock that is way better than in commercial solution, like Ian Canada reclokers to reduce jitter
- you can choose best quality components, that are few, like condensers and resistors, hand crafted resistors by Charcroft, that will clean and purify interferences and distorsions
- you can choose to separate power supply (galvanic isolation)
- you can choose the power supply
- you can use Camilla DSP for free, to create audio processing pipelines for applications such as active crossovers or room correction
- you can modify settings in Raspberry, as you have the full control of the software like Moode or Volumio, and a lot of settings

The first 5 don't matter. Amir has measured hundreds of DACs and there are dozens at various price points that are audibly transparent. See here, for an explanation:

Audibility thresholds of amp and DAC measurements

Introduction A recurring theme on ASR is whether or not the various measured qualities of the devices are audible. In this post, I'll present some clear and visual thresholds for when those imperfections can be considered a potentially audible concern. I will not explain the basics of amp/DAC...

www.audiosciencereview.com

All these DACs, indicated in blue, are audibly transparent:

You can therefore pick the one that has the features you want, a headphone amp, or EQ, perhaps, at the price you want.

Hi-fi, is full of mythology. I have dabbled with DIY electronics and even in DIY forums, where there are people with a far greater understanding of electronics than I have, there are a lot of unsubstantiated claims about the properties of components, these electrolytic capacitors sound "sweeter", that sort of thing, whereas when measured, those of a similar value show no, or vanishingly small differences - that will not be audible. I'm an "electronics by numbers" hack that can cobble something together from a kit, or a simple circuit design, but there are DIYers out there that actually know what they're doing.

If you're spending time to build something, it make sense to use quality components, made by reputable brands: Panasonic, Vishay, Nichicon, etc., rather than the cheapest no-name parts available, they will likely be better quality, have tighter tolerances and be longer lasting. But, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that, often very expensive, boutique, "audio grade" components make any appreciable difference to the finished item. Within an amp or DAC, a few inches of teflon sleeved, high purity silver hook-up wire, is unlikely to have any measurable benefit when compared to plain PVC sleeved copper wire.

I think it's fair to say that, with amps and DACs, provided you avoid those that perform really poorly, they will have no influence of the sound of the final set-up, and we don't want them to. A DACs job is to turn digital into analogue and an amps job is to increase the amplitude of the signal, if they do anything else, it's an undesirable trait.

Where all this perfection falls apart is when you get to the speakers and then stick them in a room. Noise and distortion in electronics can be made vanishingly small, but speakers are electromechanical devices (see also turntables and cassette tapes ) and cannot match the tolerances of electronics. Speaker cones have break-up and resonant frequencies, you get "ringing" from the cabinet, and all sorts of undesirable mechanical attributes, that are difficult to engineer away. Even when you've made the best possible speaker, you place it in a room and the sound bounces around, you get nulls and room modes and the whole lot ends up as an unholy mess that sounds awful.

TLDR:

Don't worry too much about the electronics, within reason, worry less about cables and boutique components. Focus on the speakers and work out where to place them in a room for best results. Experiment with room acoustics, maybe acoustic panels, perhaps just a thick rug, moving the coffee table, that sort of thing. Look into DSP.

 

[edoardoz]

What ZolaIII said in #56.Gadgets that really help create a better sound.

Having an even frequency response is something that most people consider the most important thing to get good sound. You don't want it to sound too much or too little at certain frequencies. Even with really good speakers, there will be problems or let's say challenges with them in a normal listening room. Then you want to fix it, remove the peaks and valleys in the frequency curve to get that nice sound you want. Then the stuff that ZolaIII mentions will help create that nice sound.

To exemplify it:

To illustrate, here's how my Neumann KH120A measure at my desk at only ~70cm listening distance, and compared to anechoic "listening window" (LW) response:
View attachment 343025


You can clearly see the chaos the room introduces below ~1kHz (and especially below ~200Hz)
The wide dip between 60-100Hz as well at the sharp peak at 130Hz are both very audible at any listening level.

Luckily both can be corrected by integrating a subwoofer and using only 3 bands of PEQ, resulting in IMHO pretty amazing sound:
View attachment 343026

From #3 in the thread:

Room modes

Good morning all. When we sit relatively close to speakers and not listen at loud volumes, do we excite all room modes? I know this is a very weird question but I am trying to understand if room issues become prevalent when you play loud. Regards, Alex

audiosciencereview.com

This seems very useful, how do you manage all of this? What kind of tools do I need, like microphones, sound card and microphone/microphones, and software?

