[HermannS]

The power supply architecture of the ESS9038. It is symmetrical on the two channels.
I did not figure out what the two regulators below the clock are doing. One must be the supply for the clock, the other one I don't know.
I've also peeled back the label of the clock. Nothing there. A blank case.

 

[piaseczek]

The unpopulated IC position used to be populated in earlier versions of the board. Pictures of the Chinese distributor show that. It's funny that its power supply decoupling caps and some peripheral resistors are still there. I wonder what it could have been. Some traces go straight to the SPDIF sockets.

Probably it was the AKM spdif receiver.

 

[HermannS]

I've replaced the piggy-backed COAX 2 SPDIF socket with a WBT 0210 NextGen. The wiring is pure silver. Does it sound better? You betcha!! It is easy to compare as the COAX1 is left unchanged.

 

[piaseczek]

did not figure out what the two regulators below the clock are doing. One must be the supply for the clock, the other one I don't know.

Both LDOs are for the clock to provide the lowest noise voltage.

 

[HermannS]

Both LDOs are for the clock to provide the lowest noise voltage.

Makes sense, two regulator stages.

 

[HermannS]

The underside of the board with dozens of 10n bypass caps.
The cooling of the ESS chips is done via thermal coupling to the case bottom. The old versions used to have a heat sink on top of the chip.

 

[HermannS]

The discrete op amp (I suppose) circuit, which appears four times per channel. The one in the pic is the I/V converter stage and has a dedicated feedback resistor (I think) on the left. Between the I/V and buffer stage is a passive filtering network (the blue caps).

 

[Lennym]

Thanks HermannS for all this insight. It's disappointing about the SPDIF connectors, though my own use is principally with USB. The WBT 0210 NextGen silver is supposed to require a lot of break-in, but as you say, it seems to sound better already.

On a different topic, in case those here haven't seen it, thanks to DBB1 there's a heap of Musetec activity over at Audiogon, and it seems we may be joined by some new users very soon. A lot of work went into the comparative review and people have taken notice.

 

[HermannS]

I removed the USB board from the device, as I do not use USB. Three fewer clocks making noise can't be bad It is very easy to put back in.

 

[sns109]

Thanks for the intensive look at 005, very ambitious! Are you still planning on removing MKP bypass caps? I've heard the same criticism of bypass caps you mentioned prior. Generally stay away from, although running them on both my 300B amp final electrolytic in power supply and large value Jupiter cap on moddded Klipschorns, in both cases Duelund silver bypass, very good results in both cases. I've optimized usb on my setup, so staying with that input.

 

[HermannS]

Thanks for the intensive look at 005, very ambitious! Are you still planning on removing MKP bypass caps? I've heard the same criticism of bypass caps you mentioned prior. Generally stay away from, although running them on both my 300B amp final electrolytic in power supply and large value Jupiter cap on moddded Klipschorns, in both cases Duelund silver bypass, very good results in both cases. I've optimized usb on my setup, so staying with that input.

You're welcome! Bypasses are a kind of black art. It seems that the Musetec engineers didn't screw it up, maybe they went overboard a little at places. However, I will do some limited experiments at the AVCC and maybe AVDD supply of the ESS chip to get a feeling of how much of the sound character is coming from there. The rest will stay untouched. Not a pressing issue, anyway, the DAC sounds pretty homogeneous. At the moment I am busy with the HPA4 pre-amp. This device also has some potential left to be revealed.

 

[sruffle]

Hello all. I am one of the new 005 owners that has been posting on the Audiogon thread. I am not a headphone user but wanted to post here since many of you have deep experience with this DAC. I am going to be curious to see how much impact break in has. After 25 hours, I can tell that this DAC offers a lot of detail and has a sense of energy and dynamics that my other DAC (Holo Spring) does not. However, the Spring seems to offer a blacker background and a bigger soundstage with more air and better front to back imaging.

My hope is that breaking in and inserting a purple SR fuse will help the 005 in these areas. Looking forward to reporting back with listening impressions as time goes on.

 

[HermannS]

Break-in one week, fuse is sensitive

 

[piaseczek]

Really nice done DAC, I see improvement over the 004.

 

[teknorob23]

Really enjoyed reading through this thread, i've just sold my Mola Mola Tambaqui, which was the best DAC i'd heard and replaced with the MH-DA005. My jaw is still on the floor, this thing is astonishingly good. The tambaqui sounded narrower, soft and veiled by comparison and this was a DAC i chose over the Bartok and DAVE/HMS. There has to be some black magic going on here!