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Originally Posted by johnanderson /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I'm considering ordering jeff's kit and building it myself but I'm wary of smd soldering. Has anyone compared the alien to the headphonia dac cable found here?
USB Cable 50'' (125cm)
They're pretty much the same price and for the cable I wouldn't have to put in as much work building it and troubleshooting.
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i can't answer your question specifically, because i haven't compared the two in terms of sound quality, but a couple of observations:
1) that usb cable DAC doesn't look terribly robust - it actually looks like they just throw heat-shrink over the pcb in the middle of the cable and call it a day. sure, it's small, self-contained and convenient, but it looks like you might be able to snap it by looking at it the wrong way. maybe i'm misinterpreting the pics on the site and the middle is actually covered in some molded plastic, in which case this criticism doesn't apply.
2) as FallenAngel points out, you have much less control (i.e., none at all) over the quality of the components that go into that DAC. sure, the chip is quite similar to the one found in the Alien, but the iPod is a perfect example of the negative effects that some crappy caps can have when placed in the signal path. if i'm not mistaken, the iPod uses an excellent Wolfson DAC, but sullies up the sound going to the headphone jack with some sub-par capacitors downstream. Jeff's kit already includes some nice, high-quality parts, but you can improve on them even more for very little added cost by throwing in, say, a pair of 47uF BG NX Hi-Q output caps. this ability to customize the Alien is a huge advantage, especially since the passive parts in the cable DAC probably aren't the best.
3) once you get into it, SMD soldering is quite fun. the Alien is the only SMD project i've done, but i find myself wanting to buy another kit from Jeff just because i want to do some more SMD work. if you're a DIYer at heart, go ahead and give it a shot - the worst that can happen is that you lose $37, which is precisely what would happen if you accidentally snapped that flimsy-looking cable DAC. on the other hand, the best that can happen is that you get a DAC that (almost certainly) outperforms the cable by a significant margin, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you put it together yourself.