kscwuzhere
New member
Shut up and take my money already ugghh 
Taking orders :)
- Thread starter xcortes
- Start date
I just got the new board yesterday. PB breadboarded it and I ran it a bit late yesterday afternoon, feeding it via USB from my Mac Mini. Happily it finds every sample rate up to 384K and the 7 segment display is rock solid. Today I will test TOSLINK and coax digital inputs, which will be capable up to 96K for now with an upcoming firmware update that will make at least the coax input 192K capable.
John was not exaggerating about the improvement in his software filter. The dynamics are really something else with outstanding resolution and great tonal balance.
PB laid out a new panel for this setup yesterday. It is a little bigger than the last one and includes a bigger battery to help extend the operating time past the 4.5 hours we were getting with the last prototype. We hope to have a "near production" prototype together some time next week.
John was not exaggerating about the improvement in his software filter. The dynamics are really something else with outstanding resolution and great tonal balance.
PB laid out a new panel for this setup yesterday. It is a little bigger than the last one and includes a bigger battery to help extend the operating time past the 4.5 hours we were getting with the last prototype. We hope to have a "near production" prototype together some time next week.
The current chassis plate that I designed is a 10" x 10". The last prototype was on an 8" x 8", but we needed a bit more space for the larger battery.
Hank Murrow
New member
Cheers to John, Paul B, and Doc for entering a mysterious and uncomfortable arena on our behalf! many of us hope for an All Bottlehead System, and the DAC is an important step along that path. Yay!
Hank in Eugene
Hank in Eugene
denti alligator
New member
Doc B. said:
How does it sound, by comparison?
PassionForSound
New member
Hank Murrow said:
Next step is the Bottlehead DAP - The Pocket Rocket!
denti alligator said:
I was using two different sources to test how well switching between USB, TOSLINK and coax SPDIF worked. Switching was perfect. The USB source is a Mac Mini running Amarra and the other two sources were both coming out of a Panasonic Blu ray player playing a CD. So they sounded different, but I don't think it's the DAC inputs that made it sound different. I will be comparing USB and TOSLINK both coming from the Mini tomorrow, as that is a much more useful comparison. But for now it's time to rest my brain, been listening deep for several hours.
There are too many factors upstream to be able to make a sweeping generalization about whether USB or TOSLINK or coax sounds better. USB and TOSLINK from one of our Minis playing off a hard drive via Amarra sounded great and slightly different. I would have a hard time putting one ahead of the other. TOSLINK from a blu ray player playing a CD sounded slightly worse than either. That correlates with my general findings of disc playback vs hard drive playback and also my findings of Amarra vs. CD player playback firmware, so it could have nothing to do with the inputs of the DAC. Coax from the blu ray player was worse than TOSLINK from the blu ray player. Who knows why, could be a cable issue, impedance mismatch or something else.
What I can say is that all three DAC inputs are very responsive to the sources, no problems handshaking. In fact the DAC helped us find that the TOSLINK output of one of our Minis was not working properly.
I can also say that the new digital filter seems to have cleaned up the sound from a temporal standpoint. Transients are cleaner and more dynamic and the decay of notes seems to follow the recording more closely, revealing more of the harmonic structure of instruments and really locking in the image.
What I can say is that all three DAC inputs are very responsive to the sources, no problems handshaking. In fact the DAC helped us find that the TOSLINK output of one of our Minis was not working properly.
I can also say that the new digital filter seems to have cleaned up the sound from a temporal standpoint. Transients are cleaner and more dynamic and the decay of notes seems to follow the recording more closely, revealing more of the harmonic structure of instruments and really locking in the image.
denti alligator
New member
Awesome! Can't wait to hear more and eventually see the prototype.
I'm super excited about the DAC and it sounds like its coming together very nicely.
Will it be possible to listen while the unit is charging? My Virtue amp is battery powered and I can't perceive any difference whether the trickle charger is connected or not.
I sure hope its not strictly off-grid as I'll likely want to listen for more than 5 hours at some point.
Will it be possible to listen while the unit is charging? My Virtue amp is battery powered and I can't perceive any difference whether the trickle charger is connected or not.
I sure hope its not strictly off-grid as I'll likely want to listen for more than 5 hours at some point.
physicsmajor
New member
sten said:
Yes, this was previously discussed in this (lengthy!) thread.
There will be a switch to select between "charge+play", "full off", and "just battery."
"Full off" will probably end up being a charge-only setting that keeps the battery tended.
-PB
-PB
