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Buffalo II DAC

Tomek,
It's exasperating isn't it.
What I did was sit and watch the clock with two windows open - and refreshing them both when the timer gets to zero very quickly.
As soon as you see the 'available' sign add to your cart however many you want, then go to paypal immediately and pay as there is a time limit for them to stay in your cart without paying I understand.
By the time I had paid for mine the lot had been sold - so no more that two minutes.
I think they are fast becoming victims of their own success.
Good luck.
Have fingers faster than the rest and youll be fine!
Mine were supposed to leave last week but I have been contacted and told of a short delay due to weather conditions there - which I know to be correct.
 
Today i had a chance listen to Weiss DAC 202. It was a best digital reproduction i ever heard. Weiss is using the same dac chip as Buffalo ...
Does anybody had a chance to hear and eventually compare Buffalo II and Weiss 202 ? How close or how far is Buffalo to Weiss ?
 
I would love to hear the Weiss too (I hope all these high end DAC's don't disturb your love of DIY Tomek :)) For around £4000 it should be the best digital sound you heard!

It's probably a hard question to answer as the sound of a DAC unit is as much down to the output stage and quality of power supply and regulation as the DAC chip itself. Info on the Weiss states it uses op-amps in the analogue stage. I have seen pics of the inside of the Weiss and it's quite basic. Possibly a fair bit of the cost went towards the firewire development and various options. It stands to reason you could better the Weiss for the same money, in fact for £4000 you could build the best Buffalo DAC in existence with no compromises anywhere, and there's always the AckoDAC.

It's a question of how much ££ you have to throw at the build.
 
Ackodac is interesting, but i think that it is not to far from Buffalo and there is a "Buffalo community", so there is more support and information available.

I would like to build Buffalo in two stages:

Stage 1: Buffalo II + Placid + Legato + Placid BP

Stage 2: add 3 Trident reg for DAC PCB + another Placid BP for Legato + Volumite

But i am still not sure about the outputs transformer for Buffalo...

So maybe SLA battery + Placid (without rectifier) + Buffalo + Transformers (Jensen ? Sowter ?) is the best solution ?

In the last days i was reading a lot about Buffalo & transformers, but for me it is still not clear if the output with transformer is better than Legaoto/IVY.

There was a post on Buffalo with transformers and SLA battery on diyaudio, this photo dissappeared. I found this in google cache:

images.jpg


Maybe it is the best solution ?

I think that Twisted Pear owners are not happy with this kind of solution, nobody will buy their output stages+ps etc.
 
Sounds like a damned good plan Tomek. The basic twisted pear route is a very good one to start with and I can assure you the Buffalo with modified Legato and placids sounds bloody excellent, and I only have the old 24 bit Buffalo. Buff 2 with tridents can only be better.

I wonder if transformer output is really better than a good discrete output stage for the ESS DAC, voltage versus current output and all that. You should choose the transformers carefully. In a recent post on the Buffalo/transformer thread there is a link to a circuit using tubes and transformers which looks interesting, you can add a resistor to maintain current output, which is thought to be better.

There is also the Borbely I/V stage which is supposed to be excellent, and Paul Hynes regs and power supplies are thought better than TP's. It would be nice to be able to afford everything to try.

It's not that the TP boys are unhappy with transformer or tube outputs, it's a case of working within the ESS recommended application for the DAC. No DAC chip was ever really designed for use with transformers so they or ESS will not support it. There is a whole range of THD, harmonics, impedance and capacitance issues when using these methods.
 
The Buffalo DAC isn't ideally suited to driving a transformer directly; it's best to give it an I/V stage first. There are good technical reasons for this, and my ears tend to confirm it, though I'd avoid being dogmatic as with all things in audio.

As for battery power, Legato and shunt power supplies aren't ideal as they suck a lot of current. Stick with good series regs if going the battery route.
 
Just a quick update on the final (hopefully) configuration of my Buffalo build. The basic layout is described in earlier posts, however I did try a couple of configurations and list my observations below.

1) Replacing the Placid shunt regulator supplying the Buffalo / Trident boards with a LCDPS

Didn't like the result, in theory the Tridents should negate the effect of the upstream regulator, but in my view it was a retrograde move, so the Placid is back in

2) Volumite

Added a Volumite and tried bypassing my preamp / headphone amp gain control. Again, this is recommended as a better option by Russ and Brian, however I ended up retaining the Volumite, but running on full output and using the preamp to control volume, to me this sounded better, and of course, you need a another big knob.

3) Volumite Power

Initially powered the Volumite via the 4 pin header on the Buffalo. Then thought, surely isolating the volumite power from the Buffalo DVCC supply (powered by the Trident) must be a good thing - so I added the optional voltage reg to the Volumite and powered from the raw DC rail. Again, to me this was an improvement.


So, all done, screws/bolts tightened, and a break from tweaking for a good few months.

Regards and good luck to all the Buffalo builders!
 
Thats an interesting read Martin.
A lot seems to be written about preamps and what they do / dont do - and in your config two seem to make better music.
It's also interesting that as many think - the upstream psu's and keeping things quiet / seperate can and does make a nice difference, and are vital for great performance.
More power to your elbow sir - well done with the build and great news that you are happy with the results.
My boards are in transit at present, more news when they get here.
 
I would say that is doesn't exhibit any real tonal imbalance, however, I do find that the IVY stage seems to be a bit faster and detailed than the Legato, with the Legato sounding a little more analogue. Differences are minor though, I can live with either.

Compared to my Lavry DA11, the Buffalo tonal balance wise is very similar, but brings you closer to the music (more detail, ambiance etc).
 
Today i was able to order Buffalo DAC+Placid+Legato+BP Placid+9V Tranny+15V Tranny.

Little expensive for DIY project, but i hope the sound will be great.

Will be delivered in April, when i will build it, than i will report my experience with this dac :)
 
Same here Tomek! It was quite exciting, wasn't it? They all sold out within minutes.

In addition I ordered the 4:1 MUX receiver module & TOSlink module (the latter are excellent, I fitted one in my GigaDAC).

Roll on April...
 
Hi Tony,

Oh yes, it was exciting. I was alredy thinking, that their server crashed, because when i pressed "checkout" everything was freezed for very looooong four minutes.

Before this "auction" i was making many times the exercise putting the things in the basket, making checkout etc, so i was good prepared.

So, we we build it "parallel" :)
 
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