Review: Hot Audio DAC WOW - Page 2

How about a balanced amp? That's still a relatively small market (or rather, not many competitors there yet)...

I have limited experience with opamps/buffers (mainly limited to my D10), but I might post up some stuff later (or see my rolling journal in my sig).

p.s. I've got one of your old DacDestroyers still going strong, and I've kept it over the uDac and uDac2. My D10 is used for personal portable listening, but for DJ purposes and outputting to other systems, I use the DacDestroyer.

Well many of the schematics I've seen have balanced outputs, but since I have no equipment that uses balanced inputs, I really don't have any good way to test that out.

And plus, I think the demand for balanced outputs isn't very high, but I could be wrong.

A few people ask about it, but the majority of my sales are to just average guys using old receivers or powered speakers.

I will think about it though :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by hotaudio40 

A few people ask about it, but the majority of my sales are to just average guys using old receivers or powered speakers.
 

Ah, well you know your customer base best after all. Don't mind us silly head-fiers who are always chasing the fancy toys

I'm wondering if you could almost bootstrap both a dac and one of your portable amps into a single enclosure. Your boards are pretty minimalistic after all. As long as all the caps are off to one side and your inputs/outputs lined up, you could maybe fit a 9V in there... hmm...

lol, I did that actually...

I put a DAC DESTROYER in with a THUNDERBOLT 2010 and squeezed them together with a switch, but it was just too tight...

Almost worked till I screwed the cover on and the whole thing got squished.... lol....

But I do have new and improved enclosures....

Perhaps I will try again....

I even had it so the DAC could run off the USB power or the nine volt battery power....

I'm always trying new things....

Battery operated DACs sound the best you know

No argument here, but having the option of both is always nice.

If you ever decide to experiment, let me know. I'd be happy to try stuff out and offer feedback.

Have you ever considered using sockets so the user can roll opamps on their own? I swear, rolling opamps/tubes is like this weird audiophile fetish. Sometimes, it's not even about the pursuit of audio nirvana... sometimes giving the user the ability to alter the sound on their own is enough satisfaction in its own right. I find there is an ultimate disillusionment with pursuing higher end audio, due to costs/diminishing returns. The ability to tweak though is significantly cheaper (sometimes), and the audio rewards within that mindset I find are much more satisfying.

p.s. you missed our local meet a few weeks ago; it would have been cool to have a MOT attend

Yes I know I missed the meet, but things came up, and I really wanted to be there but such is life...

A long time ago I used to sell preamps and headphone amps with socketed op-amps and of course you could change them and roll them and I tried so many

But then I also made discrete op-amps that plugged right into the op-amps sockets and I liked those better....

Then along came the dedicated headphone amplifiers ICs.....

Well ever since I tried those I've never turned back.

And because the ICs I use are not pin-for-pin compatible with most op-amps, using a socket didn't make any sense.

So I have been down the roll-able op-amp route and even the discrete route, neither am I done with as that was about 2 years ago....

I have since seen the use of some very nice looking op-amps, on paper at least, and have discovered a few new discrete op-amp circuits.

So I may open up both avenues soon or over this winter if I begin to feel creative again.

The nice thing about the roll-able op-amps is that you get to change the sound so easily and cheaply, well for the most part cheaply.

The op-amps I want to try run in the $60 range and that is very expensive for op-amps, but I figure they must cost $60 for a reason...

The circuit I'm going to try first is a discrete Class A amp-buffer.

I have seen so many designs over the years and this one has eluded me... until now...

I think it has come at the right time....