ESS ES9008/9018 Sabre dac

[themystical]

My TDA1541S2 (to me) still beats it with the human voice and sounds more realistic in that department BUT the dynamics , detail and sheer depth of the Sabre is infront , instruments on some well recorded music sound incredible!
Also this dacs regulated psu's and output stage are not optimal IMHO, once I've found some nice low output impedance regs and a discrete differential I/V this should make things much more interesting

The flaw with 90% of other dacs to my ears is that they sound artificial , they excell in certain area's but just don't sound real enough in the vocals.
Lets see how this one goes after a bit of experimenting

Just need to find some nice regulation, any idea's?

Not sure about regulation, this one has a 3V supply as well I believe. A nice balanced valve output stage ala lampizator should help with the realism on vocals if everything else is almost perfect.
How does it compare with the new Wolfson 8741?
How much did you pay for this? I quite fancy playing with this one as well but the idea of queing up ready to press the buy button when Twisted Pear Audio releases the next batch is putting me off. There is no other way of getting hold of one these is there?

[leo]

Sounds really interesting, Leo. I totally agree with you about the "artificiality" of other DACs compared to the TDA1541, and also for me the lack of weight, depth and scale, and like you say, the ability to convey a natural tonality. Everything else sounds 'digitally compressed' compared to the more 'analogue' sound of TDA 1541s.

*BUT* once you've sorted out the regulation, if the Sabre matches or betters the 1541 in the areas mentioned above then you'll be on to something really exciting. It will mean that at last modern CDPs or off-board DACs will offer the type of performance CD was designed to produce 25 years ago!

Marco.

Hi Marco,

The TDA will always be a reference for me, its the one all new units are compared against here

Once I've got the Sabre as best as I can and if it still falls behind the TDA in the vocals then the old classic will still remain as my favourite chip.
My goal is try as many units as possible both commercial and diy, going by a lot of things I've heard so far I totally understand why CD gets a bad name

Anyway I'll add updates as soon as their available

[leo]

Not sure about regulation, this one has a 3V supply as well I believe. A nice balanced valve output stage ala lampizator should help with the realism on vocals if everything else is almost perfect.
How does it compare with the new Wolfson 8741?
How much did you pay for this? I quite fancy playing with this one as well but the idea of queing up ready to press the buy button when Twisted Pear Audio releases the next batch is putting me off. There is no other way of getting hold of one these is there?

It uses 3.3v and 1,2v for the core, my plan is to separate the XO supply too and separate as much other parts as possible
The onboard regulation isn't too bad tbh but shares its voltage with various bits, theres LM4562 after the LDO feeding the chip, theres always an area for improvements though with this stuff

The Wolfson chips are very good, their not as good as the Sabre though IMO
The 8741 is as far as I know their best chip

I'm afraid TP is the only place I know that offers these as a kit, the other option is one of the eva boards from ESS but tbh it didn't offer me the easy options of adding my own regulation , I/V stages etc , the Evaluation board also costs a lot more than the TP kits which isn't bad if you just want a plug and play unit

I doubt I'll be using a valve stage with this dac, they work nice with say the voltage output chips but they do add colouration, its something I'd like to avoid with the Sabre
We'll see how things go

[Mike]

I'm watching this one with great interest!

I've registered with Twisted Pear and I'm hoping to be able to grab one from the next batch. Seems you need to be bloody quick off the mark though, that last lot sold out in under four minutes!!!

[Marco]

Hi Marco,

The TDA will always be a reference for me, its the one all new units are compared against here

Once I've got the Sabre as best as I can and if it still falls behind the TDA in the vocals then the old classic will still remain as my favourite chip.
My goal is try as many units as possible both commercial and diy, going by a lot of things I've heard so far I totally understand why CD gets a bad name

Anyway I'll add updates as soon as their available

Definitely keep me posted, Leo. My suspicion is that in the final analysis the "old classic" will still edge it

For me, the best DAC will always be that which makes hi-fi sound like real music; not the other way round. This is why as far as I'm concerned 'specs' or 'latest new technology' often mean jack-shit other than to impress a technology freak. It is far from being a guarantor of realistic and believable musical performance from any component or piece of equipment.

Marco.

[purite audio]

Leo Hi, is the implementation for both chips exactly the same, ( is it posssible to have identical implementation for both chips ) ? Keith.

[leo]

Leo Hi, is the implementation for both chips exactly the same, ( is it posssible to have identical implementation for both chips ) ? Keith.

