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Dodson DA-217 MK II D


The Monkey

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Well, the 5847 is a good digital filter. However, I don't care for the CS8420, personally. It has a bug (at least the revisions I'm aware of) that can make it spit out garbage data if you plug/unplug the digital connection (maybe a few times; depends) while it's on. There is a workaround where you can use a microcontroller to sense the lock detect and reset the chip, but I've heard even that doesn't always work. Besides that, I'd read a while back from John Westlake that its PLL design is poor. As an ASRC, it's OK; not state of the art, but not bad.

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+1. There is no 'ultratech' inside this, but there are obviously many tweaks-corrections: does it sound good? That is the important here, IMO.

You can buy today many converters coming from far east with really nice done boards and component selection and fabrication, great to have on display... but they sound like crap, or not to the high standard one may think after seeing them...

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Thanks everyone for your observations so far. As for the sound, I like it a lot so far. It seems a bit quieter than the ECD-1, while retaining the musicality that I like. The mids are very good. And while I usually rely on female vocals to define the mids for me, I've noticed that the Dodson also does a good job with male vocals. At first I thought it could be a slight bit of grain, but I think it's just revealing the fact that male voices are not necessarily "smooth" all the time. For example, Mark Knopfler's voice sounds a bit more gravelly. More like a, well, a man's voice.

So, good stuff so far. But still a lot more listening to do.

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I guess that's right, isn't it. We learn by doing (and breaking). I've been meaning to get back into DIY anyway, and it looks like I should be able to fix the cage pretty easily. KG was kind enough to give some advice. I'll post updates.

Also, I communicated with a few people about this DAC and it turns out that 1) the designer probably is just retired, not dead; 2) the company that bought Dodson, Silversmith Audio, still upgrades the units, but this one is as close to the 218 version as it can get; and 3) the new DA 218 Palladium version is still being sold--for $8k.

Jeff Silversmith preferred not to share the schematic, but he seems like a pretty nice guy.

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