Taking orders :)

I hadn't thought of that, but I guess that does pose a problem. If the risk is high enough what are the alternative options? Having buyers agree to pay for replacement of this part if such damage were to be their fault? Pre-testing the board somehow to assume that any non-working ones would have been damaged in buyer's attempted assembly? Doing the assembly of that part in-house, with the result being a price bump and longer shipping wait time?

Any of these would be acceptable to me.
 
We are considering all of these alternatives and should have a resolution in the relatively near future.
 
I would want PB to build mine into one of Clark's bases anyway, so I am probably in. Can't wait to see signs of the DAC waking up! Today's messages are sweet to hear.

Cheers, Hank
 
Would it be prudent to install the PCB into its metal casing as not everybody will be familiar with how to handle sensitive electronics or general ESD precautions.
 
It's not the details of how the board is protected in handling or what to tell the builder to do that is the issue. Everyone makes mistakes, it is an essential part of the learning process and we are pretty good at pointing out the potential problem areas in a build to keep those mistakes from being too costly. The big issue with this product is how loud someone would scream when they find out they wiped out a circuit board worth several hundred dollars by failing to follow instructions.

Tube stuff is incredibly forgiving, as we all see reading this forum. Surface mounted processors do not suffer fools lightly. If we can put the DAC out in finished form for a price close to the estimated kit price I think we may do that. Of course that would mean that any warranty would be void if opened up and fooled with. There's nothing inside to mod anyway, it's pretty much 90% prebuilt and mostly rather microscopic surface mount stuff.

At this point I'm feeling it may be best to spend our tech support efforts helping people to understand how to hook a DAC to a computer and get the best sound rather than saying "You did what? You're gonna need to replace the motherboard."
 
Well, it's good to hear this will still be happening. I've been talking it up so much around the house that my son now goes around talking about it. He's 6. He calls it the "king of the Bottleheads" or the "king of the DACs."
 
Just wanted to report that I had a chance to spend a couple of hours listening to the most current pre-production version (V4) of the BH DAC board at my house this past Saturday when John Swenson came up to visit and test various things out in my system.  Mostly we were experimenting with some DSD-only DAC prototypes fed by Audirvana Plus or HQ Player, but we also spent time enjoying the BH DAC (powered by my UpTone JS-2 choke-filtered LPS).  It functioned perfectly, and we listened to a wider array of tracks than we had time during the prior session (the one where we tuned the SRC filters for loading into the FPGA).

It sounded glorious!  Much better than I remembered.  My system has improved some since last time (Swenson designed Linear Fan Controller in my new 2012 i7 Mac mini; Supra USB cable driving the BH, etc.), so that might account for it.  Every genre: jazz, classical, folk, rock--subtle or bombastic--rendered in perfect proportion, with detail, tactile musicality, and emotion.
When Doc and company get this baby into production you will be hard pressed to match this sound for anywhere near the price.

Cheers,

Alex Crespi
UpTone Audio LLC
Mariposa, California
 
We have our latest board up and running too. I have been using it to work on some recordings I made that I have transferred from tape to high res, and it's sounding very good. We are thinking that we can sell the DAC ready to run with wall wart power for a price pretty close to the original kit price goal. We are also thinking that we will offer an outboard battery-with-self-contained-charger power supply upgrade as a separate kit. This should reduce any risk of the DAC owner blowing up a very expensive mother board due to miswiring or other construction error yet it still gives everyone a chance to DIY a kit that is related to the DAC.
 
PB has been working on the new cabinet layout. We plan to test a couple of different cabs and the second one is not here yet.
 
Second cabinet arrived this week. PB is working up the design for the end panels. I have begun to lay plans to take the DAC to 1340 Mission once it is complete. There we can compare with some Pacific Microsonics Model 2s and some other studio quality D/As.
 
The cabinet is a rectangular tube with panels on the front and back. Kinda conventional compared to what we usually do, but it will help to keep the cost of this finished product close to what a kit version would be priced at.
 
The wood base / chassis plate layout never really worked for me with the DAC so i welcome the change.  Looking forward to it..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Ivan303
Same, same?
Replies
1
Views
2K
Paul Birkeland
Paul Birkeland
A
EMI records
Replies
2
Views
8K
aragorn723
A
hmbscott
Moreplay Lpad impact on circuit impedance?
Replies
6
Views
3K
hmbscott
hmbscott
B
12au7 in SII?
Replies
6
Views
4K
Paul Joppa
P
D
Output transformer specs for S.E.X. 2.0 Iron Upgrade
Replies
5
Views
3K
Paul Birkeland
Paul Birkeland
Back
Top