[Wodgy]

Just finished another fun little project. I've always wanted a high-end USB DAC to use with my laptop and my office machine... the M-Audio Sonica is nice, but it left a little to be desired. Hence this project, which is meant to be as close to "ultimate" as I could get for a reasonable investment of time and cash. It sounds great! (Plus it's nice to have a one-box solution and not to have to worry about interconnects

) I'm calling this the "Clarity" amp because of the clear polycarbonate case and the pristine sound (the dual linear power supplies help out nicely in this regard).

The DAC is built around an AD1852 evaluation board. The nice folks at Analog Devices provided measurements along with the board: THD+N -102dB, DNR -114dB, SNR -114dB. The DAC outputs, after low-pass filtering, are DC-coupled directly to a Meta42 (4x470uF Cerafines, 2x EL2002, Alps Blue, etc.). There are separate linear power supplies for the digital and analog sections. The USB interface is a Sonica board with a very short optical interconnect (I'm hoping to build my own USB digital interface in the future so I can eliminate the Sonica drivers, but for now this is great). I chose an optical interconnect to keep the computer's ground bounce from contaminating the digital ground of the DAC. Here's some ****:

Overall a very satisfying little project!

 

[30plus]

Originally posted by Wodgy
I'm calling this the "Clarity" amp because of the clear polycarbonate case and the pristine sound (the dual linear power supplies help out nicely in this regard).

--What about the iMOD or the iJACK
( ohhh bad bad bad

)

*VERY COOL!!!*

 

[guzzler]

thats really nice! did you get the evaluation board straight from AD??

My only beef would be that you've got the input at 90 degrees to the headphone out which i hate for my own designs, but each to their own!!

but as i said, good stuff!

g

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally posted by guzzler My only beef would be that you've got the input at 90 degrees to the headphone out which i hate for my own designs, but each to their own!!

Yeah, that was a compromise. I wanted a case that was small enough to transport to/from work occasionally, and if I would have put the USB interface closer to the back of the case I would've had to worry about AC noise/interference.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

I think I just pitched a tent -- that is one sexy DAC/amp!

 

[was ist los?]

I just noticed in the back of the first pic is a yellow dictionary with a big L on it. Is that a German dictionary?

 

[Rizumu]

Quote:

Originally posted by was ist los? I just noticed in the back of the first pic is a yellow dictionary with a big L on it. Is that a German dictionary?

"L" for German? What exactly are you smoking?

[size=xx-small]I know it means Langenscheidt, I'm just joshing

[/size]

 

[Wodgy]

Good eyes! It's actually a Turkish/English dictionary from my trip to Istanbul.

 

[was ist los?]

It's because at school, the German classroom has that brand of dictionary with a big L. They look exactly the same.

 

[Sean H]

Great job Wodgy!!!