Why no UK built NOS DAC?

Thanks for the explanation. so it's like a poor man's Zanden then?

Zanden has of course been doing exactly that type of dac for about 6 years now, I guess much of the flavour comes from the aanalogue filter and output stage.Still, if it's anything like the Zanden in might be interesting.

 

He had a look at the zandens filter, and said it was too complex. His philosophy is the best sounding things are always simple. He says that it is very hard to get a CD player to sound any good (i.e. analog/rhythm/timing), and that you have to get everything right (i.e. one thing wrong and it kills it). Given that, he reckons that the difference between a good and great player is in the output stage.

Anyway another friend of mine has heard the Zanden at Branco's, and thinks that it is special. But when I had a listen at the show, their room was unimpressive. That of course could have been the amps, speakers, or the room/setup.

Dave

 

Hi,

Regulation has nothing to do with it. It is largely related to the fact that Non-OS Dac's simply do not measure terribly good in the traditional sense.

You can get AN UK Non-Os DAC's.

A few remarks, over the years I have build a lot of Non-Os DAC's with most of the chips that are the usual suspects. The TDA1541 comes out as the best, the TDA1543 often found in the common Non-Os DAC's (I call them Kusonoki Klones) comes in pretty far down the list, TDA1545 is much nicer and the PCM56/63/1702/1704 and AD1865 still IMHO come in well ahead of the TDA1543.

For those who are looking to get the Non-OS concept taken to the logical conclusion I am currently working with a UK/HK/PRC startup on a top-loader CD player (which will sadly be quite expensive, no way around it), but is designed to use the TDA1541 to the limits, well past ANYTHING done commercially so far in a number of areas (that ioncludes Marantz CD7 and Naims Players using TDA1541), including the option to select non-oversampling filterless, non-oversampling using my own unique analogue filter design, oversampling and upsampling (asyncronpus oversampling) with a number of factors using a BB/TI DSP Engine and followed up with a zero feedback valve output stage using New Old Stock Valves, valve rectified and multiple choke filtered dual mono analog supplies.

BTW, despite having a valve analog stage (transformerless at that) you will get pretty low output impedance (~ 200 Ohm) and reasonably low distortion (< 0.1% THD for digital full scale), which is notably better than what has been done so far to my awareness.

The rest of the digital engine also has many unique (and I mean UNIQUE) features, sits on a rather small and extremely low noise layout 4layer PCB and the powersupply side is probably also taken to the extreme with completely seperate supplies for each functional block (12 seperate supplies in total) so noise from one sections PSU cannot enter another combined with loads of current source supplied shunt regulators where the regulators have well > 100KHz bandwidth in critical positions and other super low noise regulators etc, as needed by the circuit.

Also on board is serious mains conditioning which even adjusts the AC voltage from the wall if it deviates more than 5% from nominal and which also compensates for "flat-topping", distortion in the mains and filters RF noise out, all that WITHOUT taking the common approach of using a PFC input switched mode supply.

It will have impeccable build well past anything yet seen in China/HK (we are aiming at CEC, Krell and Zanden here, not at the Derek Sheks of this world). Such niceties like solid copper chassis with structural parts machined from solid aluminum billets and a few other things I'd better not mention yet (design patents need to be applied for first) will be included. Due to the limited availability of the NOS Valves and the TDA1541 Chips in decent quality (eg not the 3rd round rejects) overall production will likely be limited to << 5,000 pcs.

Anyway, I should be getting a near production prototype in the next 2 or three month, we are still tinkering with the case a little most of the electronics are tested in the final configuration, so we hope to show the player (and matching hybrid amp) at Heathrow this Spring in production form. Not quite "from the UK", but largely "designed in the UK" and with full supporting distributor and dealer network.

For a tease a not quite complete very early prototype (call it "alpha") picture including the BJ crew is attached...

Ciao T

 

Hi,

I guess Kusonoki is to blame for this whole Non-OS thing. I build a copy of his design (from a 96 issue of MJ) over 8 Years ago and found it to be a little confusing but in a number of key areas to be massively ahead of anything else in digital.

It got me to build a lot of variations based on about any DAC chip I could get my hands on. But the first one after the TDA1543 was the TDA1541, as I had a dead old Marantz CDP around that had that Chip in it.

About 6 or 8 DAC's later I still know nothing better.

Yes, Yamada San did a nice job. I analysed his filter previously and it is very smartly done, it may look complex, but it leaves the signal rather a lot less harmed than most other filters.

For my own designs I took a rather tangential approach though, declaring the "problems" Yamadas Filters solves as less critical and elevating the one his Filter does not solve to rather important. We shall see who is right (probably both of us) when my design hits the market.

Still, the best chance to come close to the Zanden in most ways for small change would be the TDA1545 equipped Non-OS DAC's (eg diyparadise.com).

Ciao T

 

Keep us up to date T

 

Not as famous as RSand's lounge... there it is again

RSand - I hope you're getting commission... as well as Isaac for taking the photo

 

Hmmm....wonder what the story is.

Derek Shek is still selling DACs on eBay, this one's a new version with re-clocking and now in a black box.

His old DACs are also still for sale on eBay, now by a different user.

Must be a story behind that...

Michael.

 

That's interesting - Moodlab posted somewhere some months ago stating that Derek Shek was no longer selling their stuff, but I don't know more, I'm afraid. He's a helpful chap and gives a very good service, so I wish him well with his new DAC, which looks interesting.

