ESS ES9008/9018 Sabre dac

[jkeny]

Oh sorry, I see how it reads now

[leo]

Sounds nice driving a pair of headphones balanced

[leo]

Tried some more tweaks (which I'll probably update later) also a few things can't be seen in the last pic

I'm hearing some brilliant sounds out of this thing, next dac I'm playing with is going to have to go a long way to better this

[jkeny]

Great Leo, I like your style - never one to rest on your laurels you're tweaking this thing to within an inch of it's life. Please post details when you get a chance.

What are you driving it with? I just (nearly) finished modding a HiFace. Great option for hi-res sound out of PC - I think you have one, don't you?

I recommend trying a separate external 3.3V supply (I use a battery) to the clocks to hear what this thing is capable of - it's held back significantly by it's switching supplies!

[leo]

Great Leo, I like your style - never one to rest on your laurels you're tweaking this thing to within an inch of it's life. Please post details when you get a chance.

What are you driving it with? I just (nearly) finished modding a HiFace. Great option for hi-res sound out of PC - I think you have one, don't you?

I recommend trying a separate external 3.3V supply (I use a battery) to the clocks to hear what this thing is capable of - it's held back significantly by it's switching supplies!

Sounds like you've been achieving great results with the Hiface John, I only had one on loan but do intend on getting my own sometime after I've finished tweaking the Musiland, theres a few idea's I'd like to try with the Hiface and look forward to having a probe around inside seeing what else can be done to improve things, just a shame the units are sealed and require breaking open.

I recently tried running an external supply to the Musiland which was based around a little linear job going to a Paul Hynes Z1A-5 shunt , a few minutes of use showed this to be extremely worthwhile! the filter mods on the USB line suggested by Thorsten was a worthwhile little cheap and easy tweak but isolating the USB source and running from the PH regged supply the sound really starts to improve noticeably after its had a little time to warm up.
Again this trashes the opinions all spdif sources sound the same

How long do you get out of the batts?

[jkeny]

Sounds like you've been achieving great results with the Hiface John, I only had one on loan but do intend on getting my own sometime after I've finished tweaking the Musiland, theres a few idea's I'd like to try with the Hiface and look forward to having a probe around inside seeing what else can be done to improve things, just a shame the units are sealed and require breaking open.

I recently tried running an external supply to the Musiland which was based around a little linear job going to a Paul Hynes Z1A-5 shunt , a few minutes of use showed this to be extremely worthwhile! the filter mods on the USB line suggested by Thorsten was a worthwhile little cheap and easy tweak but isolating the USB source and running from the PH regged supply the sound really starts to improve noticeably after its had a little time to warm up.
Again this trashes the opinions all spdif sources sound the same

How long do you get out of the batts?

I would say the results are astounding with the HiFace - I have to do some re-work on the Musiland & do a AB comparison but I don't remember the Musiland sounding as good as this.

In the Musiland, external supply on the USB is an improvement & running the PC off batteries or Linear PS is also an improvement. I think getting rid of the switching supplies helps also. As I said I have to get back to it & do some work & listening.

On the HiFace, I have 3 battery supplies - one feeding 5V via USB, one feeding 3.3V to clocks & One feeding 3.3V to the Xilinx CPLD. I also have a 3.3V battery powering my DAC & some salvaged LiPo from a laptop battery pack running my TA2020 amp so I'm completely off grid except for my laptop (I refuse to buy more batteries for it!)

I will be testing to see what supplies I can combine together & retain SQ but I was listening for about 6 hours yesterday on full batteries & when I measure them today they're all at about 3.29V. This really is no indication of what is left in them as they hold their voltage output fairly steady until exhausted (unlike other batteries). But so far I'm a happy bunny These are 2300mAH & I don't know the nominal current usage of the various elements in this system. I'll know the charge longevity better after a bit of usage but even if it was 12 hours I'd be happy - these LiFePo4 also have about 10 times the cycle life compared to Li ion batteries!

[jkeny]

I left it running from 11:00am this morning to see how long it ran for - the 5V Duracell pack just gave out at 17:00. All the 3.3V batteries are running fine at about 3.29V . I've put a 5V transformer on the Duracells & am up and running again to see which of the 3.3V batteries goes first & when. Pic attached of the makeshift set-up. You see 3 LiFePO4 batteries 1 for clocks, 1 for CPLD I/O banks, 1 running ESS DAC.

Leo, I hope I can box it up as neat as your Sabre set-up?

PS Leo, how can you attach big images like yours above when the size limit is 97K?

[jkeny]

Leo, just to let you know this is still playing at 11:00 pm now so 12 hours non-stop on the 3.3V batteries so far (only the 5V Duracells ran out). I'm pretty happy so far - I'll resume tomorrow to see how long I get out of them! I expect the one supplying the ESS DAC will run out first as it's a Vout DAC with a 2V RMS output running off this one battery!

[leo]

Sorry I'm late getting back John thats good going with the batteries, certainly enough time for most folks, thank you for going to the trouble testing their run time, I'm getting the itch now with buying a Hiface
I like the way you've separated things

With the pics I just upload them on photo bucket rather than uploading them here, then copy and past the image code link

[leo]

BTW I'm sure you'll be ok casing that lot up, if I'm honest the casing up for me is the worse bit, especially finding things suitable, I'd have preferred a bigger case with the dac, I'm tempted to fit something like a mesh type lid to allow plenty of ventilation for the shunt regs, I normally leave the lid off things anyway when in use so probably do the same with this