Can we have a little information please Stan?
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Can we have a little information please Stan?
Yes Stan, more info please! I'm on the verge of trying the Audiolab MDAC and don't want to experience buyer's remorse. Thanks.
It's not in the feature and price range of the MDAC.
Basic specs are:
Two TOSLINK inputs
Two Coax inputs
One fixed Line output
One headphone output
Audio frequency range 0Hz to 20KHz.
Sampling freq. up to 192Khz
Other technical details:
No audio caps in the signal path between DAC chip and RCA/phono sockets.
No opamp output stage.
i.e. it is a fully passive output DAC.
Main mode of operation:
Manual Select
Auto Select
Stealth Mode
Hunt Mode
Power options:
External psu that is used like a battery charger.
Inbuilt battery low level warning in case anyone wishes to use it with a 12V battery.
Uses an enhanced version of the low noise VirtualDC circuit from the TC-7510, which means that there are no muting relays or muting transistors required in the DAC.
Low power consumption. Typically 70mA under most conditions.
Self levelling feet. Less than 170mm wide, and 220mm deep.
Price is not yet certain until I have an actual idea of the cost of production. But £125 excluding VAT and shipping is the aiming point.
Meant to replace the TC-7510 and Caiman+.
Not expected to be shipping till January due to some miscalculation in the delivery schedule. Was supposed to be ready in October...
Good luck with it Stan, sounds like a cracker :)
:scratch: Surely you mean nearly 0Hz to 90KHz+? I could understand it if you only had a maximum of 44.1KHz sampling frequency, but if it'll take sampling rates of 192KHz it should have an audio bandwidth of approximately half that no?Quote:
Originally Posted by StanleyB
Most of the features are the ones that many people have requested, including the price point. Some features are unique to the Bushmaster, and might even be unique enough to have been patented since they were invented by me. I expect other designers to try to copy them however.
I'll go into more details about those features in due course, when the DAC is closer to launch date.
As for the question regarding the audio range: 20KHz is the upper frequency of the audio range. Anything above that has a different name ;).
Good luck with it Stan man... Although I'm sure you don't need it! :)
What news of te headphone amp (or have I missed that else where :/)
:lol: Ok, you got me there Stan ;) Bang to rights come to think of it :eyebrows:
As one visitor has already mentioned on AoS some weeks ago, he could hardly tell the difference between the Bushmaster's headphone output and a Graham Slee headamp. Of course, the visitor did not know he was playing with the Bushmaster since he had not seen any of my DACs in person before ;).Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
I thought the 7520 was as good as the Nva job I once had, so that doesn't supprise me really ...
The caiman is excellent, although I don't have much to compare it too...
I thought you were making a dedicated headphone amp based on the gator ... Or summat??
There was a point you mentioned something about it when I said I thought my grados and caiman were a little to revealing of digitalness (for want of a much better description) when listening to spotify... You mentioned you had something in the pipeline that might help when I asked about using a different opamp, and that it was connected to a headphone amp you were building? Or did I miss understand??
I've been holding fire on getting any sort of dedicated headphone amp for work you see ... In case you bought something out and I experience, to quote, buyers remorse ;)
Oh THAT one. It is still on the card. I have the first prototype PCB in my office waiting for me to mount the components on it and then try it out for any final amendments.
But to be honest with you, I have a pile of designs lying about half or completely abandoned. The Caiman II has undergone two redesigns, but I was not happy with the projected bill of material cost, so I am back to the drawing board with that one. I might post some pics of the two rejected prototypes.
Due to the current and expected economic downturn I am trying to finish off the most urgent requests for new products. But wait till you hear the headamp on the Bushmaster. It is better than the Caiman version. The dedicated headamp is a couple of steps up from that.
Stanley, how dare you tease us?
I have only three words to say - pre and order
Me please :)
Ta,
Ant
I am being cautious for many reasons.
The Bushmaster is a minor statement DAC with some specs that knowledgeable DAC designers will want to have a peak at. But specs are one thing. Price has to be sensible and near impossible for anyone else to try to compete against.
Projects on the back burner ... I know that feeling!
Well maybe I buy somthing cheap whilst I wait for you to get your arse in gear ;) hehe
Any thoughts on my minor digitalness issue...?
An opamp I might try? Etc?
Sorry to thread high jack?
It wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't going to be in a system that the only digital source is spotify ...
You'll have to refresh my memory on that, or execute a reboot :).Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
What, you can't remember every issue every customer has ever had?? I'm disappointed ;)
Yeah, sorry ...
Basically, when listening to spotify and some less well recorded music even from higher res stuff, with my grado sr325's I get a bit to much detail in the highs that emphasises the "digitalness"
I know the grados are supper detailed in this area ... But tey sound fine with most good well recorded cd quality stuff ... I just feel if I could take an edge off I would gain more than I would loose ... Ya with me?
If you are a handy soldering iron operator, change the two yellow 4.7nF caps on the Gator for say 3.3nF or even 2.2nF. Also use an AD826 opamp if yo aren't already.
Keeping an eye on this thread :)
Butuz
That sounds like somthing I could do ...
I don't suppose you have a couple of appropriate caps I could p'chase p'chance :)
These things don't easily come to hand in my household :)
I shall have a look, but don't hold your breath. They are not values that I have fitted to anything.
The other option i suppose would be to sell the grados and get something smoother ... Its a hard one when i like everything else about them ... they just dont fit a very specific purpose that just so happens to be the main thing i want to use them for :doh:
... and cheers, that would be great, nbut dont worry to much
I have loads of headphones, and some of them are only used for specific functions. Last week I even bought two more to try out on the Bushmaster. One is the Audio Technika ATH-AD700, and the other is the Panasonic RP-HTF890.
