ESS ES9008/9018 Sabre dac

[Dan Giovanni]

Those regs look like a text-book implementation of the Walt Jung reg, in other words very good! Better than the TP Placed supplies, as the opamp gets its juice from its own regulated rails, rather than the raw supply.

I was told by Jensen that the offset would give no problems, that it was well within spec. I think in your case just trying the transformers with and without caps will give you your answer.

In my case I wasn't massively impressed with the Jensens directly on the output of the Sabre - a bit soft and bland - so I'm hoping they do better fed with the much lower impedance of the Legato. If not it's back to finding the best op-amp I can.

Hi Dan,

I plan on using "Golden Reference" power supplies for my Legato, and Paul Hynes for the BII. They're no Paul Hynes, but I find them really good for analog applications. Not nearly as good for digital though.

I got a reply from Kevin (from K&K Audio), he said 6~7mV would "cause you to lose some low bass". I just wrote him another e-mail asking about the severity of the issue. If it seriously hinders performance, I may add caps or go for gapped transformers. Not sure which is the lesser evil Did you hear something similar from Jensen?

Edit: Oh and btw, I finally got my BII+Legato today! "The post office doesn't deliver mail on Sundays", you say. No they don't, but I was determined enough to drive through a typhoon to pick it up.


Cheers,
Alex

[squeezethatbuffalo]

Those regs look like a text-book implementation of the Walt Jung reg, in other words very good! Better than the TP Placed supplies, as the opamp gets its juice from its own regulated rails, rather than the raw supply.

I was told by Jensen that the offset would give no problems, that it was well within spec. I think in your case just trying the transformers with and without caps will give you your answer.

In my case I wasn't massively impressed with the Jensens directly on the output of the Sabre - a bit soft and bland - so I'm hoping they do better fed with the much lower impedance of the Legato. If not it's back to finding the best op-amp I can.

The Golden Reference regulators are Jung-type regs with optimized layout and carefully selected components. That's what they say, anyway

They're available as kits or built modules from ucc audio, the same fellas who sell fast power and MKP2000 caps. More details here.

I really like the regs. Very good performance, inexpensive, and ships right away (as opposed to like 30 days later ). Unlike good ol' Paul Hynes regs, however, they don't seem to work well as digital supplies. A decent 3-pin regulator implementation betters it in that regard.

TP Placids aren't bad, but it appears that they work best with a pre-reg. Not my first or second choice

I think I'll use the LL1527s with caps for now, and upgrade to a bigger/better transformer later.

I hope the Jensens would work well with your BII/Legato!

Edit: I think the Golden Reference and the Mmini regulator are designed by the same guy

[andreime]

try some known brands for output caps- Mundorf, Ampohm and such - MKP or PIO or paper etc.

I had a very nice experience with an MKP with polystyrene bypass. give it a try, the one I used was a 1uF Mundorf Mcap with a .001 bypass.

I'm using it in an arcam alpha 5+ and will experiment soon with a better MKP from them and even some paper ones. Will post results

[leo]

Hi Alex,

Those 10uf MKP2000 caps have arrived, I was surprised how light they are, I actually thought the box would be empty
I've fitted them in the Beresford Caiman dac first to see how they sound in that, I'm going to give them some running in for a few days

BTW, I have one of those mini regs too well I think the one I have is an older version, I was testing them along with ALW's etc

[squeezethatbuffalo]

Hi Leo,

I think you won't be disappointed

The mini regs were long out of production before I became aware of the company, but the latest version works for me.

Oh, and I'm almost done with my Buffalo II! So psyched! Expect my impressions soon®.

Cheers,
Alex

*soon® is a trademark of Twisted Pear Audio, registered in numerous countries

[squeezethatbuffalo]

The Buffalo II sings! Kind of...

Ironically, right after I sang praises about it, one of the GR regs refused to work properly (negative rail supplies -8v instead of -15) Gonna send it back to UCC for repair on Monday. No dual mono for me until it returns, oh well.

And for some reason, my Volumite refuses to cooperate with my Buffalo II. I'm supplying the onboard LDO with a separate 5v supply, the SLA/SCL wires are connected to BufII, and the chip on BufII has been removed as instructed. I checked all connections, and everything seems ok (except for the fact that Volumite doesn't work). Have I missed something obvious, or is it more likely that the Volumite is defective?

Oh well, at least my BufII is playing music

Edit: Okay, Russ kindly reminded me that the Volumite GND should be connected to the BuffII GND. That should be it :P

[leo]

Nice one Alex,

Shame about the faulty reg, at least it shouldn't be too hard to repair. What error amp is fitted in your regs BTW?

Let us know how you get on with the Volumite , I've not actually fitted one yet in the BII, I might borrow the one from my B32

BTW the MKP 2000 caps are running in ok, they are still in the Caiman dac, I'll transfer them over to the BII in a few days.
First impression when fitted in the Caiman the sound was a little strained but its starting to open out. How do you find the bass with these caps ? I'm finding it a little soft, this may be because their new and need more running in I'll comment more on their progress ina few days

[andreime]

To what caps are you comparing them?

[Dan Giovanni]

Sorry you are having issues getting it all going - does anything ever work first time?!

I don't know your level of technical experience, but if you like I can give you some pointers for fault finding the regulator. First thing .... does the reg give -8V when NOT connected to the DAC, and is anything getting hot?

[squeezethatbuffalo]

Nice one Alex,

Shame about the faulty reg, at least it shouldn't be too hard to repair. What error amp is fitted in your regs BTW?

Let us know how you get on with the Volumite , I've not actually fitted one yet in the BII, I might borrow the one from my B32

BTW the MKP 2000 caps are running in ok, they are still in the Caiman dac, I'll transfer them over to the BII in a few days.
First impression when fitted in the Caiman the sound was a little strained but its starting to open out. How do you find the bass with these caps ? I'm finding it a little soft, this may be because their new and need more running in I'll comment more on their progress ina few days

Hi Leo,

Not sure what happened to the regs, but it's okay, repairs are usually free. I just don't feel like waiting. Oh, I think it's LME49710NA, if that's what you're referring to.

I'll be out of town for a few days, so no fiddling with audio until I get back.

The MKP2000s are IMO quite balanced, they sound clean but not too lean. You won't get exceptional bass with these caps, but if it sounds "soft", then you may want to give the caps a few more days to run in. How do they compare to the Wimas so far?

Edit: I think the ebay seller is exaggerating, IME, the MKP2000 takes a bit longer than three days to mature. How about the treble? I recall that it sounds a bit harsh freshly installed.
Just one more question. In your past experience, how big of a difference does a "dual mono" (separate transformers and supplies) output stage make?

Cheers,