Finding a DAC for the Cavalli Liquid Carbon. Only Four Months to Go.

[Poimandres]

I was thinking about the soekris as well. It would be nice if someone like Mayflower or JDS Labs would put these together for those of us without soldering skills.

 

[BucketInABucket]

I was thinking about the soekris as well. It would be nice if someone like Mayflower or JDS Labs would put these together for those of us without soldering skills.

The actual build isn't hard as all that's required is very basic soldering skills, getting together the other parts you need (transformer, power supply, USB to I2S, etc) and finding an enclosure for it. All of the SMD components are already soldered on so there's no need to worry about that.

 

[Poimandres]

I definitely lack even basic soldering skills. I guess now may be as good of time as any to start learning.

I have reached out to Mayflower to see if they have any interest in assembling these for those of us who cannot. It would be nice to purchase a finished product. I will update once I hear back from them.

Does anyone know when the .01% soekris will be back in stock?

 

[BucketInABucket]

I definitely lack even basic soldering skills. I guess now may be as good of time as any to start learning.

I have reached out to Mayflower to see if they have any interest in assembling these for those of us who cannot. It would be nice to purchase a finished product. I will update once I hear back from them.

Does anyone know when the .01% soekris will be back in stock?

Try basic kits on eBay to shore up your skills before you buy the Soekris, although Soren will be happy if you order another
 
I ended up buying the .02% as I think that's good enough for most intents and purposes. 

 

[Cardiiiii]

If you hook up a DAC/amp combo to the LC will adjusting the volume on the DAC/amp have any bearing on the overall sound from the LC? 

 

[doctorjazz]

There should be a setting our volume level that allows you to bypass the amp in most amp/dac combos.

 

[Stillhart]

  If you hook up a DAC/amp combo to the LC will adjusting the volume on the DAC/amp have any bearing on the overall sound from the LC? 

 
Fully depends on the unit.

 

[BucketInABucket]

Update on my DiY DAC progress, complete with crappy Google Sketchup renders in spoilers to avoid this post being too long. As I don't actually have either the Soekris board or what I plan to use as my power supply yet, all I can do is theorize, practice programming the Pi and design an enclosure for my DAC. The plan is to use the Pi's I2S outputs and feed it straight into the Soekris DAC and then I'll be able to use the Pi as a microcontroller purely to play music. I plan to add an external USB port in the future to allow me to attach HDDs or the like.
 

Spoiler: Pictures

Just a couple of glamour shots of an exploded view of the outside enclosure. I plan to make certain parts of it wood and the rest metal, but I haven't decided which materials to use yet.

As you see, the footprint is exactly the same as the Liquid Carbon - perfect! It's quite a bit thicker though, but oh well, fitting all those electronics into that box was a lot smaller than I thought and I'm happy to get all of them into a 5" by 7" box. I wanted a larger transformer though, I had to make a second box for it (that's what the box on the right in the exploded diagrams is for) and its footprint is exactly the same.

For the front panel of the DAC, I decided to put a screen to play around with displaying information like song name, length and bitrate/sampling rate. The power switch was a fancy light-up one I found on digikey.

For the rear panel of the DAC, I went with these simple options as I can always add more connectivity later if I need it.. The 6-pin DIN switch (oops typo) I will explain later on when I get to explaining the layout of the power box.

Here is a grossly simplfied internal layout of the DAC so far, using rectangles to stand in for PCBs, yay! Pi mounted sideways as I will be adding caps to the Soekris board to upgrade its sound so I left plenty of clearance.

Rear panel of the power box. Same DIN switch and a typical AC in jack. The front panel is blank.

Here we have the internal layout of the power box. As you see, I'm using 2 sets of regulated supplies; two Salis 12v BiB boards, one positive and one negative to drive the dirty side of the Soekris and a Salis Reflektor-b set up for 3.3v output to power the Pi and by extension the isolated side of the Soekris board. If I have a live and 0v for each board, that makes 6 connectors in total which is why I used a 6-pin DIN jack.

 
And there you have it, revision A of what the enclosure of my first serious DAC project is going to be! Feedback is very very welcome of course, especially suggestions for improvement!
 
Edit:
 

Spoiler: Useful links and parts list

1. Soekris DAM1021 user guide
2. Using an OLED display with a Raspberry Pi
3. I2S audio using a Raspberry Pi 1 and 2
4. AC power jack
5. DC power jack
6. RCA jack
7. Power switch
8. Transformer
9. Salas Reflektor-D
10. Salas BiB
11. OLED display

 

[doctorjazz]

I guess this is the way some of the smaller manufacturers/dealers start out...we may soon be lusting over the latest BucketInABasket to be released, maybe in a limited, specially priced Head Fi Only release, we can call it Liquid Bucket!

 

[vhsownsbeta]

I guess this is the way some of the smaller manufacturers/dealers start out...we may soon be lusting over the latest BucketInABasket to be released, maybe in a limited, specially priced Head Fi Only release, we can call it Liquid Bucket!

With maybe another configuration in Asgard/Vahalla/Lyr form factor called Bucket of Schiit

 

 

[AudioBear]

LOL

 

[doctorjazz]

LOL++++

 

[BucketInABucket]

Hey hey guys.

Bucket of liquid schiit.

 

[mandrake50]

  If you hook up a DAC/amp combo to the LC will adjusting the volume on the DAC/amp have any bearing on the overall sound from the LC? 

If the unit has a fixed line level output and you use it, then no.

 

[aarontyson]

  If you hook up a DAC/amp combo to the LC will adjusting the volume on the DAC/amp have any bearing on the overall sound from the LC? 

Im assuming your using the Fiio E18 Kunlun Rev. 2  from your sig? If so then you will be using its amp into the LC. The output power on the Fiio is 300mw. Not sure what the best advice is, but I would keep the Fiio at 80% vol and let the LC do the rest. Your #1 goal is to avoid any distortion into the LC.