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dac1541 is going to be the giant killer. r2r,sign/magnitude, fully balanced, and dsd for a price that is less than half of a yggy

Having been out of the game for a while, the rapid development of DAC tech (or at least the verbiage dedicated to same) appears to have accelerated even more. I'd appreciate it if you fine folks could catch me up as to where we stand. What is the latest and greatest tech? What are some of the basic must-haves in a DAC today? Which chipses tend to sound best? And, most importantly, which ones have the prettiest lights?

DC/DC converter followed by LT3045 regulator. If this works I've well-regulated 9 V well isolated and hopefully it could be used with NPN current sources. If not I've two dozen of L3045 for sale.

The state of DACSES is good. They should be sentient within 2 years.

I would definitely try to find a used NAD M51.

I'm using SumR now. Yes, I have pretty much the same space allowance as Kevin's. I did tweak some of the voltages so it dissipates a little less heat.

It seems that most who want a tube output DAC are not looking for the most linear stage they can get, but instead are looking for the "tube sound" in an attempt to quell the digital nasties Kevin: I guess I hadn't looked closely at soekeris (sp?) and other more recent r2r DACS to note that they are V out. Older r2r DAC chips (TDA1541A, PCM63, etc. were usually I out. The 1541 seems to be a frequent target for lampizator, etc. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

so i have a big problem with the morons that charge stupid money to add a tube buffer to a solid state output stage. modwright instruments, and lampizator for example. you start with something that has a 200 ohm output impedance, and by the time you are done with the cathode follower, its a 1.5 k output impedance, or in the case of the lampizator something like a 3k or more output impedance. its stupid and counterproductive. but hey there are these glowing things sticking out the top. you can't make a decent i/v converter with tubes without 6 triodes per channel. and even then, solid state is far better. r2r is a voltage output anyway, not a current output

Steve, I have a family membership with Tidal which lets people after the first get a discount. PM me if you want to talk about it. Tidal does "Masters" which are MQA, and have been determined to be, at least in some/many cases, the same tracks as one of the hi-fi download shops. @TMoney, you were telling me that, right? **BRENT**

A big memory of mine was driving my '72 Duster. I'd just bought Rod Stewart's "A Night on the Town" 8 track, and I was astonished to find a song about a gay guy. It was of course "The Killing of Georgie", and I must have played it back to back 20 times that night. As bad as the 8 track sounded, most younger people don't understand what a revolution it was to control what music you listened to in your car. Very similar to the Walkman in terms of breakthroughs. In the same vein, I'd be interested to know about streaming music. Are there large libraries of music one can subscribe to, and play what they want? Kind of like a giant Netflix for music? Or do you still have to purchase your own library. Obviously Hi Rez options are preferred.

Rangers smoked Ottawa tonight. Fun game.

Interesting. As a fan of the Electrocompaniet ECD-1, I've always been partial to that unmistakable Scandinavian sound signature. Heh, right you are! I should just get whatever DAC you had 3 years ago. You and I have always liked the same gear. Great minds and such...

Every now and then I receive emails where people want free review samples or some stupid shit like that. Now then this gem showed up today: I just like the blatant offer to offer promotion and clearly a glowing review for a measly 45% discount... My reply is below... Kevin told me not to be too harsh... I think it went ok.

Been up with them for about a month. No progress made yet but when I spoke to their tech last he had said he needs to get the schematic from some guy in NL who may or may not have had it. He was pretty sure the problem lied in the digital board at least. Should probably try to hit them up again.

---------^ That. Tubes are excellent as voltage amplifiers, but they are high impedance devices. For a medium amount of gain, they are about the most linear option available. But a DAC doesn't need the gain, and the impedance is a hindrance.

Someone with more knowledge than I please correct me, but for a current-out DAC, tubes aren't a good choice for an I/V converter as these expect very low input impedance (0 ohms, i.e. dead short preferably). Most of the tube stages you see are resistor I/V with the tube stage just being a buffer and maybe some gain. The SRPP tube stages that are bandied about are a very poor choice, but Doug or Kevin could give better advice. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Steve, this may be relevant https://gizmodo.com/streaming-music-services-from-most-screwed-to-least-sc-1793612699

See page 6 below. PCM1704.pdf

The loaner Matrix X-Sabre Pro for the Atlanta Meet is quite good sounding too. They did a much better job compared to the original ESS9018 X-Sabre DAC. Definitely prefer it to the M51 and Oppo 105 that I used to have.

Matthew Sweet – Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu

Any classical players here? I'm about to order a Jim Redgate, note sure if it's going to be a traditional, double top or lattice type. I'm going to get details directly from Jim and see what he thinks would suit me best. There's a 14 month waiting time, I think he only produces around 20 guitars a year. Very excited to say he least.

I'm paying close attention to the Soekris based R2R DACs. They just announced a bunch of them. See left side column.

I can bring the L3 instead of the Dynalo MKII as well...but Tom will bring the T5 to the meet so I may still bring it.

I plan to bring the followings:Source:Matrix X-Sabre Pro (ESS 9038) - Thanks Arthur Power & Matrix AudioSony NW-WM1ZSony NW-ZX2Amps:KGSTLake People RS8i (thanks Arthur!)Violetric V280 (thanks Arthur!)Dynalo MKIISony TA-ZH1ESHeadphones:Sennheiser HD-800Stax SR-009/007Sony MDR-Z1RFocal Utopia

You can also adjust the spring to give it a bit more lift. Some nice pliers and you are good to go.

one amp i recognized from the old headwize pics because it was still in the exact same place

He said he would like to win the Triple Crown, which only Graham Hill won, consisting of the F1 Championship, the Le Mans 24 Hours and Indianapolis 500 miles. Definitely something he should be able to do, and probably an incentive now that McLaren's car isn't competitive. I'll miss him at Monaco, it's one of the few races where the car isn't more important than the pilot.

Mmmmm... Taconooga What is this nonsense? Supposedly this. Consumed by this rapscallion. And his crew His wife and my daughter And the important stuff, my Taconooga tacos Such a great night with some awesome people. **BRENT** Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Left channel is a GG. Followed Kevin’s schematic. Intention is to use Emission Labs DHT, didn’t dare to test it with DHT so it’s populated with some modern less expensive EL34. Right channel is an old Blue Hawaii. The combination of BH and GG works terrific.

don't let any of the idiots over there know about this, the first thing that will happen is that someone will plug the tubes into a bhse directly and destroy $2k in tubes and probably trash the rest of the thing. these dht's have virtually identical curves to 6ca7 in triode mode.

Continued the rebuilt. Emission Labs DHT Tubes, EML 20B-V4. To the left is variac. Its purpose is to set the two small transformers to appropriate voltage for the filament.