SDTrans 384?

[rickmcinnis]

More listening last night and a few more impressions.

One good thing, like the phonograph and unlike the computer - the bass is in the listening room and not the kitchen. I have no idea how to explain this but it is very real. I figure some kind of phase anomaly with the computer.

Bass has good tone, extension and power. The old story of just when you think it might be lacking in bass a note comes around that dispels that notion.

It does not have the romance of the Trasfiguration cartridge - more like my back up ZU Denon 103R - very clean, maybe clinical in comparison. The sound does not envelope you as it does with the Transfiguration but this is not to say it does not fill the room with the recreated space. There is not the same palpability as with the really good cartridge.

The fact that it is in the same league impresses me.

I am going to go ahead and get five spst relays and power each rail with its own A123 26650. Will use my old OPTIMA to power the relay coil. Will initially try using just two linear supplies for the five batteries - one for the clock and the other for everything else. I figure the batteries should be enough to isolate the four rails. The single relays will allow the ledas to be short entering the board. I wish I did not have to use relays but a big switch would drastically increase the length of the wires.

I placed my favorite music in alphabetical order on my initial six disks. I find myself listening to them "as is" instead of skipping around. Funny how the device can influence how you listen to music.

I find when the thing is not playing music it makes some funny noises. Greg, does yours do this?

[gstew]

Rick,

To your question, I haven't noticed any funny noises, but I haven't had it in the system much and not playing very much at all... only times it was not playing was to change cards, a minute or so each, so if mine does, I haven't noticed it.

I've been fooling with my DAM connected to a Raspberry Pi over the last week. I'll put the SDTrans-connected one back in this weekend and see if my SDTrans -> DAM combo makes noises too.

I need to start modifying the DAMs anyway. Good excuse.

And thanks for your impressions. Funny, what it is doing to me is making me want to put all this digital foolery aside and get back to getting my vinyl setups running again!

Later!

Greg in Mississippi

P.S. Weird about good systems in Atlanta. I would have thought otherwise. The other three places I've lived have been in Fort Wayne, IN (where I grew up), Minneapolis, MN, and a short stint in Dallas, TX. I had great audio communities in each, Minneapolis especially with Audio Research, Magnepan, Bel Canto, and Wadia all nearby along the nationally-known Pavek old radio museum (great place to go hunt tubes) and an active audio club. I miss that seriously!

[rickmcinnis]

Atlanta is a cheap town.

I guess I am cheap, too, but in a more expensive way.

Many years ago I attended an Atlanta audio club meeting and they were playing CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE and GINO VANELLI records and I knew I did not belong there.

Before that I was introduced to John Cooledge who wrote for the ABSOLUTE SOUND and that was pretty neat but it was soon obvious I was interested in his system (the legendary DAYTON WRIGHT electrostatics, the one where the elements were is a bag of sulfur hexaflouride) and he was interested in me. I was not yet twenty and was amazed that someone would inhale something that made your heart beat really fast. That stuff scared me to death.

So after those early attempts at hearing what else was going on I gave up. When the shops went away that ended any chance of meeting fellow obsessed types and when I segued into semi-DIY that cemented it. I have no interest in listening to different boxes in my system. I would enjoy listening to other systems as systems and not modular amalgamations.

What I would really enjoy is going to one of the TIR NA gatherings!

I spent a week in Minneapolis many years ago and thought it was a great town. Just the right size but I would not want to be there for one-half of the year.

There is much to be learned by using both the analogue and digital approaches. I could never imagine not having a turntable and, so far, I think I have found my path to enjoying digital.

So why are you in Mississippi? Not that I have anything against Mississppi. All of the output devices in my First Watt amps were made in Mississippi though the company no longer exists.

[randytsuch]

I thought you were making a reference to the TV show SOUTH PARK.

There is a character named CARTMAN who is obnoxious and is always telling the other kids that he hates them.

And I am sure you have assumed his favorite snack food is CHEEZY PUFFS.

Oh, well ...

