Maverick Audio DAC/Amp - Page 162

Normaly you have to connect the DAC where your audio player is running (media center, computer).I do not know your NAS but I think is acting as a streaming server only.

HI Migou,

Thanks for your answer.

There is an audio software on the NAS called audio station. Therefore I can stream music directly from the NAS to an airport express or to an "usb speaker". I control the software on the NAS with an application on my iPhone.

I guess it should work (it works with other DAC) but I would like to be sure before buying..

Stéphane

Quote:

Originally Posted by chouffe 

HI Migou,

 

Thanks for your answer.

There is an audio software on the NAS called audio station. Therefore I can stream music directly from the NAS to an airport express or to an "usb speaker". I control the software on the NAS with an application on my iPhone.

I guess it should work (it works with other DAC) but I would like to be sure before buying..

 

Stéphane

Do you happen to be be Belgian?

haha no but well tried ;-)

"La Chouffe" is a belgian beer !

Quote:

Originally Posted by chouffe 

haha no but well tried ;-)

"La Chouffe" is a belgian beer !

Yeah I kind of got that being a Belgian. I asked because if you lived close you could borrow my D1 to try it out ;)

Oh ok I understand ;-)

I live in Switzerland so it would be difficult.. but thanks for the proposal !!

To answer someone's question about the opa627,  it works fine in this DAC, as does a LM4562 or a opa1611.  The opa627 is my fav for the dynamics. the LM4562 is very neutral and has good dynamics, smooth bass, (the 627 can be boomy but I have a 990/600 and a basic Crack, with a Siemens E82CC.)  The opa1611 is a detail monster and has great extension in the highs without being bright to me.

I am sorry to hear about the problems with the later D1s.  I've had mine a while, right after the lowering of the gain in all the D1s and have had ( knock on wood) no problems at all and I like the all the inputs and outputs, the SS goes to the Crack and the Pre-out goes to my speakers (eventially), found I like the Ray. Command Series tube in the D1. 

I would not even consider using the amp in the D1, I tried it once and was astounded at how much music it missed.  But the DAC sounds fine to me.

I'll keep it till Schiit comes out with their DACs, so another year or more?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ounwx 

Clicking/popping problems.

I've been dealing with the same issues. In my case, the clicking/popping noise sometimes occurs DURING playback, especially when playing video files. When this happens, the noise is really loud—painfully so. It happens most often after playback ends or when switching tracks, though. When this happens, it's just loud enough to be annoying. And like you, I've isolated this from the mechanical switching sound. That doesn't really bother me.

I've tried optical, coaxial, and USB input. As you mentioned, each one has a different "character" to its clicks and pops. I briefly gave up and just used the line-in connected to my computer's sound card, but that completely defeats the purpose. Ryan has given me a few tips, none of which worked. I've tried just about everything I can think of. It seems to me the DAC is defective in some of the later units. I'm too lazy to send the thing back to China, so I guess it's time to look for a different solution.

EDIT: Hooking up the USB input to my monitor's powered USB hub seems to have fixed the popping during playback. The DAC seems to dislike having the output device having any sort of AC current hooked up to it. Same thing happened with various laptops. Since the monitor has its own power supply independent from the computer's, maybe that's why it doesn't pop anymore? No idea. Anyway, that was the worst part. I can deal with the noises that occur when changing tracks or stopping playback.

Just got my D1 in the mail and I'm pleased with it. It was pre-owned and comes with 49720HA opamps. I have some 4562NA's from another project and am considering the 627's. I've read the 49720HA's are just 4562NA's marked differently. Is this true?

Okay so maybe Spanky or someone can help me with some opamp questions.

With the OP627, LME49720 and the common pair of LT1364CN8#PBF -- LM4562NA/NOPB and the  

If they are good enough price,should I just grab one of each and try them out?.

What I want to try is swapping out the DAC chip and the headphone OPAMP.

I've read like the first 60 pages and everoyne has various responses but kind of want a reply that I can fit without having to flip over a bunch of pages.

I know the FAQ sort of has some information but I don't know if I need more.

Were the chips used in the headphone position or the DAC?
 

EDIT:
I've gone ahead and sourced the chips I mentioned from ebay. Will still liek to have a dicussion on what peoples thoughts are.

I have a Western Electric 396A tube coming in for my D1 to replace the upgraded JAN GE tube in the D1 to see what else will come out of it.
Burn in a new tube and play around with it. :).

Looking forward to trying out a new DAC chip and headphone chip.

Thanks.

Loving my D1. I love being able to hook it up to various devices or when I bring it out to a lan party and hook my PC and xbox to it or some other device running optical.

My PC runs great and same with my speakers.

I have had my D1 for least 4 months now. Great work, Ryan!
 

Has anyone tried cap replacing on the D1?

Quote:

Originally Posted by attenuated 3db 

No, the Maverick D1 does not reclock; I don't know any DAC in the $200 range that does. My Teralink X2 made a HUGE difference in the SQ of my D1 (now with a happy new home), switching from the USB to 75-ohm coaxial input:
http://www.teradak.com/ProductsView.Asp?id=21
I ordered it new from a Hong-Kong based eBay vendor who offered free shipping as part of the $77 Buy-It-Now price, but it took forever to arrive. If you are interested, I'd consider selling it to you if I could get an Audio-gd Digital Interface on order to replace it before shipping it to you. It really does make a HUGE difference in SQ, even with my NFB-3. PM me (we have past experience at that) if you are interested.

THE TERALINK X2 SOUNDS INTERESTING

Not sure how much I'd benefit as all my digital library (all CD and analog rips from vinyl) is Redbook (44.1/16). I would expect some improvement in signal quality due to the stronger clocking features. I'm fairly new to this, so don't laugh if I ask if you need a special coaxial connector cable or if I can just use a high quality RCA interconnect?