As I don't want to spend money if is not needed, I already have Presonus Audiobox USB Kit, very entry level, and a couple of Behringer C-2.
It may be enough to start doing something?

There are some pros and cons to use DSP at DAC level or Amplifier Level?

If you can suggest me some resource to start learning all of this would be great

 

[edoardoz]

Well I could approach this a few ways. Let me start with this.

8th generation ADC/DAC loop vs the original.....can you hear it?

Download this zip file. It will unzip into a folder with three 30 second snippets of a Fiona Apple song. Two are the original digital file. One is an 8th generation loop thru DAC/ADC. Pick the odd file out on the poll...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Listen and choose the 8th generation digital copy.

Each of these zip files will open into three wav files. One is labeled Reference, one is A and one is B. These are 30 second snippets of full songs. The originals were from CD so all 44.1 khz and 16 bit. Either A or B has been thru 8 generations of DA to AD copying. The other is identical...

www.audiosciencereview.com

You can listen for yourself. See if you can hear differences. I took a digital music file, played it thru a DAC, sent the analog output to an ADC and recorded. I repeated this using the copy as the source and repeated until I had an 8th generation copy. 8 times the noise, 8 times the jitter etc. etc. 8 times the sound signature if the DAC or ADC has one. The first one is from 2016 and the second from 2019. Different gear used in each. Different chips and different brands.

The files are still there for download. You get one which is the digital original. You get another copy of it and you get the 8th generation copy of it. So two of them are the same unaltered digital file and one is not. See if that different one is something you can hear. '

The question you are asking about the DAC is do all those premium components and different approaches change the sound. Despite the popular consensus the answer is no for the most part. But you can try it for yourself.

Once a DAC is designed well enough it has no audible signature of its own. When that has been achieved, any design sounding different is because it has a sound. By definition if it is audibly different it is a coloration. Maybe it is one you like. That is okay, but different at that point is not better performance. Not in terms to fidelity to the signal. So if you cannot even hear 8 times the degradation how likely is it you'll hear a signal played straight thru once? Listen for yourself.

DSP is useful. An if you just like the idea of a custom DIY DAC then fine nobody is trying to be a buzz kill. I don't know what it will cost you, but you are happy then enjoy. Much more could be said about all this. You might not be ready to hear it or might have more understanding of it than I think. There are $200 and $300 DACs that offer startlingly excellent performance.

Here is Amir's review of the D6.

SMSL D-6 DAC Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL D-6 balanced stereo DAC with Bluetooth. It was sent to be by Shenzhenaudio and costs US $169.99. I like the compact enclosure even though there is a built-in power supply and balanced outputs. Included volume control lets you bypass a...

www.audiosciencereview.com

This is not quite a state of the art set of results. But it is very, very, very good. If you understand this set of measurements, there is not much room for sounding better as in more accurate. If something sounds different it will be because it is audibly inaccurate. That gets us to paying attention to people on FB and other audio pages. Most of those reviews are heavily about sighted bias and hearing things that aren't in the sound. It is normal for people to listen like those reviewers or users do and come to such conclusions which won't hold up to scrutiny. Now we are into learning about psycho-acoustics.

As someone who was around when CD first became available it is quite the comedy to see how many people buy into the idea of using the old r2r type dacs to get that older, better vintage sound. When the audiophile press at the time started harping on how bad digital sound was. Each step of the way talking about jitter and bitstream, and finally sigma-delta DACs the sound was improving, digital was getting better. Now that almost everything is sigma delta we suddenly get the old NOS and/or R2R DACs giving us that good old vintage digital sound which people prefer. Pretty funny.

I like very much the idea of the test you've made, as soon as I have time I'll listen to that. I don't know if this is your idea or a standard test, but this is very clever and reminds me of AI test for some reasons.

The Prododac per se costs around 80 bucks, but with upgrades the price can raises, as you can see in the Youtube video I've posted before.

Probably I'll get this D6 you are talking in the future, just to compare with mine, and experimenting a little bit to understand sound differences, as long as I can hear them

So that I've a delta sigma and a r2r, so I can choose which I prefer.

 

[ZolaIII]

This seems very useful, how do you manage all of this? What kind of tools do I need, like microphones, sound card and microphone/microphones, and software?

As I don't want to spend money if is not needed, I already have Presonus Audiobox USB Kit, very entry level, and a couple of Behringer C-2.
It may be enough to start doing something?

There are some pros and cons to use DSP at DAC level or Amplifier Level?

