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Posted by Amir on
02-09-2017
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I have listened to EAR DAC 4 in two systems.
Specification:
BNC/AES SPDIF input , no serious jitter rejection , no Digital processing , no op-amp , wolfson DAC 8741 , transformer coupled ECC88 output tube stage (5v output with analog volume control to drive power amp).
tube rolling: Telefunken E88CC
the wolfson 8741 is not true multi-bit
jitter reduction is not good
usb input sounds crap
stock ECC888 tubes are crap
it should be used with Pre amplifier
as you see there is no special thing in specification but EAR DAC sounds good to my ear.
EAR DAC 4 have not been tested in a 7 way high resolution system. we listened to this DAC in a good sounding 2way Living voice RW in complete EAR system.
setup:
CEC TL0-X Transport -> EAR DAC 4 -> EAR Pre -> EAR 861 Power -> Living Voice IBX-RW
All Purist Neptune Cabling
i should say this player is fuller than many DACs . "fuller" means better and fuller micro dynamics (like sounds of LP versus CD) even at lower sound levels. it sounds coherent and dynamic but in hard rock music it is a-little out of control. control and extension is affected by complex music but very magical sound in less complex music.
I think EAR is good to be in your list.
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Posted by Amir on
02-23-2017
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 Romy the Cat wrote: | |
OK, you can completely delete this post
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Posted by Duc on
03-12-2017
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that blue motorized ALPS volume pot is utterly waste. the weakest link of the chain of every audio device I've heard. it's a carbon type potentiometer and has a bad effect on the sound unless the pot is used to control a secondary relay ladder resistor circuit which doesn't seem to be the case in the following picture. I would not use any device with that part in it.
| Amir wrote: | |
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Posted by xandcg on
03-14-2017
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Amir,
Do you like LampzatOr? You can ever ask them for custom made one, hardware and/or voicing. So you will have with something sounding (exactly?) how you want it to sound.
IMO, custom made always bring the best result.
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Posted by Amir on
03-16-2017
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| xandcg wrote: | Amir,
Do you like LampzatOr? You can ever ask them for custom made one, hardware and/or voicing. So you will have with something sounding (exactly?) how you want it to sound.
IMO, custom made always bring the best result.
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Thank you .I have never heard lamizator DAC but i have seen his website.It seems he make good DACs but i guess his products do not satisfy me.
I like emotional sound not inpressive sound. It means audio system should be transparent in both micro dynamics and tonality.
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Posted by xandcg on
03-16-2017
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For the record, and wide talking, the LampizatOr sound is on the same boat of Audio Note (UK).
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Posted by Amir on
03-19-2017
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| xandcg wrote: | For the record, and wide talking, the LampizatOr sound is on the same boat of Audio Note (UK).
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Ear dac4 is not so transparent and it's volume control should be removed in my idea.
I guess Audionote is good but it's sound is in the same league with ear dac4.I am interested to new CEC dac pure r-2r but it is very expensive.
http://www.cec-international.com/pages/s25.html
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Posted by xandcg on
03-19-2017
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Not whiling to try to force you into anything but LampzatOr also have true R2R, as option on some models and default on the top one (Golden Gate). Not to say you can do tube rolling and adapt the sound to your mood.
You could make a call to Lukas and see if he can voice the DAC to sound as you want. I think it is better than keep buying things and later discover it does not sound like you want.
AN will come out with R2R, DAC Six, but that will be really expensive.
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Posted by Duc on
03-21-2017
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| Amir wrote: |
Ear dac4 is not so transparent and it's volume control should be removed in my idea.
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Amir,
Good idea. I bet it will make a remarkable difference.
Try to look for your ideal sound among true Multibit R2R DACs. For your information here is a subjective list of best R2R DACs under let's say $7-8K I've searched about them:
Schiit Yggdrasil - An AK4113 chip DAC
http://schiit.com/products/yggdrasil
Audio-GD Master-7 Singularity - it has eight pieces PCM1704UK chips in it
http://audio-gd.com/Master/Singularity%207/Singularity%207EN.htm
Chord Hugo - I'm not sure if it's a true R2R
http://www.chordelectronics.co.uk/product/hugo/
just my $0.02. Hope this helps to make up your mind.
