kchapdaily
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2011
- Posts
- 460
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- 24
cant wait to build this!
These are finally available. Price is a couple of dollars more than mentioned previously - I didn't realize it would take over 1100 ziplocks to make up 100 kits.
Price is good, but I would need a DAC with headphone amp for AKG K242HD headphones. We are waiting for notebook for my mother to arrive, so I'm thinking about building DAC for her. But potentiometer is needed.
What about sound quality in comparison with grubDAC? Or should I build grubDAC with a small opamp headphone amp instead?
Capacitors on GrubDAC have olive color and coils grey/black.
Thanks for the color reference akgfan! I was worried I would make the problem worse by taking them out of the package, so I never noticed they were different colors. Do the Skeleton DAC kit contents match the Mouser or Digikey BOM? From Digikey, C11 should be about 40% taller than L1 -- can someone confirm that for me?
Following my order of a SkeletonDAC, I have a couple of questions for you guys if one of you could help?
I made my own IEM's with great success a few months ago and have been contemplating a DAC to complement them for a while. They are not difficult to drive and as such, I think that there is a great possibility that the SkeletonDAC should do a sterling job without the need for a separate amp. Unfortunately, the SkeletonDAC page is not working at the moment (perhaps this is not intentional?) and despite the reading I do, my electronic skills are not quite the same as my DIY superpowers.
My questions relate to the caps used in the SkeletonDAC design, particularly C6 (which I believe is the main power cap) and C13 and C14, which I understand are responsible for filtering sound before being output to my desired cable/connectors.
Before I continue, I should mention that physical size is not a problem for me as I will not be using the blue casing as suggested by others and could accomodate physically larger components.
With regards to my intended use of the DAC, should I consider replacing any of these 3 capacitors? Would I see any benefit to this at all? I currently run my IEMS from my computer directly. Sound isn't bad but there is a lot of hiss (sibilance??) and I sometimes resort to an equaliser to increase bass and warmth a little. Do any of you think this would still be necessary if I were to use and/or tweak the SkeletonDAC?
I would be very grateful for any thoughts from those with experience and technical knowledge regarding the above. Perhaps one of you has wanted to achieve the same result as me and has had some success? I will be following this forum and wait with baited breath.
Nick
Finish populating the PCB yesterday, and it's running great! Sounds really nice running from PC to SkeletonDAC to Roger Gomez NP-100v12 12AU7 headphone amp. Next up is to populate the R1 power supply prototype and run the power for the NP-100v12 through there to clean it up. I'll post photos when it's complete and encased. Worked under Ubuntu 11, OS X and Windows 7 on plugin.