If you can suggest me some resource to start learning all of this would be great

Just UMIK-1 preferably (for REW integration) but any deacent measurement microphone will do. REW is free and plenty of videos to get you in on how to use it. Lot of playing with it and discussing including asking questions hire on ASR and elsewhere count as accelerated advanced course.

 

[edoardoz]

Just UMIK-1 preferably (for REW integration) but any deacent measurement microphone will do. REW is free and plenty of videos to get you in on how to use it. Lot of playing with it and discussing including asking questions hire on ASR and elsewhere count as accelerated advanced course.

Ok thanks!

You have suggested a PA with DSP, there are some advantages as compared to using DSP in Raspberry with CamillaDSP?

 

[ZolaIII]

Ok thanks!

You have suggested a PA with DSP, there are some advantages as compared to using DSP in Raspberry with CamillaDSP?

I tend not to poke around with equipment hoping it will work in the end. That's example of integrated DSP solution in amplifier, stand alone example would be MiniDSP series. If you don't nead it stand alone you can get it for free or not much money on PC (with deacent sound card of course) and depending of OS. On Windows EQ-APO is very competitive and free with REW integration. I use JRiver (paid, free trial of one month) which I see as most comprehensive. Even Foobar with VTS support and third party plugins will get you there. Almost any advance player will have DSP capabilities more or less. On PC we got to double precision FP environment for audio DSP (after a long while). So it's done on FPU - MCU of general purpose cores. Use of SIMD's is still rare and few. Most annoying part is getting it on system level for all content as as always DRM and even ability to decode some of those is limited. That's why self stand or embedded is of a high value still. So far Windows and JRiver WDM driver pretty much work on any source.
I used to evaluate advanced lithography and designs for design wins for ADSP's, even audio is still long way back simply don't lose your time poking around DAC design you won't get where you want to be and even simple dongle DAC costing 20~30 $/€ will get you there more than fine for unbalanced use in stereo with amplifier and give proper 2V max out.

 

[DanielT]

This seems very useful, how do you manage all of this? What kind of tools do I need, like microphones, sound card and microphone/microphones, and software?

As I don't want to spend money if is not needed, I already have Presonus Audiobox USB Kit, very entry level, and a couple of Behringer C-2.
It may be enough to start doing something?

There are some pros and cons to use DSP at DAC level or Amplifier Level?

If you can suggest me some resource to start learning all of this would be great

ZolaIII commented on this (the post above this one). He is more experienced in this than I am so take his advice and tips.

There are many videos on the subject. This one is good:

REW and APO are free.

REW room acoustics and audio device measurement and analysis software

REW is free software for room acoustic measurement, loudspeaker measurement and audio device measurement and analysis

www.roomeqwizard.com

Equalizer APO

Download Equalizer APO for free. A system-wide equalizer for Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 / 11. Equalizer APO is a parametric / graphic equalizer for Windows. It is implemented as an Audio Processing Object (APO) for the system effect infrastructure introduced with Windows Vista.

sourceforge.net

The microphone does not cost much:

Order miniDSP UMIK-1 Measurement Microphone

Buy the UMIK-1 online at SoundImports ✓ Same day shipping ✓ Low shipping rates

www.soundimports.eu

Plus you buy a microphone stand for it, doesn't cost many Euros.

 

[DanielT]

I like very much the idea of the test you've made, as soon as I have time I'll listen to that. I don't know if this is your idea or a standard test, but this is very clever and reminds me of AI test for some reasons.

The Prododac per se costs around 80 bucks, but with upgrades the price can raises, as you can see in the Youtube video I've posted before.

Probably I'll get this D6 you are talking in the future, just to compare with mine, and experimenting a little bit to understand sound differences, as long as I can hear them

So that I've a delta sigma and a r2r, so I can choose which I prefer.

Fix a DIY DAC if you think tinkering with it is fun and educational. That is the only thing that can motivate it and why not, fairly strong motivational factor.

 

[Timcognito]

A friend bought this based on this review and I helped set it up. DSP of any sort is a little time consuming but well worth the effort. One small box that does it all, as Zola suggested. Just a bit over budget but all integrated features, many more than just amplification and DSP and great measured specs. FYI

SoundStage! Hi-Fi | SoundStageHiFi.com - miniDSP SHD Power Integrated Amplifier-DAC

www.soundstagehifi.com

 

[DanielT]

Well I could approach this a few ways. Let me start with this.

8th generation ADC/DAC loop vs the original.....can you hear it?

Download this zip file. It will unzip into a folder with three 30 second snippets of a Fiona Apple song. Two are the original digital file. One is an 8th generation loop thru DAC/ADC. Pick the odd file out on the poll...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Listen and choose the 8th generation digital copy.

