ESS ES9008/9018 Sabre dac

[jkeny]

Just thought you guys might be interested in my Tweakers Sabre DAC - basically an ES9018 soldered (by hand) to a prototype board - total cost $70 http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showt...36#post1870036

[leo]

Interesting, keep us updated

Those proto boards are handy for experimenting, the copper pads should take more soldering and desoldering than standard pcb tracks

[jkeny]

Will do, Leo, as you can see there are those who say it's doomed, "doomed I tell you"

[Dan Giovanni]

Hi John,

how are you getting on with the DAC? Still fired up to prove the doubters wrong i hope

I've gotten my ESS9018 working by the way - the Sabre chip needs heating up in order for it to lock on, so still a dodgy joint in there somewhere. Sounds great of course, but impossible to make a meaningful comparison with the older 24 bit Sabre.

Dan

[jkeny]

Hi Dan,
Good to hear that you have the problem figured out - only issue is how to resolve it - did you solder this yourself, by hand or send it out? Pity a meaningful comparison isn't possible between the 32 & 24 bit DAC on the same board - is this just because you now don't have an original buffalo board to compare it to? This would be an ideal opportunity to evaluate the sonic character of just the DACs.

Actually, I wa thinking of you the other day in regard to my experimental Sabre board and wondered if it tuned out to be a disaster would Dan be able to desolder it from the board with his friends hot air station?

This is not a problem on my protoboard as I did a continuity check on all pins when I finished soldering the DAC.

Yes, still working on it but I'm doing a TAS1020B (48LQFP) USB receiver first on protoboard to try out some ideas and avoid mistakes on an expensive Sabre DAC. So far it has proven easy to put 0.1uF C0G PS decoupling caps as close to the PS/Gnd pins as I want (within a couple of milimeters - the limit being the soldering iron tip width) - I'll post some pics if there's interest.

[Dan Giovanni]

Glad you are making progress John. If you run into trouble I can give you the contact details of the guy who did the work for me. Looking forward to seeing the pics and any comments from your doubters

As for mine, in order to do a fair comparison I'd have to undo all the mods I've done, and I really can't be arsed. My feeling is that there is little difference between them - certainly nothing large.

[leo]

Wanted to see how this dac sounded driving headphones so I wired up a jack socket and plugged in the cans, hmm pretty good.
So lets lets try cutting the headphone cable and adding a male and female 4pin XLR to allow the option of balanced seeing as though the Buffalo's offer differential output based around OPA1632's

I don't have a Volumite yet for controlling output or a balanced attenuator so I had to do it the compromised way by adjusting the SPDIF to suit

Anyway initial impressions was really took me by surprise!
Think I'd like the option of balanced inputs with the next diy speaker amp I try

[jkeny]

Leo, do you reckon the balanced O/P sounds better than the single-ended IVY stage?
A number of users have maintained that a transformer I/V is the best sounding O/P stage for the Sabre!

[jkeny]

Guys,
Just nearly finished the TAS1020B USB streaming controller on protoboard & thought I'd post some pics. I'm using it as a test bed for ideas/techniques before I tackle the Sabre DAC protoboard.

I have two ground planes on this - the bottom of the protoboard is a solid analogue ground plane & the bottom of the matrix board is a copper foil filled digital ground plane. There is also a small copper clock ground plane under the crystal & PLL components. All gnd planes are directly connected under the chip although the TAS1020B datasheet recommends to use a ferrite bead to join the clock gnd plane to the analogue ground plane.

Small X5R 0.1uF caps are placed close to the chip but could go closer. SEPC cap with bypass on analog crystal supply.

Any comments/improvements/mistakes?

[leo]

Leo, do you reckon the balanced O/P sounds better than the single-ended IVY stage?
A number of users have maintained that a transformer I/V is the best sounding O/P stage for the Sabre!

With headphones,DEFINITELY!
With the speaker amps, well only amp I currently have giving the option of balanced in is the UCD's , I'd say balanced is best with that amp, it just sounds a little more open and effortless

As noted before I've never been a great fan of signal transformers, I don't discuss much why because it usually causes arguments if I do get chance to try one with the Sabre and I'm proven wrong I'd be sure to post it on here