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Thread: Slow construction of ESS9018 dac

  1. #21
    Join Date: Jun 2015

    Location: London/Durham

    Posts: 6,869
    I'm Lawrence.

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    Quote Originally Posted by walpurgis View Post
    Many Chinese sellers have stock held in the UK or EU. You deal online with them back in China, then the UK part of the business often run by friends or family send out the goods.
    Yes but then you'd expect to get them within a week...

  2. #22
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    Exactly!

  3. #23
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    I have been playing today with the power supply for the ESS chip.
    In post #5 you can see a picture of a dual LT3045 power supply (PCB courtesy Sq225917 here). Top regulator chip nowadays 0.8uV/sqrt Hz. The PCB also from a respectable source.
    So this this one vs my humble made LM317 -> ADP151 ->AD49710 (mind that ESS advises to use op amp regulator in their documentation).
    I think I here more details using LT3045. But it sounds more HiFi than when using my own multi stage regulator. Mine is somewhat warmer, more analogue if you like. Johas Kaufmann and Anna Netrebko in O soave fanciulla are so dramatic! LT3045 is very good as well but I miss this passion!
    The only drawback in my PSU is more pronounced sibilance I believe. Which sounds strange as I said I hear more details using 3045 which is also brighter. So I should be hearing more sss using LT3045 not the other one.
    Strange. The only thing which come to my mind is that my PS oscillates somewhere. Not sure whether I have enough know-how to tackle this. So any advise is more than welcome.
    But for now I think mine stays in the chassis not the 3045.

    Also I discovered a wiring mistake in the connections of the +/-16V PSU. The overheating problem solved. I am too embarrassed to give you more details...

  4. #24
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    Meanwhile the smaller OLED screen has arrived from Far East London. I already got the money back as it was due a long time ago.
    When it arrived I felt a bit bad about it showing up and started thinking how to make it up to the seller.
    Until I hooked it up to arduino. No response. So I hooked it up to my Bus Pirate to read the i2c address. No luck.
    The I found an Arduino i2c scanner.
    Shall I ask the seller to reimburse the wasted time?

    Shall I mention that I tested another screen with the scanner and it nicely reports its address.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  5. #25
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    Meanwhile another (bigger: 2.42'') OLED screen has arrived. This is the one I would like to use with my DAC.
    I hooked it up to Arduino to see it working. I just tried an example program from the web to see how it looks like.
    Not too bad. I will post pics when I have somewhat more customised stuff to show.
    Anyway looks good. It will be a challenge to cut a nice display window in my enclosure.

    I will also need to change available on the web programs to control ess9018 to accommodate my screen. So still a lot of work.

  6. #26
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    Ah! One more thing!
    The Santa from Burson Audio has provided me with the tracking number for the V6 op amps!
    I guess I should get some better op amps than OPA134 which I use for buffers to make the comparison more fair! At the moment only the buffers will be replaced with Burson Audio V6.
    Btw I use LME49710 as IV converters.

  7. #27
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    Happy New Year!

    A number of things happened in the last few days.

    First of all the Burson Amps have arrived.
    Unfortunately/fortunately they are duals and I need singles for this project.
    So unfortunately I will have to wait a bit more to try (singles) in the DAC.
    Fortunately I can use duals in my Whammy headphone amplifier (N.Pass/W.Colburn). I am very impressed with the Whammy now. I will write up my impressions soon somewhere else.
    So for now just some teaser pictures.
    I am also very curious what Burson does to an old TDA1541 CD player (already upgraded the opamps from NE5532 to LM4562 and teh output caps to Elna Silmic II).

    I anticipation of Burson Audio amps I decided to try some other op amp buffers instead of OPA134. I picked OPA37.
    I was very impressed. The difference is hard to describe as the DAC is already pretty good with OPA134. It is just more real, more natural.
    Given the experience with Burson in Whammy my expectations are very high now!
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    Last edited by Gregje; 05-01-2020 at 12:02.

  8. #28
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    Another thing is trying to understand the OLED screen.
    I replaced Arduino UNO (which is pretty big) with Nano (small and cheap).
    As I mentioned before I managed to run some test programs (see pics).
    The problem I encountered is that the program does not run when the arduino is powered from an usb charger ie not conncted to the computer (it requires a manual reset to start properly).
    That is a touch one. An audio forum is probably not the best place to discuss this (unless anybody is interested). The issue seems to be the initialisation sequence required by the display and arduino. There are some hints/solutions on the net. I haven't found a nice one. One (not very elegant: a capacitor between RST and GND which increases the time RST is low ie gives more time for things to initialise properly) will work for me (it requires disconnecting the cap when you want to upload a different program for the arduino).
    Attached Images Attached Images

  9. #29
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    A bit off topic here. I have written up experience with Burson Audio V6 Classic in my Whammy headphone amplifier. You can find it here:

    https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pass...guide-191.html
    Post #1908

    Meanwhile I started adapting the real hifiduino script to work with my setup.
    It turns out that Arduino Nano is too small to support graphics libs for my screen and a largish script.
    For now I switched to ascii libs. You can still use different font size so I will be all right. For now at least.

  10. #30
    Join Date: Dec 2018

    Location: London

    Posts: 182
    I'm Greg.

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    Looks like I have mastered the Arduino and the OLED screen well enough to fit it in the chassis. For now I will also try to use the controls available in the chassis instead of a rotary switch. Saves me a lot of mechanical work!

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