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How much difference between streamers when using own dac?

AndyU said:
Is your DAC not just a £90 Khadas Tone board in a nice case?
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It is a modified Khadas toneboard. I worked with khadas in an OEM capacity. I chose them after much research because the boards performance simply beats the competition extracting pretty much all there is to get out of the dac chipset. They became known as an excellent DIY option because I made another site reviewer aware of them.

I would encourage anyone who wants to save money to DIY this board, it is truly beating much of the competition. Cheapest way to do so is skewer some holes in a tupperware box and stuff the board in.

If you want a finished product which is in a very high quality milled aluminium case, tested and warranted for 3 years with accesdible English speaking support to take a look at the DAC1.

My amplifiers use Hypex OEM products which are superb and used by many manufacturers including NAD, Bel Canto etc. I will also be releasing a headphone Amplifier soon which is my own design and has class leading Ultra Low noise and distortion.

Followed by a streamer product based on an OEM SBC and followed by a bookshelf dsp active speaker.

Hope that helps.

BTW your agenda here is quite obvious Andy ;) but you are giving me a great opportunity to talk about my products. You also might care to do some research on component costs in products and retail prices and OEM supply generally in audio electronics. As an example think about the MDAC and project dacs. Designed by a 3RD party and sold as Audio lab and Project.
 
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March Audio said:
It is a modified Khadas toneboard. I worked with khadas in an OEM capacity. I chose them after much research because the boards performance simply beats the competition extracting pretty much all there is to get out of the cac chipset. They became known as an excellent DIY option because I made another site reviewer aware of them.

I would encourage anyone who wants to save money to DIY this board, it is truly beating much of the competition. Cheapest way to do so is skewer some holes in a tupperware box and stuff the board in.

If you want a finished product which is in a very high quality milled aluminium case, tested and warranted for 3 years with accesdible English speaking support to take a look at the DAC1.

My amplifiers use Hypex OEM products which are superb and used by many manufacturers including NAD, Bel Canto etc. I will also be releasing a headphone Amplifier soon which is my own design and has class leading Ultra Low noise and distortion.

Followed by a streamer product based on an OEM SBC and followed by a bookshelf dsp active speaker.

Hope that helps.

BTW your agenda here is quite obvious Andy ;) You also might care to do some research on component costs in products and retail prices and OEM supply generally in audio electronics. As an example think about the MDAC and project dacs. Designed by a 3RD party and sold as Audio lab and Project.
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Does your DAC1 sound the same as MDAC? Or is your DAC1 better/worse sounding DAC?
 
Oddly this is probably the answer to the OP's original question, how much difference between streamers using your own DAC? Well assuming all streamers put out bit perfect data, which all but broken streamers should, then it is really how you connect the streamer, what jitter and noise it adds to the data to the DAC, and how the DAC copes with that. So for some DACs very little difference if anything for the same music over the same interface from different streamers, for other DACs that cannot cope so well with jitter and noise on the data stream, perhaps a reasonable difference ... optical links should reduce that down to 'just' jitter differences ... well that's my straight-ish answer for the OP, poor fellow has been waiting a few pages for anything on topic ... :rolleyes:
 
Mentt said:
Ok, fair answer. Thank you for that

So why is that that your DAC1 sound better? Is it because mdac wasn’t properly designed?

Do you think that properly engineered DACs sound the same?
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It could be for a number of reasons. It is a later generation of dac chip. I would have to check an mdac technical review, but iirc the dac1 measures better.

There are measurable performance differences between all dacs. Just take a look through the technical tests linked in ASR previously. This can translate to audible differences. I do think some vastly exaggerate the audible differences, usually due to lack of control and bias when performing comparisons. What constitutes a worthwhile difference is a personal choice. Also buying a dac isn't just about SQ.
 
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Rob Watts from Chord ... take on RF noise:

“Yes all sources create RF noise. We have two ways of coupling RF noise - via the cables, or electromagnetically. This mode is stopped with Dave being made from a solid block of aluminium - it is extremely well screened. The mains, and the outputs are RF filtered too. On the USB, we have galvanic isolation, but that will not completely isolate Dave from the source, as it has 2pF of coupling capacitance on the galvanic isolation (all isolators have some level of coupling capacitance).

Now this coupling capacitance is important, as RF noise voltages from the source will inject a small current into Dave's ground plane - and due to the ground plane having a 0.5 ohms per square and about 1 nH inductance per square will create small internal RF voltages that is picked up by the analogue electronics which will then induce a tiny amount of IM distortion, and so noise floor modulation will increase - even though Dave has immeasurably small amounts of RF noise modulation, the small extra amount is audible.

But if you run the source from batteries, and have no ground connected to the lap-top, then there are no net currents flowing into Dave, as the isolation capacitance of the lap top to ground is much smaller than the 2 pF from the isolators; in effect you are now completely isolating the source from Dave via the direct USB connection and so no RF currents from the source can be injected into Dave's ground plane. That's why this mode sounds a bit smoother and warmer than mains powering the lap-top.

Having said all that, we are talking about very minor stuff here; it's not the icing on the cake but making sure the icing is flat to 1 micron rather than 0.1 mm...Before the galvanic isolation I used to get huge differences from sources if they were mains powered - now we are talking about a small change that is only audible on AB tests. When I listen to music I don't bother disconnecting the lap-top - only when doing serious testing.

Rob”

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-245
 
Personally think that the whole “galvanic isolation” is just marketing. It helps, but it isn’t the silver bullet as manufacturers trying to persuade us
 
I can build/supply rechargable battery psu’s for any sources upto 24v if you believe it will increase performance.
 
Couple years ago I have compared IFi psu with battery pack on raspberry pi 3 based streamer and for sure battery helped
 
Mentt said:
Couple years ago I have compared IFi psu with battery pack on raspberry pi 3 based streamer and for sure battery helped
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If you are susceptible to rf/mains noise then it will potentially increase performance. I have about 50 units available and can modify to spec.
 
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