OK, I'll give you a change to redeem yourself :)

If you go buy the same ebay board as Nige, and then make the same mods that he is going to make, and finally compare it to your modded SDTrans384, then I won't hate you anymore ;)

Randy

[seeteeyou]

This board really does sound THAT good, it's like the feeling of listening to an entire album through Absolute Dream USB as mentioned below and I'm very happy about the sound of CrystalDigit Absolute Dream with SDTrans384 so far:

http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/crysta ... ne/?page=3

Two more inexpensive tweaks were posted as well:

http://www.kaijin-musen.jp/90_5564.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost2597654
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost3300744

http://www.kaijin-musen.jp/211.html
http://www.amazon.com/FINEMET-FT-3AM-B4 ... B00NE1QQ8W
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost3615018

It's absurd to even think about it but I've been contemplating about the purchase of Panasonic SLC-Lite or even the insane SLC cards myself:

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... ND/5119416
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... ND/5119424
https://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sit ... _guide.pdf
https://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sit ... _sheet.pdf

[rickmcinnis]

I thought you were making a reference to the TV show SOUTH PARK.

There is a character named CARTMAN who is obnoxious and is always telling the other kids that he hates them.

And I am sure you have assumed his favorite snack food is CHEEZY PUFFS.

Oh, well ...

OK, I'll give you a change to redeem yourself :)

If you go buy the same ebay board as Nige, and then make the same mods that he is going to make, and finally compare it to your modded SDTrans384, then I won't hate you anymore ;)

Randy

The whole point of getting this thing was that the necessary mods are easy to do. I have other projects I am more interested in than trying to make something sound like something else. I know it would be interesting to hear a comparison but I am fairly sure that there is more to the SDTrans than just the power supply mods that Nigel will perform on the EBAY board. Firmware could be a critical part of the deal. In fact, I bet a very important part of the deal. He also mentioned something about the I2S path which was important to the designers of the SDTrans. The EBAY board was likely given the I2S output just so they could say it has one.

In addition, the SDTrans has a very high quality slot for the cards that should last a good long time. The one on the EBAY board looks like it will eventually break with use.

Last night the thing really started to settle in. There was a large increase in that atmospheric aspect of good audio.

I suspect it is those electrolytics in the on-board regulators settling in. Can't wait to remove them entirely when I go with the battery supplies. I suspect a rather dramatic increase in goodness when that is done.

Like I said, I am tired of digging with my hands ... Time is money and I think buying this thing will more than make up for its expense with time allowed for other projects. I think the thing is a ridiculously good bargain.

Save yourself lots of pain and enjoy listening to music. Go ahead and get one.

[gstew]

Atlanta is a cheap town.

I guess I am cheap, too, but in a more expensive way.

Many years ago I attended an Atlanta audio club meeting and they were playing CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE and GINO VANELLI records and I knew I did not belong there.

Before that I was introduced to John Cooledge who wrote for the ABSOLUTE SOUND and that was pretty neat but it was soon obvious I was interested in his system (the legendary DAYTON WRIGHT electrostatics, the one where the elements were is a bag of sulfur hexaflouride) and he was interested in me. I was not yet twenty and was amazed that someone would inhale something that made your heart beat really fast. That stuff scared me to death.

So after those early attempts at hearing what else was going on I gave up. When the shops went away that ended any chance of meeting fellow obsessed types and when I segued into semi-DIY that cemented it. I have no interest in listening to different boxes in my system. I would enjoy listening to other systems as systems and not modular amalgamations.

What I would really enjoy is going to one of the TIR NA gatherings!

I spent a week in Minneapolis many years ago and thought it was a great town. Just the right size but I would not want to be there for one-half of the year.

There is much to be learned by using both the analogue and digital approaches. I could never imagine not having a turntable and, so far, I think I have found my path to enjoying digital.

So why are you in Mississippi? Not that I have anything against Mississppi. All of the output devices in my First Watt amps were made in Mississippi though the company no longer exists.

Hey, my first concert was Seals and Croft... opened for by... drum roll... wait for it... Captain and Tennille! And I've been known to blast Gino Vanelli now and then. No accounting for taste, is there!

And one of the guys in the Fort Wayne IN group had that pair of Dayton-Wright speakers for awhile. He eventually replaced them with some almost as scary early SoundLabs.

Meeting JWC would have been neat. I did meet John Nork at one point during a trip to a nearby stereo shop.

The group in Fort Wayne got me into DIY, with a speaker build using the then-available KEF B110/T27 combo. That transitioned into amp & phono setup mods and has gone downhill from there. I prefer to build my own and nothing I have that I haven't built hasn't been molested in some form or another.