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Posted by tuga on
03-25-2017
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| Amir wrote: |  xandcg wrote: | For the record, and wide talking, the LampizatOr sound is on the same boat of Audio Note (UK).
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Ear dac4 is not so transparent and it's volume control should be removed in my idea.
I guess Audionote is good but it's sound is in the same league with ear dac4.I am interested to new CEC dac pure r-2r but it is very expensive.
http://www.cec-international.com/pages/s25.html |
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SaveSave
I have read somewhere that CEC has closed it's doors...SaveSave
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Posted by steverino on
03-26-2017
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Well, they may have closed their doors but they left their website open.
http://www.cec-web.co.jp/english_index.html
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Posted by xandcg on
05-08-2017
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Amir,
If you are looking for a transparent DAC and it could have a built-in preamp, you may want to take a look on:
Merging + Nadac
Nadac Player, same but with a built-in music server (or something).
I did not listened to them, but at least their Pro Audio gear usually are very transparent. I rather prefer valve electronics but if I was in the market with the mind opened for SS DAC/Preamp I would take a serious look on those.
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Posted by Amir on
05-08-2017
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| xandcg wrote: | Amir,
If you are looking for a transparent DAC and it could have a built-in preamp, you may want to take a look on:
Merging + Nadac
Nadac Player, same but a built-in music server (or something).
I did not listened to them, but at least their Pro Audio gear usually are very transparent. I rather prefer valve electronics but if I was in the market with the mind opened for SS DAC/Preamp I would take a serious look on those.
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Thank you
I am trying to find a way to setup a PC Audio with various OS/Software and various hardware.
I think about a "headless fanless low clock/power motherboard/cpu" with "light and optimized latency bit-perfect OS/software" and true optically isolated ethernet connection between NAS and PC. in my idea the PC Audio has no hard drive and i will boot it from network via PXE Server. the PC will remotely control via SSH or ... by my tablet/iphone/macbook. controlling ground loop is not easy in this complex chain. i gues more cpu core with lower clock frequency could be better.
the main problem in my idea is Power supply of both motherboard and usb card. I guess CEC TL0-X sounds good because of it's power supply.
controlling the noise is my second priority.
no transport sounds as deep as CEC TL-0x and it's micro dynamics is superior to any other transport.
I think at first step i should find a good power supply then trying to lowering PC noise.
i would like to hear CEC is making a music server :-))
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Posted by xandcg on
05-26-2017
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Amir,
It may interest you: https://www.mopidy.com/
Cheers!
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Posted by Amir on
05-26-2017
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Thank you
xandcg
do you think Voyage MPD/ALSA/Ronald Config is not bit perfect? or you think it is not good?
AMR (thorsten) guys in munich 2017 recommended my friend to use Volumio . Volumio use Debian/MPD/ALSA and they claim it is bit perfect.
I think if all of these softwares (MPD, Volumio,mopidy) are bit perfect then the only thing i should consider is the config of kernel to which codes should be proccess at higher priority.
i have tested 2 macbook pro, 13" dual core i5 and 15" quadcore both 2013-2014.
the
sound dynamics and image depth hugely improved by using "renice"
command in terminal. i increased coreaudio priority in mac by :
sudo renice -20 "core audio PID"
renice command in terminal change the process priority of Tasks in cpu.
I guess using light OS/Software (true latency config) on low power mainboard/cpu (quad core celeron or AMD GX TDP<10w) is better than using super computers (high power powerful cpu) to eliminate the latency.
I think the main problem of low power mainboard/cpu is their power lines because of limited current and dirty that we could use PCIe to USB cards to get a good power from an external power.
I have ordered Fujitsu D3313-S5 from Germany , TDP is 5w , 1.2Ghz clock .
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Posted by xandcg on
05-26-2017
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Hi,
It is not about bit-perfect thing but a practical one.
