Kali Reclocker thoughts.

[Soulman]

Over the last couple of months I've been building and then upgrading a DDDac 1794. This is a NOS design based on a pair of 1794 chips with tent lab regulators and either capacitors or output transformers. I ran it at first with a couple of reasonable pre-built regulators from Audiowind and a Raspberry Pi direct onto the i2s inputs on the dac mainboard, cd was fed in via Co-ax on the SPDIF inputs.

I listened to it for a couple of months with capacitors before changing them for output transformers (at considerable expense), this made a decent difference, more and better controlled bass with an overall more focused sound, everything was tighter and more rhythmic. A while after I built better power supplies for the Pi (a low noise dual rail supply from Jims_Audio an ebay seller I've used often for different audio pcb's and kits) and a hot rodded Salas shunt regulator set up for 400mA at 12V, these made a greater difference, especially the Salas shunt (unfortunately it can't output over 1A reliably or I'd build more for the Pi and Kali).

At this point the SPDIF outperformed the streamer section quite easily and I began to search for ways of improving the streamer input over i2s. A better power supply is the obvious option and I've ordered a Sjostrom Audio super regulator which, hopefully will have the same impact on the streamer section as the Salas shunt did on SPDIF. I also at the same time read about the Kali reclocker on this forum, after some research I decided to order one (other reclocker options were beyond my budget and possibly skill level), it arrived within a few days and was simple to install and wire (although the need to not use masterlock and a ground lead instead caused a little headscratching). I made a few adjustments in volumio 2 (using Generic i2s dac setting) and fired it up, I left it running at a low level for a day or so to hopefully allow it time to settle and give its best.

The next time I sat down to listen I was truly surprised, this £70 board has lifted the streamer section beyond that of the SPDIF input by a decent margin, music sounds more natural with a better top to bottom balance and bigger soundstage, in fact it has the good bits from analogue without the bad bits of digital. I'm not going to spout fancy words about veils lifted, blah, blah as it means nothing to me, what it has done is make the streamer sound like real music and I no longer bother about the format I'm using. The dac using the SPDIF input was close to making that happen but the Kali has finished the job off for me. I'll fit the super regulator, once it arrives and built, but only because I've bought, I feel like anything I do now is icing on a very nice digital cake.

Lots of pretty lights, forgive the cheap connectors on the input and switch wiring, these will go once the layout is finalised.



Close up of the Salas shunt, if you need between 5V and 38V and around 500mA of current then these are well worth considering, it made a large difference to the SQ.

[ALLO.com]

Thank you for your kind words Soulman!