Twisted Pear Buffalo Sabre DAC

[rodentmacbeastie]

Hello. I am very excited about this new DAC and Twisted Pear's progress with it. This thread is not an endorsement as I have not heard it but would greatly appreciate Brian and Russ's support here. Everyone is welcome to join in except Crowbar, he has his own thread!

[BrianDonegan]

Here it is so far...



We have sent one to Dustin (chip designer) for eval and testing, and are working on the firmware.

[swt61]

I too am very exited about this one, and plan to add one to my system when available. I know many others that are also eager for the arrival.
I'll wait to see how the "Epic Opus" fairs against it, but I'll keep it in any case. Two DACs is far from overkill in my mind.

Now about that Uber Controler guys?

[Russ White]

Hello Folks,

Thank you very much for your interest. I designed the DAC for my own pleasure, but Brian and I are happy to make it available to others.

Just wanted to touch on some design goals and features.

First this DAC is a Stereo DAC with all four of the chip's DAC outputs paralleled.

It can be used both as a voltage or current output DAC.

The DAC board includes no I/V stage, so you are free to use whatever you like.

I have created an I/V stage called the "IVY" which can be used with this DAC or really any voltage or current output DAC.

The IVY can be used (at least) 3 ways:

1) Stereo Balanced output
2) Stereo Single ended output
3) Mono Balanced output. This is accomplished by taking the analog signal in phase on one input and anti-phase on the other and taking the balanced output at what would normally be the SE outputs, so instead of stereo SE you get mono balanced. This is especially useful when using something like PCM1794(COD) or WM8741(opus) in mono mode.

The IVY is also designed to stack with the Buffalo for nice short connections.

The DAC can accept SPDIF, PCM(I2S etc), and DSD.

It can handle sampling frequencies up to 192khz with no reconfiguration required.

It has and I2C header for external control as well as a simple on board controller that does initial setup and the goes to sleep for low noise.

Thats all I can think of for now.

I will be posting more later.

Cheers!
Russ

[Russ White]

A couple of other notes about Twisted Pear Audio:

All of our designs are free to use for DIY purposes. We provide proven designs and we publish schematics. You can use them, change them, make your own DIY project. Whatever... That's why we provide them!

You don't have to buy our pre-assembled modules!!! This is just a service for people who want it.

You can buy bare boards (and parts if you ask nice) from us for anything we have in stock.

I will let you folks decide how "DIY" DIY is.

Our projects are designed to allow people of all ability levels to enjoy the designs.

Cheers!
Russ

[manaox2]

I'm interested of course, but I am waiting at the site to see what the price range is going to be. I purchased the OPUS DAC yesterday knowing that this was coming out, but don't believe it will be in my immediate price range.

[dgbiker1]

At the risk of sounding completely ignorant, how does this differ from the OPUS? I know it's a different DAC chip, but is it better, worse, or just different from OPUS?
I had made up my mind on getting the OPUS, now I have another DAC to consider

[swt61]

Thanks Russ. Can you tell me will the DAC support AES/EBU?

[Nebby]

Definitely looking forward to the Sabre dac! I think it's very likely I will end up with an opus, COD, and sabre dac. Not that I mind, I enjoy experimentation

[VeipaCray]

Does the Buffalo Sabre DAC get placed into an HSBC Arena case?

[Russ White]

Originally Posted by swt61

Thanks Russ. Can you tell me will the DAC support AES/EBU?

I have not tried it, but I think it should work fine, you will want to use a voltage divider to get the level down to SPIDF level.

Something like this:

AES/EBU to S/PDIF signal level converter

AES out:   2-------330 ohm-----+-------------   SPDIF in
                               |
           3--+              91 ohm
              |                |
           1--+------+---------+-------------
                     |
                     -
                ground

Which you can find here:

epanorama.net/S/PDIF Interface

[joneeboi]

Is it actually called the Buffalo Sabre DAC or just the Buffalo DAC? IIRC, there's a hockey team somewhere called the Buffalo Sabres.

[Russ White]

Its just the Buffalo DAC , the the Sabre reference is intentional.

[Russ White]

Originally Posted by VeipaCray

Does the Buffalo Sabre DAC get placed into an HSBC Arena case?

That is where it would be most at home.

[VeipaCray]

Originally Posted by Russ White

That is where it would be most at home.

As an employee of HSBC, I couldn't resist posting that. :P