Also, I checked the mfg website, and they mention an ASIO driver comes with it. Not sure how that works routing from the HTPC's USB out to the Teralink X2, then to the D1, and finally to the analog in on my old school receiver. I assUme that the Teralink X2 (being the first in the chain) is what my music server software (JRiver) will see, and that I'll be able to use the X2's ASIO driver?  Right now, XP sees the Maverick as a generic usb device and JRiver uses DirectSound. Not unhappy with the results, but always looking for better ...

Also ... the external power supply is optional? I couldn't find anything about that. I've got a bunch of 12v bricks that would probably do the job.

ABOUT MY JOINING THE D1 CLUB

Built an HTPC a couple years back - which ended up mostly collecting dust because of the simply horrendous noise it made using the onboard sound. Replaced that with a Creative E-MU, which was an improvement when the drivers were cooperating - which was a crap shoot at best. Tried a Asus Xonar, which also failed me miserably even with it's wonderful reviews. Picked up on a Behringer UCA202 bi-directional DAC/ADC and ... we be jammin'!!  Cleaned up all the leftover drivers from this and that - ASIO does tend to go down fighting - and finally, got to appreciate that HTPC. That kept me happy for about a year, but ... well ... you know how that goes ... <G>

I've now had my D1 for a couple months. Did some coin tossing on whether to get that or the D2, but the analog in was important to me. Ordered the D1 with the GE tube and OPA627 upgrades, so there wasn't a lot of difference in price between the two. I'm using it exclusively as a tube out DAC, and have put maybe 150 hours on it - maybe a third of that actually glued to the seat cranking it. VERY happy with what I'm hearing. Only tweaks were to switch out to a JW-WE2C51, which really let the soundstage blossom, and bypass the internal fuse in the AEC socket, which eliminated some break up and distortion under heavy load - I've switched back and forth and yes, it DOES make a difference. Not sure what the reasoning is for the teenie tiny fuse that comes with it - the tube warmers alone take up most of it's rated capacity. I suppose I should eventually replace with a higher rated fuse, but most of my equipment doesn't have one anyway, so ...

I was extremely pleased to find that my original plan to get some of that toobey goodness for my turntable also works as expected. The turntable is routed thru a DJ PRE II phono stage, then to the D1 analog in, and finally the tube out to the receiver. The DJ stage was always just a bit weak compared to my other sources, but the D1 provides that extra punch so I don't need to fiddle with the volume any more when changing to either the HTPC or OPPO. Bonus, I get enough additional drive from the D1 that I can turn down the DJ stage which had been clipping a LOT to try and keep up with the other components in my system. I had eventually planned to pick up on a tube flavored phono stage somewhere down the way, but that's no longer required.

Couple other tubes I've rolled ... the GE 5Star that came with it sounded real choice - it did a real nice job overall - no complaints.  But ... part of the fun is rolling. Next up was a TungSol 2C51 - that opened up the soundstage considerably and popped the midrange out a bunch. Vocals were much more ... vocal. Finally, the JW-WE2C51 ... I can't imagine it getting any better. Not to get technical, but it has much more ... muchness. I can see why they're highly rated. I still want to try a GE Command Series and maybe a Tesla 6CC42 - and I can always dream that I'll find a Bendix 6385 that won't require and arm and both legs.

MY ONE DISAPPOINTMENT

Ryan is as good as it gets for technical support, but we apparently had a bit of a misunderstanding. I'd originally hoped the D1 was a full two way DAC/ADC similar to the Behringer I had. That was as easy as pie for getting digital out of a computer, but just as easy to put analog in for doing vinyl rips. First indication was when Windows did NOT install a USB Audio recording device. Drat. One more email to clarify and ... double drat. Oh, well. I still got the Behringer for that, and there don't seem to be any conflicts having the two of them installed at the same time. That makes for another head scratcher - the Behringer maxes out at 48/16, so if I want to go higher, I end up having to get another phono stage after all - in this case, a DJ PRE w/USB out, which would give me 96/24 into the computer for ripping. Hmmmmmm...

And no problems. Absolutely trouble free operation since day one.

CASE TWEAKS

Not to leave the thread without my own little contributions ...

If I had to complain about anything, it's that the case fits a bit tight. I ended up taking a dremel grinding stone to the upper corners of the back plate and rounding them over a bit. Still tight, so I shaved the sides just a tad with a fine metal file and rubbed a touch of SylGlide on the inside corners of the cover for lubrication. Slides right on and off now ... perfect for rolling. Little tip - careful masking keeps any metal dust or shavings out of the innards.

One other peeve was the pointers on the knobs. I ended up taking a small pilot drill to them with the intention of filling the indentations with some white paint. Lo and behold, the inside of the knobs are already white, so that saved me a step. On the source knob - if you look close, you can see that the new pointer doesn't quite line up with the old one, but then again, the old pointer didn't quite line up with the source labels on the faceplate. The original lines were almost invisible anyway, so it's not like anyone's gonna notice. I passed a note up to Ryan that if they really get bored sometimes, it'd be an easy mod.

(and yes, I read all 162 pages) <G>

PS ... for anyone who maybe hasn't seen the OPA 627 mod that Ryan does on request ...

And in one fell swoop, I've doubled my post count.  ;-}

Dead thread?

Drat ...
 

Big red socket!. Interesting.

I ordered a 1364 but it doesn't seem to be working lol. I have to crank it to max to get a sound and then even then it is single channel..

Glad you are liking the D1 Skizo. I hope thread gets some traffic again. :)