Each of these zip files will open into three wav files. One is labeled Reference, one is A and one is B. These are 30 second snippets of full songs. The originals were from CD so all 44.1 khz and 16 bit. Either A or B has been thru 8 generations of DA to AD copying. The other is identical...

www.audiosciencereview.com

You can listen for yourself. See if you can hear differences. I took a digital music file, played it thru a DAC, sent the analog output to an ADC and recorded. I repeated this using the copy as the source and repeated until I had an 8th generation copy. 8 times the noise, 8 times the jitter etc. etc. 8 times the sound signature if the DAC or ADC has one. The first one is from 2016 and the second from 2019. Different gear used in each. Different chips and different brands.

The files are still there for download. You get one which is the digital original. You get another copy of it and you get the 8th generation copy of it. So two of them are the same unaltered digital file and one is not. See if that different one is something you can hear. '

The question you are asking about the DAC is do all those premium components and different approaches change the sound. Despite the popular consensus the answer is no for the most part. But you can try it for yourself.

Once a DAC is designed well enough it has no audible signature of its own. When that has been achieved, any design sounding different is because it has a sound. By definition if it is audibly different it is a coloration. Maybe it is one you like. That is okay, but different at that point is not better performance. Not in terms to fidelity to the signal. So if you cannot even hear 8 times the degradation how likely is it you'll hear a signal played straight thru once? Listen for yourself.

DSP is useful. An if you just like the idea of a custom DIY DAC then fine nobody is trying to be a buzz kill. I don't know what it will cost you, but you are happy then enjoy. Much more could be said about all this. You might not be ready to hear it or might have more understanding of it than I think. There are $200 and $300 DACs that offer startlingly excellent performance.

Here is Amir's review of the D6.

SMSL D-6 DAC Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL D-6 balanced stereo DAC with Bluetooth. It was sent to be by Shenzhenaudio and costs US $169.99. I like the compact enclosure even though there is a built-in power supply and balanced outputs. Included volume control lets you bypass a...

www.audiosciencereview.com

This is not quite a state of the art set of results. But it is very, very, very good. If you understand this set of measurements, there is not much room for sounding better as in more accurate. If something sounds different it will be because it is audibly inaccurate. That gets us to paying attention to people on FB and other audio pages. Most of those reviews are heavily about sighted bias and hearing things that aren't in the sound. It is normal for people to listen like those reviewers or users do and come to such conclusions which won't hold up to scrutiny. Now we are into learning about psycho-acoustics.

As someone who was around when CD first became available it is quite the comedy to see how many people buy into the idea of using the old r2r type dacs to get that older, better vintage sound. When the audiophile press at the time started harping on how bad digital sound was. Each step of the way talking about jitter and bitstream, and finally sigma-delta DACs the sound was improving, digital was getting better. Now that almost everything is sigma delta we suddenly get the old NOS and/or R2R DACs giving us that good old vintage digital sound which people prefer. Pretty funny.

An interesting approach, well done!

The human imagination is big, huge. Good thing because it is connected with creativity. To create art, music, literature and so on. It's just a shame that said imagination is wasted on deceiving oneself that there is a difference in sound between, for example, check from 1:05 into the video:

 

[Blumlein 88]

An interesting approach, well done!

The human imagination is big, huge. Good thing because it is connected with creativity. To create art, music, literature and so on. It's just a shame that said imagination is wasted on deceiving oneself that there is a difference in sound between, for example, check from 1:05 into the video:

SMSL SU-1 Stereo DAC Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL SU-1 stereo USB DAC. It was arranged to be sent to me by shenzhenaudio from the company and costs US $79.99. Despite its simplicity, the SU-1 manages to look elegant with nice fonts and LED indicators for different inputs. Back panel has...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Denafrips ARES II USB R2R DAC Review

This is a review and measurements of the Denafrips ARES II USB DSD DAC based on R2R architecture. It is on kind loan from a member. I think it costs US $680 so not too high for a custom DAC. The overall look of the ARES II is rather plain: The LED indicators are quite tiny so standing top...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[DanielT]

3e Audio TPA3255 seems interesting, but the implementation is too hard for me, I prefer to buy a commercial solution for now
So, can you tell me please if the amplifiers I told you are good enough or if you have a better alternative for my budget? Thanks!

