Valab Dac-First Impressions

[Kenobi]

Bill,

Thanks much for sharing your views and enthusiasm for this humble little DAC. I am looking forward to the 2009 version on order. As is, the Dec 2008 version had me hooked and convinced already. Now, the problem is availability of this thing on ebay. It was up on Monday and snatched up entirely by COB same day. Hopefully, Kevin will be able to improve efficiency building these little musical beasts.

Best regards,

kenobi

 

[Bill Allen]

Over the next several weeks I will be comparing my modded 2009 Dac to my stock 2009 control Dac. I suspect deeper levels of realism can be obtained by upgrading the parts that I previously discussed. The upgrade parts arrive next Monday and I will start by adding just the Caddock I/V resistors. I am really curious as to what this will do all by itself. Next I will add the Jupiter coupling caps. Reason being is that these parts should reveal results with very little break in.

After that I am going to go ahead and change all 20 FK Blackgate’s at once. Why, because it has been my experience that FK Blackgate caps take nearly a month to fully settle down and I’m only going to live through that experience once! Blackgate’s also like to be powered on at all times, with the new Dac board running so much cooler I don’t see that being a problem.

Will these mods improve the sound of this already stellar sounding Dac, only time will tell. Will Valab offer a transformer output version with external power supply, that’s another wait and see. Me I'm already thrilled listening to my control Dac, if it gets any better sounding I may have to start wearing Depends for those special moments.

 

[tubes]

I haven't heard the 2009 version of the dac yet but by all accounts it is a sizeable improvement over the previous version. It's getting to the point that this thing could be labeled the "Universal Dac" or "Everymans Dac". In stock form it's terrific for the plug and play crowd and for people like Bill and Pat and several others it offers the platform to try and squeeze even more out of it. These is fun times for digital, how many others can say that.

 

[jjlucas76]

tubes,
I have been reading many reviews about different DACs and I need to say that the VALAB is always introduced as an excellent reference DAC for its musicality. I have to agree with you that, perhaps the word music is loosing its real meaning, and it is true that most of today DACs are always benchmarked against their purity. I really admire people like Kevin from VALAB, or KOCES designer, or Peter Daniel from Audiosector, that try to offer excellent musical products for a fare price. On the other side I have less admiration for designers of DAC such as Attraction USB, and others where in reality the price of their products does not reflect at all the real value of what they offer. I totally understand the design concept and I think they need to make money out of their ideas, but if the VALAB outperforms most of the $1000 DAC and above, then something is really wrong. We might say that this VALALB DAC is a killer giant, but I think that in reality there are no giants, but contenders of the biggest slice of market. I think most of us buy products based on reviews because we are not that lucky to try equipment without buying them first. I wish one day I can see a review of the VALAB on one of those Audiophile websites made by the same people that have pushed far too much engineering devices such as the Benchmark DAC and the Lavry into the Audiophile marker, where perhaps to much details are not good for people that wants to listen to music for hours and relax rather the monitor it and gain fatigue.

I will wait for the VALAB and I will try to give the best of my opinion on its features and musicality.

JJ

 

[sum1]

Wow all this talk about this marvelous 09 version makes me sad about my late 08 version

I dont think my system is good enough to probably detect the improvements but to me i am just curious how is putting the dac chip at the bottom can make it soo much cooler??? its probably cooler on top but the bottom one will probably still be warm-hot right?

EDIT: Now that i think of it maybe its because they separate the 2 main parts of the heat generating components (Power supply and DAC chip) on 2 separate side of it and therefore balances out the heat on 2 sides and make them overall cooler.

 

[tubes]

JJ that was well said, I'm not holding my breath to see some reviewer actually review the Valab and if they did I doubt they would give it a fair evaluation.

 

[MikeW]

it's pretty simple sum1, the dac chips are the main source of heat, in the 08 version they had a heatsink on top of them inside a sealed metal box. Where as the 09 design has the dac chips "coupled" to the chasis itself, turning it into a large heatsink, which can then be cooled by ambient room temperature, so that the heat does not build up inside.