The Mopidy is just a server like MPD however it is being made to support plugins. I did not dig into it yet and I do not know the plugins currently available but Spotify and Soundcloud what are on their site, however as Mopidy is written in Python what is a very easy language and so tons of plugins should appear with time - most will be useless of course. I am not a fan of streaming but if there come a Qobuz plugin it is good to find and test music before buying it.
It is more like Volumio but I believe it is lighter, as MPD.
I also do think low clocked processor should work better.
For power supplies, a possible quick solution would be to get a Komputer, but just the power supply and the box adapted for your board. Their (Lampizator) power supplies are reportedly to be very good. The price can always be negotiated... However, if you find out who make power supplies for them you could get it even cheaper - I know it is made by a guy also in Poland.
Cheers!
EDIT:
I think is this the guy:
Leszek Ogonowski
www: http://ogonowski.eu
email: leszek@ogonowski.eu
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Posted by Amir on
05-26-2017
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| xandcg wrote: |
For power supplies, a possible quick solution would be to get a Komputer, but just the power supply and the box adapted for your board. Their (Lampizator) power supplies are reportedly to be very good. The price can always be negotiated... However, if you find out who make power supplies for them you could get it even cheaper - I know it is made by a guy also in Poland.
Cheers!
EDIT:
I think is this the guy:
Leszek Ogonowski
www: http://ogonowski.eu
email: leszek@ogonowski.eu |
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I am going to use CEC TL0-X 7-pin DC power supply, if it's voltage be in range i will use it.
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Posted by xandcg on
06-09-2017
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Some CEC porn, here, here, and here.
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Posted by Amir on
06-09-2017
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Tuning cpu latency in kernel is important to reducing jitter in low clock/low power systems like intel celeron.
http://www.scylladb.com/2016/06/10/read-latency-and-scylla-jmx-process/
I think after going to low latency kernel we should adjust proper time sharing between streaming threads.
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Posted by xandcg on
06-09-2017
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I do not have any Linux box anymore, unless you consider an Android smartphone as a Linux box.
However, if you wanna play with the kernel and are seeking low latency, you better go with a patched kernel: you will need the rt (real-time) patches and probably will like to test the BFS (Brain Fucking Schedule) patches by Con Kolivas - often called ck-sources. Linux distributions often have a kernel version with both patches (and others) on their repositories - merged in one source. Otherwise, you need to patch the kernel sources and compile it.
If you are using SSD, you may get better results using the NOOP I/O Scheduler than the default one. I/O scheduler is related with storage input/output scheduling, not processes.
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Posted by Amir on
06-09-2017
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| xandcg wrote: | I do not have any Linux box anymore, unless you consider an Android smartphone as a Linux box.
However, if you wanna play with the kernel and are seeking low latency, you better go with a patched kernel: you will need the rt (real-time) patches and probably will like to test the BFS (Brain Fucking Schedule) patches by Con Kolivas - often called ck-sources. Linux distributions often have a kernel version with both patches (and others) on their repositories - merged in one source. Otherwise, you need to patch the kernel sources and compile it.
If you are using SSD, you may get better results using the NOOP I/O Scheduler than the default one. I/O scheduler is related with storage input/output scheduling, not processes.
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I have seen those lampi pages . Very interesting that Cec has poor square wave but it sounds good.I will use BFS and will report the result.I do not use hdd , i use nas .
Thank you
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Posted by AlexA6404 on
06-17-2019
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Amir, I tried to access your weblog on your profile www.hifi.ir . It does not seem to work. Is the weblog still active?
Best regards
Alex
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Posted by Amir on
06-17-2019
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| AlexA6404 wrote: |
Amir, I tried to access your weblog on your profile www.hifi.ir . It does not seem to work. Is the weblog still active?
Best regards
Alex
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Yes , it is active and i can see it from iran ip , i also see it from usa ip (vpn) , can you send me a screen shot i will report it to my web administrator.I also write more in my telegram channel in persian language
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Posted by AlexA6404 on
06-17-2019
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Hi Amir. Thank you for your replay. I tried a different route and it worked this time. I will send you an email using the email address on that site.
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