Soekris Dam Dac

[rickmcinnis]

jkeny,

The RED TOP is not that expensive. $140,00 total. If this one lasts ten years as my previous one it is not a bad use of money.

jkeny, Nigel and Randy,

IT WORKS!

Started with no drama at all.

Had a little trouble getting my player to work but eventually got the new one to load.

Even with POWERFLOWER powering everything the sound is very promising. So much to do.

I feel certain the battery supply will work with the replacement of the RED TOP and four 26650s for the P24 12 volts rail.

I listened last night to a very basic computer setup. Onboard USB outputs (tonight I will install the JCAT card and be able to turn USB off in the BIOS), the monitor is plugged into the onboard socket and not the video card since it needs the RED TOP to work.

Even in this diminished state the sound is pretty interesting. Compared to LP the bass is thin and the high frequencies are a little gritty but from previous experience we know most, if not all, of this will go away when the battery supply is used.

Tonight I will remove the onboard volume control and connect the SLAGLE autoformers to the output. zfe, at DIYAudio found the onboard VC to have problems. I will (should have done it before) remove those ceramic caps at the output. If I find I need attenuation (hoping the sutoformers might do this for me) I will place a cap between the output leads.

I need to install the new firmware. I am no longer using WINDOWS at home (UBUNTU is all I find I need) so I will have to learn to do this with UBUNTU. Not in that big a rush for that. Using Paul's favorite filter fro the old firmware. Nigel, which filter are you using?

So, after it is all done I can see I was overly nervous about the project. I guess your board burning up had me scared to death notwithstanding all of SOEKRIS's warning of flame and destruction. I think the board is much hardier than advertised!

My resistor stack supplies are maintaining 3.317 volts for both plus and minus.

So now the quest for good digital audio can begin again in my house.

Now to cancel that SCHIIT DAC.

Sincere THANKS to you all for all of the help,

[randytsuch]

Great news Rick.

Welcome to the club.

Still waiting for pics :)

[rickmcinnis]

Will have to take pictures because Nigel won't believe it exists until I do!

It is not as tidy as it was with the ground switch but not too bad.

Are you using the new firmware? Are you using Paul's filters? I am sure you have said this but I am lazy and busy today!

Take care,

[nige2000]

Had a feeling it wasn't dead

New firmware is much better its a must really
Still on new nos filter

[randytsuch]

Will have to take pictures because Nigel won't believe it exists until I do!

It is not as tidy as it was with the ground switch but not too bad.

Are you using the new firmware? Are you using Paul's filters? I am sure you have said this but I am lazy and busy today!

Take care,

I'm using new firmware, 0.99 and the "partypak" for the filter set, with NOS as the selected one.
I think being able to load in different filters is a significant factor in making this dac special.

My blog has some info on how to load the firmware and filters. There is also help for this at dimdim and hifiduino blogs.

Once you get a RS-232 adapter, it was pretty easy, but I did it from Windows 7, never tried from linux.

[rickmcinnis]

Nigel,

Are you using the SOEKRIS NOS filter or Randy's?
_____________________________________________

I have done the earlier firmware change and installed Paul's favorite filter with TERA TERM and WINDOWS.

I could bring the thing to work to make these installs but hope I can figure out how to use LINUX to make the installation.

[nige2000]

Nigel,

Are you using the SOEKRIS NOS filter or Randy's?

pauls partypak newnos

_____________________________________________

I have done the earlier firmware change and installed Paul's favorite filter with TERA TERM and WINDOWS.

I could bring the thing to work to make these installs but hope I can figure out how to use LINUX to make the installation.

i tried to do it with mac osx before and gave up and gave in to windows

[rickmcinnis]

Took some photos.

Since it is a pain to post photos here I put them in a photo album.

http://jalbum.net/a/1682528

There are photos of the underside of the first configuration. The camera batteries had gone away when I made he change so no photos of the underside with the switches. Easy enough to extrapolate.

Tried to keep all power supply wires of equal length, thought any effort to maintain equal voltages on the reistor stack batteries would be good.

The mravica reg supplies the +- 3.3 for the resistor stack.

I had the two shunt regs from the DDDAC1794 project so I am using those for the WAVE IO and the "clock" supply. I sawed off the toroids (after removing them of course) and have remotely mounted my preferred split bobbin transformers below the DAC board. Makes them much easier to feal with. They are mounted back to back and standing upright.

Installed REGEN last night (as you can see - ready for battery power - but using the MEANWELL for now). Discovered that the replacement JCAT USB board which I have not had a chance to use until now does not work so I am using the USB 2 outputs on the MB. The REGEN makes an important improvement with this arrangement. The JCAT board may not be needed? Hope to get the battery installed into the REGEN this weekend.

I see no reason to put REGEN back in the bos. All of my other digital stuff is out in the open!

The DAC board is resting on a rudimentary shelf attached to my MERRILL cast iron equipment rack. Old George did not make many of these. The Memphis, Tennessee turntable legend had these made with the thought one could place the turntable on top. As heavy and sturdy as it is it still was not a good place for a turntable, especially one using springs! But it makes a supremely sturdy rack. I do not use all of the (cast iron) shelves so I am able to use those holes to mount the shelf. Yes, it is ugly but then my whole system is not made to look at. That is why you see those big bolts.

Board is about 15 inches long and 9 inches wide. I did cut the board a little too narrow. Easy enough to place them on another board someday.

Found out I do not have the connectors necessary to use the SLAGLE autoformer so stuck awhile longer using the SOEKRIS volume control arrangement.

I am really spoiled by my turntable and the sound from this is so different as to make them non-comparable. There is something to be said for both approaches.

Maybe things will change ENOUGH when I get the battery PS back working. But at this point where I am hearing the problems I fear is endemic to the medium. There is something so completely different about how a "note event" is handled. There remains something missing, something abbreviated, left out of the WHOLE. The presentation remains very forward, which is fine, I do not mind it but one wonders if this spatial compression is what affects the quality of the "events" - I know that is a goofy word to use but cannot think fo anything else since I am trying to talk about a snapshot of music.

I am quite sure the SOEKRIS sounds much better than when I last heard it. The problem is my TT set-up sounds a whole lot better than it did when I last had SOEKRIS running. Got a new cartridge, made some important mods to the phono power supply and am hearing the best sound I have ever heard in my house. Most of my slowness in finishing this project was that the TT sounded so good I did not have much motivation.

But there is much more to be done with SOEKRIS and I am sure this gap will narrow.

[jkeny]

Rick, I'm sure you have mentioned it before but what TT & phono preamp do you have?
One thing that struck me when listening to Fran's tweaked Soekris was how analogue like it sounded - that effortless ease in audio reproduction & soundstage wholeness - no sign of strain or digital disconnectedness.

We have heard some good TTs in the past & I'm pretty sure this tweaked Soekris DAC is up there if not even better than the TTs but of course A/Bing would be needed to confirm this

[randytsuch]

Interesting packaging job Rick. Thanks for the pics.

I mothballed my analog setup a long time ago, I'm too lazy to spin records.

And I think my DAC is at least as good as it would be, but it's not a real high end analog setup either.