 

His new unit looks interesting. Anyone heard one?
The idea of a re-clocking unit makes a lot of sense, is this a cheap version of a DAC1?

 

googlewhack?

Just done a UK only search on "nos dac" "optical input".

Anyone care to guess the (web) location of the sole result to come up?

 

I'd guess here on the ZG forum.

 

Anyone know anything about the Brick DAC, the subject of a short article on stereophile's website? http://stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/905listen/

 

3DSonics, are you Thoersten from diyaudio?

Your project looks mighty interesting.

If you have time, could you maybe also apply your audio/engineering techniques on a budget-conscious design, too, for poorer folks?

To O/P there's another NOS DAC in the UK I'm aware of by Net Audio. Not heard it myself.
________
Volcano Classic

 

Hi,

Yup.

The problem is that given the commercial realities in HighEnd Audio / HiFi "budget concious" means "use crap". We may very well eventually introduce a series of less expensive stuff, but I feel the compromises needed to get costs down significant may be too large to still allow a soundquality that is sufficiently better than the average LoFi junk to justify making it.

The low cost chinese/korean direct sales operations via E-Bay fill the "cheap" market already as well and a business operating on the traditional "bricks & mortar" distribution model cannot compete with them on price anyway. So what is left is to take on the Krells, Levinsons and Zandens and outperform them at a pricing that is somewhat more down to earth.

The most budget concious designs that come from me or pick up design cues and ideas are found at www.diyhifisupply.com. There will be soon a DAC's whose digital engine has borrowed from our bigger project, using the usual TDA1543, which is cheap to implement (and to buy).

BTW, hint, NO-ONE (except Elso) uses the TDA1543 because of it's great sound quality (it hasn't got any such), but because it is incredibly easy and cheap to implement and cheap to buy.

The TDA1541 is MILES ahead (even the TDA1545 is MUCH, MUCH better - check "Monica" @ www.diyparadise.com), but very hard to implement in such a way that it really shows....

Ciao T

 

GBP750 - details here:Net Audio so not really budget and no optical.

Further to 3D's comments - one of the few bits of marketing tuition we got at college was about what I seem to remember was a standard design model for new product; there being four basic options

looks good/well built
works well - technically
looks not so good
works not so well

at one end the most expensive is obviously going to be the 'looks good and works well' and the reverse at the opposite end; but the interesting bit is in the middle and I guess a fair number of people here are happy with 'works well and looks not so good' or even looks not a consideration as at diyparadise (Monica aside that is...). (And of course there are other areas of 'hi-fi' where 'looks good who cares how well it works' is also desirable.)
In this context 'budget-conscious design' would be a stripped down version which keeps the component quality but sacrifices the physical presence; thus the 'sound' can be got out there amongst the interested rather than just the wealthy.

 

Hi,

What you will find is that the market which says:

"I don't care how it looks as long as it sounds great" is not large to sustain a seriously professional operation, it is large enough for a handfull of "oneman band" operations.

On the contrary, the market which says "I don't care what it sounds like as long as it looks good" is huge, as evidenced by Bose, B&O and many others.

So, if you want to get a company going that will have a solid future, long term viability etc. a certain minimum standard of build quality is unavoidable.

And quite frankly, unless you can get away with making enclosures from 18mm MDF any affordable enclosure construction that looks tolerable AND is sufficiently non-resonant to be accetable is not going to save that much on what we are doing. Our enclosures do cost, but not unduly so.

In DIY you can get a plywood box from Ikea, Cargo or Homebase and cover the inside with copper foil and call it "my enclosure", for commercial gear such a proposal will be less of an option I should think....

Ciao T

 

Hi,

And not Non-Os either!

From the page:

"DAC Chip: 24-bit delta-sigma D/A, 8x-oversampling digital filter."

Ciao T

PS: we have a very good reason for not offering a DAC with S/P-DIF input, it would be more expensive to make this work properly than to add a transport and just sync it to the main clock. I know on the market maybe halve a dozen DAC's with serial (S/P-DIF or AES/EBU) input that actually work properly

 

Being...?

 

Would it be okay with you if I use this phrase in conversation, I can see areas of both business and personal life where it might prove useful!

Actually concerned with TOSLINK here which I understand has it's own implementation issues; obviously a stand alone DAC needs some form of digital input!

 

Hi,

Those I know and remember (I know little and remember even less) and note I am only referring to the S/P-DIF input implementation, not neccesarily the whole DAC, all in order of no particular preference:

1) Marantz DA-12/94 and Phillips LHH-1000/800 DAC's, these where late 80's Marantz build Battleship 2-Box Players (officially Marantz CD-12/94) with a discrete low noise "slow lock" secondary PLL in the DAC.

2) Audio Synthesis DAX (all the various versions) with secondary PLL using VCXO.

3) Lavry/db Engineering Studio DAC's with Memory Buffer and digital super slow PLL.

4) Weiss Media's DAC's.

5) Chord with buffer enabled.

Actually, sorry, less than halve a dozen.

If anyone knows any commercial DAC's that use a memory buffer or secondary slow PLL to make sure the DAC actually has a clean, jitter free clock please add them to the list. Most will likely hail from the serious ProAudio side.

Note that DAC's using Asyncronous Sample Rate Conversion (UpSampling, JitterBuster, ASRC et al) to "remove" jitter are not allowed for inclusion, which eliminates among many others Benchmark from the competition.

Ciao T