So why sell your headphone instead of getting a complementary pair?
£££ ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by StanleyB
But yes, i take your point very well...
I am in fact discussing on another forum the merits of having multiple cameras for multiple jobs and differing circumstances
Any thoughts on a pair of headphones with possibly very slightly rolled off highs, warmish middles and a nice tight bass with a gatored caiman, with tirna mods and ad826 op amp running off a 16v psu... ?
on a budget? ;)
Here Hamish-Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-X-Wima-2...#ht_500wt_1180
The Panasonic RP-HTF890. If you shop around you can get one for less than £60.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
The Bushmaster name is excellent, will do well with forum searches once google finds it.:)
Is this the DAC with the circuit board layout that could be described as 'minimalist' ?
Nice one Stan, I shall look into them! ... One more spec if poss ... Closed back?
You could try a pair of Superlux 668B's Hamish, they should give you what you are looking for at nearly half the cost of the Panasonics. They really are excellent 'phones and are pretty close in performance to the Grado's without the analytical top end ;)
Ah ... Now there is an idea!
I have the 681's but find hey are a bit leaky of sound for office use ... Not as much as the grados mind...
I wonder if the 669's would be much cop?
I don't know as I've not heard a pair myself, I hear tell they are better than the 668's though ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamish
That's the one. The same one you saw when you passed by not so long ago. The absence of the muting circuit a la TC-7510 and the use of a minimalist audio output circuit gained from experience with the TC-7520 passive mod has been very rewarding. It has saved on quite a lot of components, which in turn has reduced bill of material cost. Mind you, it will come as a shock to many that the Bushmaster has a larger surface area compared to the Caiman. The low noise PCB track layout demanded the spreading out of the individual circuit elements.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Grant
Very interested in this, Stan. I have now taken the Caiman pretty much to its limit and it sounds bloody superb.
By the way, I'm thinking of taking my Caiman to Scalford next year, along with most of the rest of my system. Will you be there?
This is what you referred to recently in an exchange with me...I'm looking forward to this as are many, I'm sure. Looking forward to future business.Quote:
Originally Posted by StanleyB
Any one know the difference between a Wolfson WM8740 and a WM8716 ? Are the sampling rates the same ? Better in one rather than the other ?
Hi laughingbuddha, could you please pop into the welcome area of the forum & introduce yourself properly :) While you are about it please add your real name, we like to keep things more personal on here than other forums. Thanks in advance ;)
Hi 'laughingbuddha',
Welcome to AoS :)
What's your real first name? Please add it to your profile.
Also, in your registration email, you were instructed to pop into the Welcome area and say hello, telling us what system you use and what music you like.
Please also attend to that on your next visit - cheers! :cool:
Marco.
Just a quick update to let you guys know that the final PCB has passed testing. So it's off to the test house soon to make sure it conforms to EU regulations.
Pics to come over the weekend once I can figure out where my camera is.
Looking forward to check out this! :thumbsup:
http://www.homehifi.co.uk/aos/bm.jpg
A picture of me testing the Bushmaster against the Caiman. DAC audio technology and knowledge has definitely improved in the last couple of years.
No kidding, there looks to be bu**er all to the Bushmaster, that is unless there are surface mount components :eyebrows:Quote:
Originally Posted by StanleyB
It does look a bit spartan in comparison to what I remember inside the Caiman :scratch:
Looking good, Stan. What is the DAC chip used?
As mentioned in an earlier post, the Bushmster is based on all the good ideas and mods of the previous designs, plus some new ones:). There are no muting relays and their driver circuits. There is also no line output output stage. So no line output opamps and associated caps. It's a DC line output after all so no caps in the signal path to the output RCA sockets. There is also no variable output. The input selector circuit has also been simplified from a multi transistor, latching circuit, and selector diodes, to a microcontroller ;). And yes, I have used SMD where possible. They proved to be far less noisy in the TC-7510. The power supply is also far more compact due to the use of the latest generation LDO regulators. Those things are a mere fraction in size to the 78XX regulators that they replace.
The receiver and DAC chips are also far smaller in footprint. The board has also been laid out so that each section is as far away as possible from any other section. This helps to reduce the possibility of noise bleeding into adjacent circuitry.
I settled on the WM8524 after experimenting with a bunch of other ones. The manufacturer's specs looked less than spectacular, but the prototype DAC I built with it to try out the chip performed better than the Gatorized Caiman. And then I discovered that the SNR of the Rega DAC is the same as the Bushmaster :eyebrows:.Quote:
Originally Posted by MartinT
So +ve and -ve rails for output capacitor-less operation? Nice.
Nope. As I mentioned in an early post, some of the techniques I used in the design of the Bushmaster are likely to be of great interest to other designers;).Quote:
Originally Posted by MartinT
Intriguing!
That looks great. Do you have some specs for the headamp part of it too?
bit early...?
I'm sure Stan wont want to give away design info for a product not brought to market yet! ;)
Still, no harm asking!
I see the "wire mod" is a keeper! :lol::lol:
Maximum output swing is 8V peak to peak at the headphone socket. Output current is dependent on the opamp used, which also means that the bass level is dependent on the opamp used. I'll ship with the LM4562 in order to satisfy those who don't want too much bass. ( Yes there are loads of them...). But for proper bass drive, I use the THS4032 in my own setup with its 350mA capability. You should hear those K701 shift some air without any hint of distortion.Quote:
Originally Posted by jostber
As for musicality: well if you liked the Caiman headamp section then you are going to be smitten by the Bushmaster. But don't just take my word for it. Feel free to drop by with your expensive dedicated headamp and compare it to the Bushmaster.