The basic assumption is the
very low jitter source input to the DAC. In this case, the TCXO may have higher jitter than the input, but who can measure the jitter degrade because of it. The stock TCXO is not expensive but is good enought for most consumers. Many users use it to upgrade their consumer CD player or DAC. However, it may not good enought for the specific users From the wm8805 and Dir9001 datasheet, they all offer the 50 ps jitter accuracy. Which implementation is better in general conditions? Maybe smeone can show it. For the specific users, they may just want the I2S input for the DAC if they have very low jitter I2S signal. They hope no other components degrade the input I2S signal. In mrketing, it should be a different segment.
For the DAC design, it has 2 different scenario. One is to reduce the jitter for the input. The other is not to introduce jitter for the cleam input. For different scenario, it will have different implemenation. Their purposes are to prepare low jitter input for the DAC chips as well as possible.
Technically,any implementation for the Teradak is not an issue. The Teradak is to make a successful product, not the best product. Undoubtedly the Chameleon DAC shipping volume is much lower than that of the V2.5 version (The Valab DAC). It may be because the V2.5 DAC has much lower pirce and long history. It can also be believed that more expensive DAC will be shipped much less.
Michael is still thinking how to make a successful and better product. Cuurently, the following items are in consideration for the versatile input.
1) The asynchronous 192k USB input or normal 96k adaptive USB input
2) Dir9001 input without TCXO
3. Wm8805 + TCXO (or OCXO)
4) Direct I2S input
The Teradak has all of the solutions. What they concern is the price and the shipping volume. Maybe you guys have some idea for it.
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You undoubtedly have a much better understanding of component relationships. There have been brief discussions with Steve Nugent (Empirical Audio) about TCXOs and how they can jade or degrade an established very low jitter source and have been considered an issue since the Valab had one dropped into the signal path before the DAC board in April of last year. Bill Allen could chime in on this issue.
If interest in Chameleon can be guaged by the number of participants in this thread in relation to the participation in the older Valab modders threads, there may presently be far fewer Chameleon modders. Many of the core guys here are actively striving to feed the DACs by I2S (Wood with your I2S Hiface). In fairness to you, anything you develop strictly for Chameleon may get very little attention until Chameleon becomes more popular.
I personally jumped ship on Chameleon and bought an Audio-gd DAC19DSP, but that's because Michael chose to not pursue the new SPDIF option. If I knew the option existed I would take another hard look at Chameleon and I expect it would be a angle for selling them to people with a Hiface or similar. Michael knows that too.