'Analog Dinosaur' succumbs to the joys of FBA : enter Raspberry Pi 2/IQ-Audio DAC+!!

[Marco]

This about the best there is:





Not exactly pretty, but it works!

Marco.

[mikmas]

This about the best there is:

Not exactly pretty, but it works!

Marco.

Cross referencing the Dac board and your pic Marco it looks to be R5 and R7 - is this the case, also what value (or values) were they please?

[danilo]

Yess...Very Nice (although in Truth; Duelunds made NO audible differences in my Limited (those things have Ludicrous/prohibitive pricings) experiments..
I defer Sound of Resistors issues to Superman himself :-)

Reason for posting is:
I have read through this Entire thread ... Yet Have Not seen ANY Direct SQ comparisons to the HiFi berry DAC... + , pro, or whatever
Surprisingly so as according to the available Brochure babbles, uses the Same BB DAC chip... and costs a bit Less. (no interest in powering Headphones :-).
No one's bothered.. or simply never got 'round to it?

[Marco]

Cross referencing the Dac board and your pic Marco it looks to be R5 and R7 - is this the case, also what value (or values) were they please?

Hi Mike,

Best double check with Duncan about R5 and R7, but the resistor values are 470R. This is what you need from Hi-Fi Collective:

2 x (CAR-210) - 470R 0.4W Charcroft Z-Foil Resistor - £20.28 (£10.14 each).

Marco.

[Marco]

Hi Danilo,

Yess...Very Nice (although in Truth; Duelunds made NO audible differences in my Limited (those things have Ludicrous/prohibitive pricings) experiments..
I defer Sound of Resistors issues to Superman himself :-)

Well, Duncan and I have tested lots of different resistors recently, specifically in the stepped attenuators used in a Goldpoint passive preamp, see here: http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...855#post690855

...where we found quite clear sonic differences between the various resistors tested. At the time it was considered that the AudioNote Tants were best, but after some further assessment, that was later revised to the Z-Foils.

We now consider that, in our opinion, the Z-Foils are the most neutral sounding of the resistors we've tried (some of which didn't feature in the above comparisons), that is to say they act as least like a sonic bottleneck, as ALL resistors do to varying degrees. The Z-Foils, to our ears, get closest to the sound of NO RESISTOR, hence we we used them for the RPi mod.

I was listening late last night, on the RPi (via MoOde) to a an album of Bach Cello Suites, by Edgar Meyer, this:



It's a superbly recorded piece of music, with some exceptional cello playing by Meyer, and in the quiet darkness of the evening, the silence and serenity of which was punctuated only by the gentle flickering of flames from our log fire, Meyer's Cello filled the room with its resonant and sonorous intensity, possessing that slightly dense, but rich, 'woody' quality that all such instruments portray, when reproduced in an intimate environment.

Here, in my lounge, I could've been sitting in front of the very man himself, such was the sheer vivacity and lifelike nature, of not only the somewhat eerie and haunting sound of his cello, but encapsulated within the whole musical performance, which I felt a very real part of, as it portrayed all of the emotion in the tangible way one experiences, when watching a musician perform his or her art in a live venue.

This is simple music, but music which is all too easy for a hi-fi system to mangle, and transform into a bland and lifeless rather poor facsimile of the intense and soulful music, and the creative beauty of it all, I was being treated to, and rather fortunate to have experienced.

So what has the installation of the Z-Foils achieved?

Well, in short, they make recorded music 'come alive', as I've just described, in a way that I've heard from no other type of resistor, probably because it acts as least like one as is possible to achieve. This is more like hard-wiring the circuit instead, with the use of no resistors, were such a thing possible - and *that* is why they are so good, simply because they seem to get almost completely out of the way of the music.

Expensive? Yes, but BOY are these babies worth it.... For just over £20, the Z-Foils transform the RPi (and IQ-Audio DAC), an already highly capable partnership (offering ridiculously good 'bang for buck'), into producing a sonic and musical performance that is well into high-end territory, for such a paltry outlay, in a way that you won't believe until you've heard it for yourself....

Highly recommended. The only downside is the lack of sleep you're likely to get from spending many thoroughly enjoyable hours rediscovering your music collection!!

Marco.

[Marco]

Reason for posting is:
I have read through this Entire thread ... Yet Have Not seen ANY Direct SQ comparisons to the HiFi berry DAC... + , pro, or whatever
Surprisingly so as according to the available Brochure babbles, uses the Same BB DAC chip... and costs a bit Less. (no interest in powering Headphones :-).
No one's bothered.. or simply never got 'round to it?

The HiFi Berry is great, but its main purpose is for headphone listening, and to allow the use of a separate DAC, the latter which for me defeats the best thing about the RPi/IQ-Audio combo: its sheer simplicity!

Why complicate (and potentially) corrupt the signal path, by introducing another set of interfaces (a separate DAC and digital interconnect), when it is completely unnecessary? Keep it all hard-wired together, and by doing so, you'll simply get more music.

I can tell you that the IQ-Audio DAC, even as standard, is as good as most £1k DACs out there, and with the Z-Foils fitted, more like £3K+... I kid you not, especially when combined with the use of the superb Paul Hynes linear PSU.

Therefore, my advice is to Keep It Simple, Stupid - and just enjoy what is, quite frankly, a ridiculously good piece of kit, for what amounts to little more than pocket money!!

Marco.

[The Black Adder]

+1

[Kit1cat]

I think Danilo might have been referring to HiFi Berry DAC + pro, which is a standalone Dac.

https://www.hifiberry.com/dacplus/

[Desmo]

Hi Mike,

Best double check with Duncan about R5 and R7, but the resistor values are 470R. This is what you need from Hi-Fi Collective:

2 x (CAR-210) - 470R 0.4W Charcroft Z-Foil Resistor - £20.28 (£10.14 each).

Marco.

I can confirm that it is R5 and R7 that you need to replace. I've just made the change as I had a pair of Charcroft Z-foils of the correct value in my spares box. I've only played one track so far, so too early to make any conclusions on the sound, but it certainly does work, and the soldering was not too hard.

[mikmas]

I can confirm that it is R5 and R7 that you need to replace. I've just made the change as I had a pair of Charcroft Z-foils of the correct value in my spares box. I've only played one track so far, so too early to make any conclusions on the sound, but it certainly does work, and the soldering was not too hard.

Thanks for that confirmation Graeme (and Marco for the value)

Not sure if I'll take that step ... but something to muse on. Not too worried about the soldering having done surface mounts quite a bit previously, more the cost issue that holds me back