Let's take our off-topic remembrances to email... I'm at gstew at stewart dash miyake dot net. I'll tell you why MS via email.

Back on topic, one mod available to the SDTrans was to put PPS film / copper foil caps across the main power supply caps on the board... search the DIYAudio thread. I'll try some small Panasonic SMD PPS caps I have on hand first, as I remember that set of caps had gotten pretty expensive.

Very curious what you'll have to say after distributed battery power.

And BTW, the clocks on the boards SHOULD be pretty good already, NDK's as I remember. I suspect Crysteks would not better them, you'll have to get to the really expensive spread (Duculons or Pulsar) to really make improvements. What did you have in mind?

Greg in Mississippi

[rickmcinnis]

This board really does sound THAT good, it's like the feeling of listening to an entire album through Absolute Dream USB as mentioned below and I'm very happy about the sound of CrystalDigit Absolute Dream with SDTrans384 so far:

http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/crysta ... ne/?page=3

Two more inexpensive tweaks were posted as well:

http://www.kaijin-musen.jp/90_5564.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost2597654
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost3300744

http://www.kaijin-musen.jp/211.html
http://www.amazon.com/FINEMET-FT-3AM-B4 ... B00NE1QQ8W
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost3615018

It's absurd to even think about it but I've been contemplating about the purchase of Panasonic SLC-Lite or even the insane SLC cards myself:

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... ND/5119416
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... ND/5119424
https://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sit ... _guide.pdf
https://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sit ... _sheet.pdf

Thanks for those links seetooyou.

I do not understand the USB cable, though.

One of the standard mods at TIR NA, due to the work of jkeny and nige2000 is to use the A123 26650 battery (generics are OK but I am a purist) for powering digital circuits.

Nigel has found that capacitors after the battery is not good which has been corroborated by those who have followed his advice.

The key to this scheme is to float charge the batteries with a good regulator to maintain the voltage, using the battery as a capacitor across the regulator's outputs.

I will be removing all of the electrolytics from the board and will not be replacing them with any caps at all. These batteries act as supremely good capacitors and any capacitor that follows them spoils the sound. I am familiar with the caps mod to the SDTrans but I think we will go beyond that.

Using the batteries is easy except for the fact you have to have a switch after the battery. I will be using a relay at each entry point and a battery for each of the five rails.

I was told that turn on is critical and that it is best for all of the rails to be activated simultaneously.

My board just keeps getting better. I have left it on playing music continuously. I have been told that clocks perform much better if left working all of the time. Thankfully the SDTrans allows repeating the disk indefinitely. I will leave it on playing music forever or until it dies which I do not think likely.

[gstew]

This board really does sound THAT good, it's like the feeling of listening to an entire album through Absolute Dream USB as mentioned below and I'm very happy about the sound of CrystalDigit Absolute Dream with SDTrans384 so far:

http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/crysta ... ne/?page=3

Two more inexpensive tweaks were posted as well:

http://www.kaijin-musen.jp/90_5564.html
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost2597654
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost3300744

http://www.kaijin-musen.jp/211.html
http://www.amazon.com/FINEMET-FT-3AM-B4 ... B00NE1QQ8W
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital- ... ost3615018

It's absurd to even think about it but I've been contemplating about the purchase of Panasonic SLC-Lite or even the insane SLC cards myself:

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... ND/5119416
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... ND/5119424
https://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sit ... _guide.pdf
https://na.industrial.panasonic.com/sit ... _sheet.pdf

Ah, scratch what I wrote, seeteeyou posted the links on the SunRing caps & the ferrite bead thingees I forgot!

On those cards, in one work project we went to ones like that to resolve lockup issues writing to them for realtime data capture. Worked. Expensive. I'll consider these for my SDTrans ONLY after someone else has reported on the transformation.

Greg in Mississippi

[rickmcinnis]

Meant to say something about those expensive cards in my post.

WHAT IS THE POINT?

I am using standard issue cards - SANDISK - they seem to work just fine.

What could possibly be the advantage of using such a card?

Only REDBOOK files for me - maybe if one was using the DSD facility and I say that only because I have no idea what that requires.

Maybe these allow LOTS of re-writes which will not matter to me since I am writing to them, once, and then leaving them alone?