Hi guys,
After testing Ian's FIFO II kit with low cost Chinese AK4495SEQ dac, and reviewing the Burson SS V5i Dual opamp,
which in my opinion maybe is the best sounding opamp ever, I managed to integrate Ian's FIFI II kit in my MonsterDAC.
I had to re-arrange ALL transformers, replaced 2x R-Core for output stage with 1x R-Core, and removed 1xR-Core which
only was intended for future usage like powering input circuitry (SPDIF/HDMI-I2S) and power led.
After re-arranging all the stuff, I had enough room to mount the Ian's FIFO II kit, and power it with 2x 0.8uV low noise power supplies.
I had some difficulties with I2S wiring, but in the end all worked out perfectly. The Dual XO II Board now fits 2x NDK NZ-2520SD's (45.xxx - 49.xxx)
Tested also with XpressO Ultra TCXO's, but they definitely do not perform like the NDK's, they are best, at least, within this price range.
Maybe will try the Pulsar clocks, but they aren't available right now, and, they will cost about $1000 a pair
Further, I upgraded Picoreplayer with latest software version, which is 3.01
Some pics:
After finishing everything and shielding with lots of EMI/RFI material and a lot of copper shielding, I let it burn-in for more than a week, just to let everything settle-in.
I am aware of the fact that there are many of you around who play down on the burn-in phenomena, but in my (35) years of experience with this, I came to the conclusion
that when even soldering a few wires, in digital circuitry or analog, or in power stage, ALL needs burn-in time. Replacing a few simple I2S wires needs again burn-in time
of a week. Many of you will find this BS, but I can vow for you it DOES make a big difference.
Listening experience:
"Cold out of the box", without burn-in time (ALL the used components had their burn-in time in previous testing EXCEPT the new R-Core for powering discrete output stage),
it sounded VERY airy and natural. A vocal timbre never heard before, instruments sounding very very realistic. But the DAC was missing "it's magic".
Also I noticed a very poor behavior in low frequencies, it sounded like a pronounced 50Hz/60Hz range, kind of sounding hollow, no tightness and missing definition.
But, I noted this behavior several times before when building and modding, and it always went away after full burn-in time.
After 7 days of burn-in time there's only one thing I can tell:
A W S O M E
Soundstage is real holographic, black, blacker, blackest, timbre is breathtaking. All red-book material, even the worst sounding ones, do have lot's of information and detail
in them. Low frequencies are very tight and have lots of detailed information in it, even in sub-low frequencies. It's just marvelous
I also tried to let my RPI3-PiCorePlayer upsample everything to 384 kHz and even to 768 kHz, but in the end I liked the original sample frequency at best, so I left it that way.
Note:
I abandoned LMS server on QNAP TS-853A and use it only as network storage for my 2TB music files.
LMS now runs on my spare HP Probook 470-i7-16Gb like before, and I managed to convert DSD to PCM on the fly at highest SQ settings, so, now SACD's are playing flawlessly.
There's only one thing left I want to try in this dac, and that is to replace the Chinese discrete output stage with Burson SS V5. Not sure what it will bring, but it surely will be an enhancement too.
Keep up the good work and have a nice weekend!
Alex
or, he didn't see the 2nd option within the LT3042 whitepapers, the NPN-option.....