 

[PatOMalley]

Bill is taking names!

I changed my caps out bit by bit just to dig the play by play sound changes.
It really did elevate the DAC in all parameters. In my case output and clock caps seem to have made the biggest change. If I had to do it over I would do them all at once. This waiting while one set burns in half way while others are three quarters makes for a "Where is the finish line?" gestalt.

Bill, post the stock parts in the 2009 version, por favor. If the DAC took that far of a leap forward it just can't be the short analog path. Some components must be making a difference.


As for the DAC making like analog, that is why I went for it in the first place. someone I know has a Monica and told me the NOS DAG is the diggity. I read about 4x NOS DAC from the builder of the Monica and _knew_ I was on the golden path. And truly it is like analog. [rekkids] True freedom. I used to view the CD stash as documentation if you know what I mean. Now both platforms are viable for 'music.'

Tonight I swapped in Silver Mica for the noise trimming caps.
I didn't think it was going to make much difference, just unfinished business I wanted to take care of. Forget about it. I plugged it in and it was dead silence. I cranked up the volume, not a sss in the air at all. In goes Bill Evan ~ Sunday at the Vanguard and sound now really does come of a black velvet background. Damn.

Before

After

Are we die hard bull$h1tters with all the enthusiasm? I do not have a $15k anything audio so I am glad when other people make those comparisons. I am happy to learn from others. Increases my pride of ownership. For $200 I think it's foolish not to try one. The thing is magical.

I think the mods will make a major difference. Kevin looks to have excellent customer service. There is a time delay but with the internet as the venue what can you expect. Some people wait 3 months to get their cartridge back from a re-tipper. The question is, is it worthwhile? Ask Bill.

 

[gevorg]

Bill, have you compared the sound of this DAC with and without the Pace Car (using USB)? Thanks.

 

[Bill Allen]

Gevorg-Yes I have found that if you cross your T's and dot your I's the USB interface would be my input of choice "without" the Pace Car. The problem with USB is all those damn USB driver issues and ground loops. Without proper setup on your computer you can introduce more jitter than the 1ppm clock can solve. My best sound with USB was achieved by using Foobar, Direct Sound 2.0 output with the Secret Rabbit Code (SRC) engaged for 96/24. (I hope you can speak this lingo because I don't want to bog down this thread with computer audio talk).

I for one would rather see the 1ppm clock on the SPDIF input. Rumor is Kevin will be getting this added in future upgrades. However what I would really like to see is an ethernet input. Now this would be the cat's meow. While one can input music files via ethernet cable to the Apple TV/Airport Express, Apple products still have to convert this data to Toslink Spdif. At the moment Apple also bandwidth limits this optic output to 16/44.1. However with a real glass cable I find this option to offer equally low jitter sound as the maximized USB input.

Now if Valab could only figure out how to convert ethernet music files directly to I2S inside the Dac. Imagine a no driver, ultra low jitter, no fuss digital interface to play computer music files. I don't know of any product capable of this feat but that would be impressive.

 

[jjlucas76]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatOMalley /img/forum/go_quote.gif Bill is taking names! I changed my caps out bit by bit just to dig the play by play sound changes. It really did elevate the DAC in all parameters. In my case output and clock caps seem to have made the biggest change. If I had to do it over I would do them all at once. This waiting while one set burns in half way while others are three quarters makes for a "Where is the finish line?" gestalt. Bill, post the stock parts in the 2009 version, por favor. If the DAC took that far of a leap forward it just can't be the short analog path. Some components must be making a difference. As for the DAC making like analog, that is why I went for it in the first place. someone I know has a Monica and told me the NOS DAG is the diggity. I read about 4x NOS DAC from the builder of the Monica and _knew_ I was on the golden path. And truly it is like analog. [rekkids] True freedom. I used to view the CD stash as documentation if you know what I mean. Now both platforms are viable for 'music.' Tonight I swapped in Silver Mica for the noise trimming caps. I didn't think it was going to make much difference, just unfinished business I wanted to take care of. Forget about it. I plugged it in and it was dead silence. I cranked up the volume, not a sss in the air at all. In goes Bill Evan ~ Sunday at the Vanguard and sound now really does come of a black velvet background. Damn. Before After Are we die hard bull$h1tters with all the enthusiasm? I do not have a $15k anything audio so I am glad when other people make those comparisons. I am happy to learn from others. Increases my pride of ownership. For $200 I think it's foolish not to try one. The thing is magical. I think the mods will make a major difference. Kevin looks to have excellent customer service. There is a time delay but with the internet as the venue what can you expect. Some people wait 3 months to get their cartridge back from a re-tipper. The question is, is it worthwhile? Ask Bill.

