[brickears]

The 004 even in stock form has very good vertical separation, the rebuilt PSU board improves on this further.
You need to use a head phone or speakers capable of providing good vertical sound staging.

The HD800 is very good at this, it bests the SR009 in this respect, as for speakers it needs to be quite tall, my primary speaker is a Martin Logan Summit which is about 5ft tall.

Agree with B0bb here, via my Kef Blades + NC1200s, and comparing against my baseline (T+A DAC 8 DSD) the enhanced USB setup is superb in vertical separation. If anything it may lack a bit on the depth plane (still plentiful), but I'll give it time as its barely 1.5 weeks ran in. Plus as you know I have those Panasonic FMs on the way (thanks @b0bb for the values) so I'll report back on that in due course.

 

[brickears]

I should mention that what appears to be the final Amanero firmware with full native DSD linux support is now available via the Amanero update tool. You will either need a recent kernel for the linux support or to recompile with the ALSA patches from xmos-native-dsd repo to work mind, so it can detect the right VID/PID and treat it accordingly.

What is significant (for native DSD nutters like me at least) is Amanero have mentioned to have implemented a much faster implementation codepath for native DSD. I know @b0bb mentioned trying an XMOS based card in the past as he thought the jitter performance at higher DSD rates was causing the DPLL bandwidth to be increased to possibly tolerate the higher jitter.

This will be something I'll try by next weekend and report back, as I'd be more than happy to remove the final Windows 10 machine in my home, plus it can be rolled back reasonably easily. Linux is far far easier to tune as well (e.g. real time kernels, stripping a system back to its barebones entirely), which could result in better sound upstream if the rest of your USB chain keeps up. It is irritating how sensitive good DACs can be to USB quality.

 

[Whitigir]

The older LT3042 PSU that comes with the enhanced USB is quite good but there is considerable room for improvement.
It can be rebuilt to give substantial improvement in instrument separation and the low end response becomes deeper by about 0.5-1 octave lower

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/lks-audio-mh-da003.745032/page-8#post-12035366

I am using the above board in the 004.

The 004 even in stock form has very good vertical separation, the rebuilt PSU board improves on this further.
You need to use a head phone or speakers capable of providing good vertical sound staging.

The HD800 is very good at this, it bests the SR009 in this respect, as for speakers it needs to be quite tall, my primary speaker is a Martin Logan Summit which is about 5ft tall.

You are correct. I don't think 009 has this vertical soundstage that I am looking for

 

[Rickmusicman]

Does anyone know if the I2S input is compatible with PS Audio I2S connections? I just purchased a PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport and would like to use the I2S output from the transport into the I2S input of the LKS MH-DA004. I emailed tech support at PS Audio concerning this and this is the answer: "Our I2S output is an HDMI input that uses a custom pinout. We have made this pinout widely available, and some folks have started implementing it." Does anyone know if LKS is one that does implement the PS Audio pinout? Thanks

 

[brickears]

Can anyone recommend a 10-15VA toroidal transformer that can be sourced from EU/UK ? For the enhanced USB power feed.

 

[littlexx26]

Anyone tried iFI micro iUSB3.0 with this DAC? I read some positive reviews about this USB cleaner. I wonder if still has effects on the upgraded USB version.

 

[Lennym]

Does anyone know if the I2S input is compatible with PS Audio I2S connections? I just purchased a PS Audio Perfect Wave Transport and would like to use the I2S output from the transport into the I2S input of the LKS MH-DA004. I emailed tech support at PS Audio concerning this and this is the answer: "Our I2S output is an HDMI input that uses a custom pinout. We have made this pinout widely available, and some folks have started implementing it." Does anyone know if LKS is one that does implement the PS Audio pinout? Thanks

The LKS HDMI pin assignments are given on p.4 of the LKS manual. Just get the PS Audio pin assignments from them and compare.

 

[ti5002000]

Can anyone recommend a 10-15VA toroidal transformer that can be sourced from EU/UK ? For the enhanced USB power feed.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toroidal-Ma...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

[brickears]

@b0bb and co, I have a https://linearaudio.nl/silentswitcher to hand, and with a 9v/2a supply it can achieve 5v/1a output. Given its performance, is there any reason I'd still want to stick with the torodial path? Will ofcourse isolate the silentswitcher's feed from the main torodial as part of this.

On that matter, anyone got any idea what the power pin configuration is for the Amanero is?

 

[Whitigir]

Isn't the pin configurations silkscreened onto the USB card ? And my Capacitors 47uF @ 25V is so little ....LOL. Is it the wrong voltage for the DAC ? I didn't look at these stock Capacitors

 

[brickears]

Isn't the pin configurations silkscreened onto the USB card ? And my Capacitors 47uF @ 25V is so little ....LOL. Is it the wrong voltage for the DAC ? I didn't look at these stock Capacitors

Guess I'll find out this weekend (re: voltages).

 

[b0bb]

@b0bb and co, I have a https://linearaudio.nl/silentswitcher to hand, and with a 9v/2a supply it can achieve 5v/1a output. Given its performance, is there any reason I'd still want to stick with the torodial path? Will ofcourse isolate the silentswitcher's feed from the main torodial as part of this.

On that matter, anyone got any idea what the power pin configuration is for the Amanero is?

That supply has multiple outputs. The low noise 15V outputs can supply only up to 150mA with 0.004mV noise. The 6V/9V auxillary output comes from the switched mode regulator which has 5mV of noise, this is fairly typical of a low noise switcher.
The existing LKS enhanced USB regulator uses the LT3042 with 0.0008mV of noise, about 5X lower noise than the regulator above.

 

[Whitigir]

That supply has multiple outputs. The low noise 15V outputs can supply only up to 150mA with 0.004mV noise. The 6V/9V auxillary output comes from the switched mode regulator which has 5mV of noise, this is fairly typical of a low noise switcher.
The existing LKS enhanced USB regulator uses the LT3042 with 0.0008mV of noise, about 5X lower noise than the regulator above.

What is the amperage for the Power supply card into USB ? I bought a transformer and it has 2x secondary of 15V. I wonder if I should parallel them up for double amperage or ....it would blow stuff lol

 

[brickears]

What is the amperage for the Power supply card into USB ? I bought a transformer and it has 2x secondary of 15V. I wonder if I should parallel them up for double amperage or ....it would blow stuff lol

b0bb has mentioned in the past 6-8v, no more than 15VA max for the toroidal.

 

[Whitigir]

Yeah, but the current max would be ?