CS4397 dac

Cool, be interested to know how it sounds. I've cleared my board of all smd caps and I'm in the process of sticking on the new caps. Half of the OScons I've been waiting for have got lost in the post though so not close to listening yet. Those little caps came off far easier than I expected.

I'll ultimately be listening to this using a CD transport from a JVC box (shigaclone from diyaudio) against my modded NOS arcam alpha 5. Really interested to see how such a cheap project fares against it.

Iain

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Originally Posted by leo

Have you tried another dac to be sure the digital signal is actually 96khz?

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Yes, I've had two other dacs working OK at 96kHz off that digital signal.

The Arcam A5 is a unit I know well, these are nice and ripe for modding and sound pretty damn good too once properly fettled!

I'm giving the discrete stage a good run in, initial impressions are promising ;)

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Originally Posted by jonners

Yes, I've had two other dacs working OK at 96kHz off that digital signal.

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You could be right regarding pin2 of the CS4397, I've no idea why they grounded it:confused:
3,4 and 5 go straight to 3.3v

The mode table on the Crystal CDB4396/7 evaluation board sheet gives 'Automatic Mode Operation Settings' : M0=1 M1=0 M2=1 M3=1 M4=0 - which I think are the settings we have on our board. However, the Cirrus Logic CS4397 data sheet doesn't seem to mention 'automatic mode' at all. According to the tables there, these same settings would give I2S operation at up to 24-bit, 'single speed' (16 to 50kHz). I'm confused. :confused:

iihay. I am using mine with a JVC Shigaclone. Sounds pretty good. What do you think ?

Fitting a pulse transformer on the DAC input cleans up some noise that we don't always realise is there, and makes a significant difference.

Also i found that fitting a BNC socket to my player instead of using the PCB mounted RCA socket made quite an improvement. Same applies to the DAC board.

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Originally Posted by alb

Fitting a pulse transformer on the DAC input cleans up some noise that we don't always realise is there, and makes a significant difference.

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What pulse transformer are you using, alb?

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Originally Posted by Puffin

iihay. I am using mine with a JVC Shigaclone. Sounds pretty good. What do you think ?

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Glad to hear it, you're the same puffin from the diya thread then. I've not listened yet still waiting for a some missing caps to arrive, getting very impatient!


Leo - agreed lovely CD player, I didn't mod it. Chap from called Kevin green audiocellar in oxford did this one and it sounds absolutely wonderful. It will be a good reference and very hard to beat.

Iain

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What pulse transformer are you using, alb?

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The one i have is a Newava S22083, available from Digi-key. I was lucky to have this sent to me by another member here.
Farnell do some Murata versions with similar specs, but i dont know how they compare.