[oomi25]

Hey, thanks alot.
Total cost for the dac and the amp was around 2.1k including shipping. If you want to hear it i'll probably be at the next Montreal meet. 

 

[KimLaroux]

Quote:

Hey, thanks alot.
Total cost for the dac and the amp was around 2.1k including shipping. If you want to hear it i'll probably be at the next Montreal meet. 

 
#1: Wow that's crazy expensive! I never thought it'd be that expensive. Could you give a rough approximate to the price of the different parts? From what I know it's around 250$ per b22 boards, so you'd have 1k$ just in those 4 boards, is that correct? And I suppose most parts were ordered from Canadian suppliers? This alone would makes the price of any project higher this side of the border.
 
#2 Woot! Can't wait for the next meet then. 

 

[oomi25]

I got the boards for the beta and the power supply from glassjaraudio.com which was 650$, got the stepped attenuator and the knob from an other headfier for 300 (normally 400 new). For the dac, i've ordered everything from twistedpearaudio.com. You can add the cost of connectors, metal panels (around 100$) and a bunch of wires and we are fairly close to 2k. Some used beta22 alone are sold around that price. The thing is that you need to spend ALOT of time on this if you want to get things done by yourself. Or you can pay someone to do it but...the price is getting quite high.

 

[oomi25]

I've done alot of work on my amp and dac in the past few days and I just want to share some photos with you guys. I've changed xlr connectors, a bit of case work (sanded the gold finish of the bottom panels and the cases were not as straight as I wanted) and added speakers outputs. I also worked on the wiring and added an amanero usb module to the dac. The usb board had a bigger impact on sq then I tought, in a very good way (switching from spidf to pcm (i2s)). Sound stage is wider and the sound is much more centered than it was with spidf. Also, my xonar STX was putting out some dc when signal was locked but no music playing. So I had to mute the amp every time I wanted to pause. With usb, no more dc. 

 Also added a little switch in the back to switch between spidf and usb.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[qusp]

nice work! PCM is also somewhat louder sometimes than spdif with ESS so make sure to level match for comparisons. the Amanero board is a nice little unit, great for the money

 

[oomi25]

Spidf is definitely louder than PCM. I would say 3-4 steps louder on the volume knob. Anything I can do to have an equal output or just a louder pcm output?

 

[qusp]

ahh sorry I thought they had made it so its able to be routed to all the dacs with the BIII in stereo mode, it depends on the dac implementation. PCM is louder or at least equal if the i2s is routed to all of the dacs.

it depends on the source too, I havent tested Amanero in this way to see if it has enough current, it may not be able to drive all the dac cells properly, but you could try sending the D1 ('Data' pin on Amanero) to all of the 8 PCM inputs (SData1, SData2, SData3 etc). so you have GND, BCK, LRCK and then send the same Amanero 'Data' connection to SData1, SData2, SData3, SData4, SData5, SData6, SData7, SData8 (its a pain, but you should really pair each with its own ground as well. is there a way to map/copy the inputs like you can the outputs? long time ESS user here, I have Buff32, Buff II, but moved on to Ackodacs before the BIII and not sure if you can access these settings

yep, check the input remapping section of the integration manual page 27

with spdif this can be done internally so that its just copied to all the dacs internally, thus is louder. with BIII being set up with multichannel as a possibility, perhaps it doesnt do this, so you will have to do it physically.

BTW i'm not just making this up =) even just try sending to 2 of them and you should notice an increase in volume. this will give you higher DNR as well.

actually here, problem being it may mess with your DSD settings

for your BIII

1 JPCM2 Jumper 2 for PCM stereo mode, joins inputs D2 and D3
2 JPCM3 Jumper 3 for PCM stereo mode, joins inputs D3 and D4
3 JPCM1 Jumper 1 for PCM stereo mode, joins inputs D4 and D5

and then i'm gathering these are mapped across to the other 4 dac cells internally

not sure how much of this you have already done?

 

[qusp]

you can test by just shorting across the line of SData1-SData8 inputs to test before working out how to do that the neatest

 

[oomi25]

Lol, I just figured out what was the problem. Forgot to enable a switch that enables input remapping. When ON it maps the DACs 1, 2, 5, and 6 to the DACs 3,4,7, and 8 respectively. Now PCM is as loud as spidf.

 

[qusp]

Lol, I just figured out what was the problem. Forgot to enable a switch that enables input remapping. When ON it maps the DACs 1, 2, 5, and 6 to the DACs 3,4,7, and 8 respectively. Now PCM is as loud as spidf.

yep same thing as what i'm talking about, just done internaly, as you can see above i'd already looked that up in your manual to check it was possible and edited. I use ackodac these days for the main rig and have buff32 and buff II, but jumped ship before BIII and had to make sure it was doable with software.

glad you sorted it out

 

[oomi25]

Thanks alot. I should have checked your reply before reading the entire manual.