So be it, but I might still be able to get you a little interested in it anyway. You are talking about DIY DAC. Then you're still in the process of assembling something, so why not a couple of nice monoblocks? I think Daniboum has done a good job:

It's a design that will take a little time and know-how, but it's worth it!
Count approximately between €350 / €400 for this project.
At this price, this amp will have no competition)
NB: It took me a short weekend to put everything into action.)

"Bamboo Project" : Dual Mono 3E Audio 480-1-29A Amplifier

Hi amigos, Following the ASR review of the 3E Audio 480-1-29A Module, I decided to roll up my sleeves and show you that with a little elbow grease, you can create a very beautiful amplifier based on these nice 3E Audio modules. I called this project, "Bamboo"> the pictures will speak for...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[hifiamps]

Hi edoardoz,

Integrating a CD player SPDIF output with a Raspberry Pi streamer can be done using the Ian Canada ReceiverPi DDC. I would recommend ripping CDs and play the flac files from a network drive or local USB drive, but that is just my preference.

 

[edoardoz]

Hi edoardoz,

Integrating a CD player SPDIF output with a Raspberry Pi streamer can be done using the Ian Canada ReceiverPi DDC. I would recommend ripping CDs and play the flac files from a network drive or local USB drive, but that is just my preference.

Ok thanks. Can Digi2 Pro do the same, CD player and also have a recloker which is better than the RPi 4?

Is the jitter really a problem on HAT solutions, and RPi 5 is better for some reason?

 

[hifiamps]

Digi2 Pro provides an SPDIF output only. You need an SPDIF input (be sure your CD player has an SPDIF output).

Yes, jitter is a problem with HAT DACs. Some of the DACs, like the Allo Boss are master DACs, with their own clocks. Ian Canada really has the only solution at this time with the FifoPi MA (reclocker/no isolation) or Q7 (reclocker/isolation). You can also use some extremely high quality clock crystals on the Q7. Without a reclocker, the BCK of the I2S is generated by the RPi, which only has one crystal clock (covering 48kHz). If you have an old master DAC laying around (like an Allo Boss or HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro, which both have good quality dual clock crystals), they can reclock the I2S BCK of the GPIO for ProtoDAC.

Noise isolation from the CPU in the Raspberry Pi is another issue. Noise is conducted through the GPIO. Isolators such as in the Q7 are a solution. Another cheaper solution (my current one) is to use an RPi Zero W with a single core CPU. It works fine with Moode as long as your NAS library isn't huge or you use local USB storage drives.

With that said, ProtoDAC does sound pretty darn good even without a reclocker. I am certainly biased in this regard. I recommend starting with the simplest possible implementation of ProtoDAC, see how it sounds to you, and go from there. That would be an RPi Zero W running Moode and ProtoDAC.

ProtoDAC is a slave I2S DAC HAT for Raspberry Pi, which uses eight TDA1387 in parallel, nonoversampling and no output filtering. The TDA1387 is among the last and most advanced Philips multibit DAC chips. It is limited to 16 bit 384kHz sample rate. It has a maximum SNR of 96dB. It would be an ASR poor quality DAC. Why does it sound so good?

 

[edoardoz]

ProtoDAC is a slave I2S DAC HAT for Raspberry Pi, which uses eight TDA1387 in parallel, nonoversampling and no output filtering. The TDA1387 is among the last and most advanced Philips multibit DAC chips. It is limited to 16 bit 384kHz sample rate. It has a maximum SNR of 96dB. It would be an ASR poor quality DAC. Why does it sound so good?

My CD player has a digital output, I wonder if I can use the Protodac instead of the internal DAC of the Philips CD player. If I got it right, a cd player essentially read bits, and using the digital output you can save some money if you already have a DAC.

The Q7 seems good but is expensive. I'm wondering if clock like Accusilicon AS318-B worth it, and it need to be soldered? And the RPI Zero W, so you have soldered, as there are not presoldered GPIO headers?

Why does it sound so good? I'm looking forward to hear mine

I'm happy to have found someone in this forum that use Protodac. I'd be curious to know the results of ASR test about it

I'm considering purchasing a tube amplifier, I wonder what the pairing with the Protodac would be like

@DanielT @Blumlein 88 These days I was always looking for amplifiers, and I came across these, talking to sellers and other people:

- Xindac xa 6200 (1000 bucks) NEW
- Musical fidelity M6i (1100 bucks) USED
- AMC XIA 150 (959bucks) NEW
- Nad c372 (500 bucks) USED
- Synthesis Roma 510 AC (1800 bucks) NEW
- Electrocompaniet ECI-1 (1000 bucks) USED

Which of these could worth the money?