[diablo9]

emm, both candidates are down by you guys, all right.

any way, I trust you guys more than the Chinese designer,

I talked with him on MSN messenger before and he seems pretty nice guy.

any way, getting down to my list, this is the only Chinese DAC choice I have on the list now.
any thoughts?
http://www.zhaolu.com/products/d1.x/1.x/D1.x.htm

no schematic because this is commercial.
balanced DAC, CS8414 receiver, AD1852 DAC chip.
The whole thing for $90, by looking at the pics, any major flaw in the PCB layout?

 

[grawk]

There's a thread that discusses this dac (Chinese 192/48 dac, or something like that). I like mine quite a bit. Haven't gotten my balanced amp yet to check the balanced outs tho. It's more like $230 after shipping from china.

 

[diablo9]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grawk There's a thread that discusses this dac (Chinese 192/48 dac, or something like that). I like mine quite a bit. Haven't gotten my balanced amp yet to check the balanced outs tho. It's more like $230 after shipping from china.

I'll call them up and see how's the shipping weight. can't be $100 shipping for a $90 stuff.

 

[dsavitsk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by diablo9 emm, both candidates are down by you guys, all right. any way, I trust you guys more than the Chinese designer

I think that's kind of silly, and I think some of the negative comments are a bit overblown. If nothing else, there is easily $250-300 in parts in this kit. If I could speak chinese, I'd buy it in a second if for no other reason as something to learn from and experiment with. If you feel like you need more decoupling you can redo the adapter board or something. Also, the I/V stage can be easily redone by simply not populating it and doing someting different. That said, there are lots of very good sounding DAC's and cd players that use opamp I/V sections. I'd try iy aout and se whatyou think.

 

[diablo9]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsavitsk I think that's kind of silly, and I think some of the negative comments are a bit overblown. If nothing else, there is easily $250-300 in parts in this kit. If I could speak chinese, I'd buy it in a second if for no other reason as something to learn from and experiment with. If you feel like you need more decoupling you can redo the adapter board or something. Also, the I/V stage can be easily redone by simply not populating it and doing someting different. That said, there are lots of very good sounding DAC's and cd players that use opamp I/V sections. I'd try iy aout and se whatyou think.

I could try that if I have time/knowledge to tweak and experiment with it. But I am still in the "PCB stuffer" stage when coming to amp/DAC components. I am still reading a EE book that I borrowed from a friend. I hope I can catch up and gain the ability to tweak/experiment but for now, if I can't stuff the stock PCB to get satisfying sound, I'll probably just give up on it.

BTW: if you are really interested, I can still ask my friend in China to buy one set of this kit for you for this price plus shipping.

 

[Francis_Vaughan]

This one does look a fair bit more reasonable. Still some question about PS bypassing, but the care taken to get the ground-plane and short traces right is good to see.

The whole thing seems to be a bit more honest. By which I mean it is shown built with 5532 op-amps, generic metal film resistors etc. The other DACs, with OPA627 devices, Dale resistors, stretched the credibility. There was more than half the price of the kit in op-amps. Even in 1000 off quantities. It would be very difficult to believe that the actual kit, when it arrived had those devices in it (even if they had the appropriate number screened on the top.)