Bonjour
Pour contribuer,sur la base du même DAC et en cherchant les différents tweaks possibles, j'ai trouvé ce montage qui me plait bien par sa simplicité et qui vise une sortie par transfos en lieu et place des AOP.
Les transfos préconisés ne sont pas donnés mais je serais bien tenté également si au final c'est du tout bon....
Des avis ?
"Tweak DAC avec Transfos Lundhall LL1636
High Grade 24bit/192khz DAC with fully assembled kits
http://cgi.ebay.com/High-Grade-24bit-19 ... 7758wt_907 A little "howto" for the guy who asked, and for any curious people around here.
So!
I got 2 Landahl transformers LL1636, wired as 1+1:10 with center tap
See the wiring of "C center tap" here :
http://www.lundahl.se/pdfs/datash/1636.pdfThen 2 very high quality resistors, naked Z foils from vishay ("naked" z201, or VAR, or TX2575)
http://www.mimasa.co.jp/order/vishayCatalogue/VAR.pdfI took some 15 kOhm resistors, but depending on your amplifier, you may have to get higher values.
My amp input impedance is 47 kOhm, if yours is the same or higher, you'll be fine with 15 kOhm.
If it's less than that, 22 kOhm resistor may be a better idea. (or even higher if your amp has very low impedance)
Remove the 3 opamps from the dac board, then see the interconnections on the following schematic (wiring.jpg)
I soldered the wires from the transformers primary directly on the empty sockets.
At the other side, I soldered the "ground" wire of the transformer's secondary to the "ground" of the RCA connector to cancel static noise and hums.
If everything is working fine (and it should!), you can then remove a few capacitors and resistors from the board, and disconnect half the power plug (alimentation for analogue parts, which is now fully deactivated)
Just look at the second attachment (DACremove.jpg).
I hope everything is clear, feel free to ask if you need more explainations.
Attached Thumbnails
Hey! Thanks for your interest!
In a few words (you could have guessed) :
everything sounds better
Smoother, clean, free of any kind of distortions, wider scene, better instruments separation...
And what's more important, more enjoyable, not tiring at all.
Sounds more organic, more "analogical"...
At first, I though it was bass shy, but no, bass are here and strong, but so clean!
The only relative drawback is the small loss of output power level.
But I just turn my amp a fraction higher, and everything is fine!
I can only compare to a CD player : Micromega Minium Cd3 (350 to 500 euros) which sounds good enough to get a few awards (ok, french awards for a french company, they were a bit biased, but it's anyway a musical performer)
Micromega CD Lecteurs CD sur Son-Video.com
Well, everything above is based on direct comparaison between this cd player and the gigawork with transformers.
To conclude, a firm and enjoyable step up!
I chose LL1636 based on the choices made by the Rakk Dac designer for his Passive Output Stage Kit.
He uses LL1674 (1:4 step up) for a PCM1794 dac chip.
Gigawork uses PCM1798 dac chip which outputs half smaller current.
I could have used the same transformer with bigger I/V resistor but...
As I wanted to present a very small "equivalent" resistor to the dac chip (to avoid possible distortion and clipping), I chose the LL1636 for its 1:10 step up and amorphous core like the LL1674, even if they are smaller in size...
And a "center tap" was needed too.
(and they are cheaper!)
I'd like to compare the Rakk Dac with my modified Gigawork, to see if I miss something...
I don't know if I can recommend this mod to anybody, but I personnaly love the result on my system.
Cheers!"