[The Jester]

Quick question Rob,
With minimal components in your DAC’s output stage are they absolute phase or inverting ?

 

[PANURUS]

Although I was avidly awaiting the arrival of DX amplifiers when I acquired DAVE a few years ago, I have been extremely happy with the sound of DAVE directly driving B&W 805D3's with DB3 sub. As my room would not easily accommodate larger speakers, I would now be interested to try the 805D4 but no longer holding my breath for DX amplification.

This is my reference to compare 805d3 to 805d4.
Take FIve on
https://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/morello-standard-time-joe-morello/xnuizkmlzpmwc

 

[Rob Watts]

Quick question Rob,
With minimal components in your DAC’s output stage are they absolute phase or inverting ?

All of the DACs are non-inverting - that is a positive digital input will give a positive analogue OP voltage. Dave has the option of being positive or negative.

 

[Kentajalli]

Just for fun;
I use my Mojo Classic and Hugo2 primarily with my phone and headphones, on the sofa, on the plane . . ..
Though my phone has 128GB of storage and an additional 256GB NM card (largest), I still need more storage for my ever expanding music collection.
So a while ago I came up with the idea of making a USB cable to connect my phone to my DACs with these properties:
- about a meter long
- thin soft cable so I could pick up my phone and operate it, while the DAC remains in a pocket or table.
- built into the cable a Micro SD card reader/Hub , so I can have more storage
- Low power consumption as the phone battery would be supplying the juice
- Low noise
I actually made one, it was very small, worked fine- then one day I left it on the plane!! Dammmn.
This is my second attempt;



Not a work of art, but a utilitarian attempt.
Here it is connected to Mojo to show the size of it, and a close-up to show the innards.
When I made my first cable, it came to my attention that Micro SD cards heat up! a lot! hot enough to sometimes melt! so I implemented a heatsink this time.
The Copper plate, Heat pad and copper tape (all exposed) should handle heat dissipation, And provide EMI/RFI insulation.
The data wires (D+ D-) go straight through the centre of the Ferrite core cylinder, but the +5V and ground wires are wound a couple of turns through the cylinder & back to form a Common Mode rejection transformer (well I hope so ).
It works! Now I have an additional 512GB of storage available, the phone picks up both the SD card and Mojo/Hugo2.
Bandwidth is wide enough for DSD-256 and/or 32-768kHz (I tested it, no glitches, no drop outs).
The device at rest burns 30mA, at power save (after 30s) a negligible amount, at full read or write about 100mA, which incidentally can go up or down by about 10mA according to supply voltage - say at 5.2V 110mA and at 4.7V 90mA. My phone can manage that, I am yet to drain the battery fully before either Mojo or Hugo2 batteries run out.
The only catch is, to remember to eject the card (onscreen menu) before unplugging, or I risk partition damaging the card.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

"The only catch is, to remember to eject the card"
...and to take it off the plane! Thoughtful execution. Thanks!

 

[feddar]

I am revisiting the choice of speakers for using directly off the TT2. So far I have 2 suggestions:

B&W 803 D3 - right now, the available speaker in Canada is B&W 803 D4. I suppose these might be even better, but they seem to be running $26k CAD. Ouch.
I am currently using headphones (Focal Utopia). Can speakers sound as good as the Utopia?

Omega SAM ($2k USD) on RCA outputs, and a powered sub (Elac 3030) on XLR. I wonder how they would they sound without the subwoofer?


Any other suggestions?

Also, is there any problem with using TV cable as cabling for the speakers. The ground would be connected to the shielding of the cable.

Thanks again!

 

[jarnopp]

I am revisiting the choice of speakers for using directly off the TT2. So far I have 2 suggestions:
Omega SAM ($2k USD) on RCA outputs, and a powered sub (Elac 3030) on XLR. I wonder how they would they sound without the subwoofer?

This is my setup, except I am running the sub from RCAs and speakers from XLR. I started with the speakers only and the sub really fill in the low end and adds body. Still pretty much a budget setup with great transparency and musicality.

 

[organicmac]

I am revisiting the choice of speakers for using directly off the TT2. So far I have 2 suggestions:

B&W 803 D3 - right now, the available speaker in Canada is B&W 803 D4. I suppose these might be even better, but they seem to be running $26k CAD. Ouch.
I am currently using headphones (Focal Utopia). Can speakers sound as good as the Utopia?

Omega SAM ($2k USD) on RCA outputs, and a powered sub (Elac 3030) on XLR. I wonder how they would they sound without the subwoofer?