It would be nice to post complete and detailed information about the modification done to your DAC so everybody can perform the same upgrades with no risk and sure to achieve improvements over the already good standard DAC.
List of components and location with pictures to help to identify the old parts , with a list of components of the new parts, including values and brand. Next to it the improvement feature that the mod will bring.

Considering that you have swapped components a bit at the time, I hope you have noted down the difference of any change in sound quality.

JJ

 

[foxesden]

I have been following this thread for a while as I have been interested in trying a cheaper DAC.

For those interested the 2009 version is available on ebay now. I have just ordered one to try.

 

[PatOMalley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjlucas76 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Considering that you have swapped components a bit at the time, I hope you have noted down the difference of any change in sound quality. JJ

One thing I will say is that the overall detail is ripping. Bill calls it reality. I can't think of a better way except to say the best illusion of reality. Shout out to Phill for the tips.

yellow dot, Power stage filtering: 3 Rubycon XYF 1000u/35v
red dot, Voltage regulator: 2 Blackgate STD 10uF/50v
yellow square, Output: 2 Blackgates STD 4.7uF/50V + NX Hi-Q 0.1uF/50V
blue dot, Input: 1 Rubycon XYF 100uF/25v
blue dot, Digital circuit chips: 8 Rubycon XYF 100uF/25v, blu tac
green dot, TDA1543 decoupling: 8 Rubycon YXF 4.7uF/50v
red square, output resistor: KOA/Speer 390ohm carbon film
white dot, Noise filter: removed output filter capacitors

The power caps and regulator caps added focus and weight
output caps change from hifi tinkly to weighty with texture, over time these open up
input and ICs really added depth and a lot more focus. adding blu tac makes a bit of difference for focus.
DAC decoupling added some weight but was too close to the electros to really show much of what it did
output resistors, carbon, added softness, roundness. May change this to PRP or most probably Riken which are cleaner
Silver Mica really finished the job off but that mi be because the stock caps were noisy.


I think the blu tac always helps on ICs. I sue it to hold the caps in place when I solder them. I think it also help ward against noise. All things vibrate and caps should be twanging in the air.

As for noise overall I think that the stock caps may add some distortion/noise. Changing them out to just Rubycon might make a difference in getting the noise out. Using BG non polar in the signal is something I have gotten used to and I like the sound of them. Bill goes for big foils and I would too - I just want to be able to put the lid back on.

I also drilled some holes in what I would like to call the art house golden ratio on the top above the heatsink. And on the bottom, per Phill's suggestion, at the bottom to get cross ventilation.

Looks off center from the outside but looks dead on from the inside.

I painted the top chassis lid and front plate black. It made no difference to the sound.

I facilitate the drill job with a circa 1952 Korvettes drill. If you've ever tried to trim your mustache after a night of Old Gran' Dad you will know how that drill accommodates. I love the thing.

I've logged it all here: VALAB NOS DAC

 

[Kooka]

Pat, nice job, but:
are you sure about the value of the silver micas? They should be 5600pF, not 560... right? Or did you switch to 560 from 5600?

 

[PatOMalley]

Kooka,

560pF. I read that 500pF should filter over 30kHz.
Should I go back?
I don't notice any flattening.
Now I'm paranoid.

EDIT: took 'em out. I was getting used to caps burning in ... Seems faster, more open with them out. How stupid. Under the steps I go with my water dish.