Valab Dac-First Impressions - Page 7

Great. let us know what's changed/fixed if anything from your first dac. When I get home I'll post if the direct wiring helped out at all.

I noticed now when Kevin is selling a dac he's advertising the dac is coming with Sanyo caps. Hopefully it's true.

Did Kevin of Valab send out an enitrely new DAC or just the circuit board?

Okay, wiring the outputs directly from the output caps seems to have took out a lot of the harshness out of the highs so far. I first removed the the 3 white wires going from the board to the analog output jacks. I then cut the three traces on the bottom of the board going from the output capacitors/gnd to the solder pads that then wire to the output jacks. I cut them right after the output caps. I figured leaving it connected may pickup noise that would negate the shielded cable run. I used some mini coax that I had around grounding both runs at both ends due to being standard coax.

Next is to get some better caps installed. I noticed in the picture that shows the output cable run that two capacitors were much larger. We probably should look into installing much larger values then stock into those positions. These might be real important to filtering now that I see that the 5 2200uf's don't seem to do anything. Please someone double check the caps right next to the transformer and tell me if I'm wrong on my assumption.

thanks Phill. It's fun to collaborate with you guys on this. I just have to get off my ass and order some caps and then let them run in etc. I'm hoping your new dac has some circuit improvements we can all ripoff. I'm really looking forward to hearing about it when you receive it.

i've receive my Valab DAC today, they got nice packing, very tight
out of the box, first thing i notice was the bass, now they go deep, nice detail and the mid got more body
i'm waiting the DAC for fully burned for good listening session

I wonder if he got cheapy caps too or the Sanyo ones Kevin is advertising.

@Ricey20
i haven't open the case yet, but i will inform you what caps inside the DAC, i think i'll open it tonight

btw did other Valab DAC humm at maximum volume, mine humm a little loud when my source is maxed (source is PC via USB)

hmmm... when i tried valab to feed my speaker, at maxed volume it hummed too, so neither my amplification is clean..

The Gigalab version has dropped in price, now sells for $170 USD including shipping, item description seems to have been updated pretty much identical to the Valab seller.