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Found: DIY Audio AD - DA Converter 24 Bit / 192 kHz


Jack
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i often thought i´d love to build a "highend" dac for my cd player, but who´s gonna solder those chips for me... Tha t´s the main problem. No more dip, that´s for sure. soic is ok if i don´t have too much coffee, but this is not soic, right?

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Hi,

this project looks really great :) Only question is whether the result is worth the effort. For PC recording use, there are a lot of affordable high quality multichannel interfaces around. I´ve got a Terratec EWS MT88 which goes for around 200 Eur on ebay. Sound quality is really excellent for studio use.

As a CD player DAC, the high bit/sampling rate is not a benefit. For that, the paper specs are not the issue, it´s more a question of cirquit design, board layout and parts selection. I don´t know what skills Mr. Beis has in this regard. The page looks really promising, but it´s a bit much work and money for just giving it a try without knowing if the sonic result would be to my taste. If you want to beef up your CD, I recommend looking for a reasonably priced used Camtech/Audiolab 8000DAC. They go around 300 Eur on ebay and listening to this one I´ve had one of the most excellent experiences ever!! One day I´ll own one :o

Anyway, coming to the reason why I originally started writing this answer: If s/o wants to give it a try, I just wanted to encourage you not to be afraid of SMDs. With a professional PCB and the right technique, even TSSOP is not really difficult to solder (TQFP has similar spacing):

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=8494.msg63105#msg63105

Happy soldering :)

Seppoman

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thanks for the link! looks good. And yes: a good tool is all that matters!

btw, i´m not really planing to build an adc or dac (a midibox first!). Couse of the reasons you wrote. But then my diy mind makes me want to see how it could be done...

Maybe one day my micpres all get ADCs!

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I have quite lot time in converters... I can tell you, that the 300Eur DAC with 20bit 384fs bitstream DAC is nowhere close to a real multibit r2r, as far quality goes. Look for digidesign quad or " digidesign 442 ". Simple structure, CS8412, SM5813, AD1860 , for laughable amount of money, needs minor PCB surgery / parts replacement. You can buy the PCM4222 EV-kit from TI , its 150Usd , so you have both ADC/DAC , and spent less than 250Eur. :)

Multibit r2r ladder DAC have a good side opposed to delta-sigma topology: tolerating lot more jitter , resulting from consumer grade spdif transmission.

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I can tell you, that the 300Eur DAC with 20bit 384fs bitstream DAC is nowhere close to a real multibit r2r, as far quality goes.

I´m sure that in the meantime there are technically (and probably also musically) better affordable DACs than the Camtech. After all, this unit is around ten years old which is a millenium in digital technology. I was not really following the developments of the last years, as I´m quite satisfied with the sound of my stereo (B&W Preference 6 speakers, Camtech V102 amp, Thorens/SME/Ortofon turntable etc., I´ve spent a lot of money into this over the years :)). What I wanted to say is: For CD playback, datasheet specs are only perhaps one third of what makes a perfect listening experience. In the last ten years, you nearly could´t buy any digital equipment anymore (above some sensible amount of money) that has technical specs which would tell you it doesn´t sound good. Still there are units that sound "ok" and some that sound really great. I can´t judge how much knowledge and taste Mr. Beis has in the remaining two thirds.

Seppoman

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