DIY DAC choice

[goskers]

Hi all,

Has anyone had any great experiences with building a DAC from a kit? I am contemplating building the RAKK DAC from K&K: http://www.kandkaudio.com/digitalaudio.html

Any other real good options that would trump this design for 1k or under?

Any reasons why I should choose a different design?

Thanks

[JonMarsh]

For 1K or less, I'd research carefully the tradeoff between building a kit/DIY construction, vs. a Benchmark DAC1. I've built a few DACs, still have some experiemtal boards that are fairly "interesting", but I'm using a DAC1. The only things I"ve seen or heard I would consider replacing it with cost $8K-10K or more.

OTOH, I understand the fun and excitement of designing and building something, solving problems, getting it dialed in to what you're hoping for or expecting... there are other, easier ways to get those thrills, though, than building or designing DAC's. You need some very good test equipment to properly bench a high performance DAC.

But above all else, have fun, so take these comments with a grain of salt.

~Jon

[TacoD]

For 1K or less, I'd research carefully the tradeoff between building a kit/DIY construction, vs. a Benchmark DAC1. I've built a few DACs, still have some experiemtal boards that are fairly "interesting", but I'm using a DAC1. The only things I"ve seen or heard I would consider replacing it with cost $8K-10K or more.

OTOH, I understand the fun and excitement of designing and building something, solving problems, getting it dialed in to what you're hoping for or expecting... there are other, easier ways to get those thrills, though, than building or designing DAC's. You need some very good test equipment to properly bench a high performance DAC.

But above all else, have fun, so take these comments with a grain of salt.

~Jon

Hmm sounds interesting, but if you want only to spend 250 dollar, then DiY-kit can be cost effective. I use a cheap non oversampling design, I think it sounds great for this price point.

[goskers]

Thanks for the reply Jon,

I understand that the Benchmark has made an outstanding product at a fairly good price point. I would like to build a kit that is among the best available. The RAKK product is something that I came across which seems to have a fair amount of solid engineering behind it. The DAC1 uses a buffer to achieve it's low jitter level. The RAKK uses one of Guido Tent's clock to reclock the incoming signal to achieve a low level jitter level. Tent labs has been interested in the jitter issue before I ever heard of Benchmark.

I am not trying to get into some sort of shouting match because I am well aware of the DAC1 and am actually still considering this option. I often look at DIY for almost any piece of gear now as it offers a much better price/performance ratio if you do your homework and make the right choices.

If any input on the general designs of any highend DIY DAC's than I would appreciate the thoughts.

wasser

[JonMarsh]

Hello,

I understand the desire to build something yourself, and one would hope that it is possible to make something from a kit or scratch that is really excellent for ~ $1K. My only caution is to investigate and compare carefully. While I'll agree that measurements alone may not tell the whole story, I think that basic measurements regarding low level non-linearity, distortion, jitter, etc, as well as the net analog bandwidth in various sample rate modes is a good foundation for comparison.

Check out the reviews of various high end commercial DACs in Stereophile if you haven't already- especially the second follow on for the DAC1, which includes detailed technical measurements.

Without a doubt, Guido is knowledgable about many factors of DAC design- and a precision local clock with minimial jitter is an absolute must. But the SPDIF signal coming from the transport is a key issue (assuming you're not building a DAC into an existing player and providing a common local master clock for the transport and DAC), and recovery of that data is often a limiting factor. In this regard, the DAC1 outperforms many more expensive DACs, with far lower net jitter even with sources such as a PC sound card- where as many other DAC's in the $4K to $8K range will have good performance (though not as good as the Benchamrk) with a very high end transport, and 4-6 times worse performance with a low end device. This ability of the Benchmark is a valuable and useful characteristics, especially if one wants to do a media server, as is my plan shortly.

I'm only suggesting you weigh your needs, goals, and total requirements carefully before making a choice...

~Jon

[goskers]

I am definitely trying to make the most wise decision that I can as this is something that I don't want to purchase again in awhile. How does the Apogee Mini-DAC compare to the Benchmark? It seems to have similar characteristics such as the buffered clock for low jitter.

Thanks

[ThomasW]

We don't know anyone that owns one of the Apogee mini-DACs, so we don't know how they compare to the DAC1

[Al Garay]

Joel,

The DEQX you have has a very good DAC built in. Try it first.

Al

[Davey]

Joel,

If you already have a DEQX why would you need another DAC? This would mean adding another DAC-ADC conversion cycle into the mix that doesn't really do anything. Unless, in the case of RACC DAC, you want to incorporate some tube "sound?"

Davey.