Hi Keith,

I'm not sure what you mean mate, you mean is it possible to have the Sabre implementation same as the TDA1541S2?
IF so unfortunately the answer is no, their circuit requirements are a lot different

Leo

[themystical]

Hi Leo
Now that you have had (hopefully) a longer listen and play with this DAC, whats your latest view on the sound quality aspects? I believe they might become available again at TPA next week.
Avinash

[Paul Hynes]

Hi Leo,

I have only just joined the forum and, as yet, have not worked my way through the forum threads due to lack of time.

Your assessment of the Sabre DAC has grabbed my interest. I am looking for a DAC that will help close the gap between the enjoyment I get with my analogue system and the lack of enjoyment I have generally found with digital sources. The closest so far with overall presentation has been the Altmann DAC which I have to say is very good musically.

As you already know I have recently upgraded u72's Altmann DAC by replacing the on-board surface mount regulators with wideband shunt regulators. This has taken the Altmann DAC to a higher level of performance and the improvements were not subtle. If you wish to try this with the Sabre I have some regulator modules that have been previously used in regulator trials. I am prepared to let you have these free of charge, so you can see how well the Sabre responds to improved regulation.

I can provide shunt regulators for the 3v3 and +-15 volt supplies. Unfortunately the error amplifier I use in the shunt circuits will not operate on 1.2 volt supplies. However it should operate at 1.2 volts in a wideband series regulator circuit that I use (I will have to build one to verify this before I can be certain of correct operation). The series regulator will need between 4 and 7 volts input to operate. I will need to know more about the current draw of the various loads the regulators will see, if you have such information, as this will enable me to chose the correct module size for the job.

Regards
Paul

[leo]

Hi Guys,

The more I listen to this dac the more I like it,
The thing I'm finding with the Sabre dac is the lack of distortion compared to a lot of other dacs I've tried, its just so clear and detailed without the nasties, the hardest thing is getting the best out of it without adding signature
Twisted pear have also announced a new discrete output stage so I'll be hopefully trying one of those later , it'll be a straightforward swap from the IVY board

Hi Paul,
Great to see you on here! I did read u72's thread with interest, the TDA1541, TDA1543 and TDA1545's are much liked chips, it seems your shunt regs brought out the best in the Altmann

First I'd like to say thank you for the generous offer, I'd love to try your regs and post the results
I've since tried a couple of spare ALW super regs supplying the IVY output stage set at +/-15v
The sound improved in some area's but wasn't as good in others, theres more detail but with the expense of adding a sharpness and a mechanical quality which is not something I wanted so I reverted back to the standard regs, the improvements the ALW's brought are now lost but so are the bits I didn't like
I have checked the regs output on the scope for any instability, unless theres anything further up my scope can't pick up it seems ok

The standard regulated psu modules for the Buffalo and IVY board are these (obviously IVY needs LM317/337 and Buffalo needs 2 x LM317) http://www.twistedpearaudio.com/imag..._schematic.jpg , To start with I built the twisted pear version on vero from that schematic, a transformer with 9v secondarys was used for the dac supply and a 18v secondary one used for the IVY, caps are Panny FC's, diodes are UF4002.
The +/-15v supplies the IVY's op-amps direct which are a pair of differential OPA1632's , these go to both the balanced out sockets and also a LM4562 which converts the differential to line out, decoupling caps are 100uf panny FM's bypassed with 0.1uf films ( I may play with those later)
The Buffalo's regulated psu is set to output 2 x +6.5v ,one supplies the Buffalo's onboard 3.3v LDO reg and the other supplies the onboard 1.2v LDO reg + a LM4562

I have measured the current on the outputs of the 6.5v external regulated supplys
153.6mA's for the 3.3v LDO reg (VD)
61.3mA for the 1.2v LDO reg(VA)
35mA for the +/- 15v IVY (+v side measured)

It seems the 3.3v supplies the Sabres 3.3v VD and onboard 80mhz crystek XO, comparator for spdif and a pic chip

On the input socket for the 1.2v LDO is also a LM4562 with the outputs supplying the dacs left and right AVCC http://www.twistedpearaudio.com/docs..._schematic.pdf the LM462 has 3.3v on its output so I guess the 1.2v LDO feeds the dacs core and the LM4562 supplies the dacs VA left and right section

I'm trying to find a more detailed spec sheet for the Sabre, theres not a lot out there at the moment

Cheers,
Leo