Any other suggestions?

Also, is there any problem with using TV cable as cabling for the speakers. The ground would be connected to the shielding of the cable.

Thanks again!

Sounds much too high price for 803D4. UK price is £7k ~ 11.7k CAD. When I bought the 803D3, I got a good deal on a demo pair. I was planning to use them with a power amp but found the sound very much better direct than with my Cyrus amp (that I had previously liked) which was already a few years old when I got the speakers 5 years ago.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...Omegas are a bit thin without subs. I have them powered by the Dave via RCA w/adapters to speakers in a second system which gets very little use. It would depend on your room and needs, of course.

 

[Kentajalli]

Also, is there any problem with using TV cable as cabling for the speakers. The ground would be connected to the shielding of the cable.

I wonder why in the first place you wanna do that!
If it is for solid core, then domestic ring for lighting is a cheap solution , but difficult to terminate.
Alternatively , just buy some thin solid core wire, twist two together and use it as speaker cable.

 

[ecwl]

I am revisiting the choice of speakers for using directly off the TT2. So far I have 2 suggestions:

B&W 803 D3 - right now, the available speaker in Canada is B&W 803 D4. I suppose these might be even better, but they seem to be running $26k CAD. Ouch.
I am currently using headphones (Focal Utopia). Can speakers sound as good as the Utopia?

Omega SAM ($2k USD) on RCA outputs, and a powered sub (Elac 3030) on XLR. I wonder how they would they sound without the subwoofer?

As much as I take every word of Rob Watts as gospel, I have to admit I’m not sure if most people would be happy with the volume they get from TT2 driving B&W803D4.

I consider myself to not listen at high volumes and at my head-fi meets, I find that rarely I would have people listen at 5-10dB lower than me but most frequently people are listening at 5-10dB louder than me and sometimes 15-20dB louder than me. And in my system, I find that I do need about 150W of amplification into 4 ohms for my speakers but whenever friends visit, since they usually listen at 10dB louder than me, I get a little nervous whether they are clipping my amp.

Omega is obviously much more sensitive so TT2 should have no problems driving it to a good volume. But if you’re thinking of driving the B&W, I would strongly recommend taking the TT2 to your dealer to demo it to see if it’s loud enough for you before making the purchase.

 

[technobear]

Any other suggestions?

Zu Audio Druid

..or any Zu really.

 

[Jawed]

I wonder why in the first place you wanna do that!
If it is for solid core, then domestic ring for lighting is a cheap solution , but difficult to terminate.
Alternatively , just buy some thin solid core wire, twist two together and use it as speaker cable.

I wonder why in the first place you wanna do that!

Rob's guide to making speaker cables will result in cables that don't strangle the bass.

A thin single strand of solid core per conductor is better suited to interconnects. Though again Rob's formulation is more sophisticated.

A friend showed me this site recently, it's fascinating:

https://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/diycables.html

Particularly interesting is the idea that cables for hi-fi need to have 100kHz or even 2MHz bandwidth. It's not that hard to do that for interconnects, because current is very small. There are speaker cables that will do more than 1MHz...

 

[Kentajalli]

I wonder why in the first place you wanna do that!

Rob's guide to making speaker cables will result in cables that don't strangle the bass.

A thin single strand of solid core per conductor is better suited to interconnects. Though again Rob's formulation is more sophisticated.

A friend showed me this site recently, it's fascinating:

https://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/diycables.html

Particularly interesting is the idea that cables for hi-fi need to have 100kHz or even 2MHz bandwidth. It's not that hard to do that for interconnects, because current is very small. There are speaker cables that will do more than 1MHz...

It was a reply to a question as to "is it OK to use TV cable as speaker wire"
lighting ring cable is 1.5mm solid core, in short lengths (2m) it can manage a kilowatt or two!
but connecting it to TT2 would be problematic .
Hence the thinner solid core, 1mm would be a good compromise .

 

[kennyb123]

Any other suggestions?

Check out the Voxativ lineup. These are magical though maybe not everyone’s cup of tea. The transparency will blow your mind.

I am currently using headphones (Focal Utopia). Can speakers sound as good as the Utopia?

Absolutely as good, but just different. There’s something magical about the room-filling sound from speakers like the Voxativ.

Also, is there any problem with using TV cable as cabling for the speakers. The ground would be connected to the shielding of the cable.

You can give it a try but I think it would be a terrible mistake to use something like that with a very transparent pair of speakers.