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MDAC First Listen (part 00100110)

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Johnw,
I've got an opportunity to go to plzen for a conference close to June 8. Is it close to where you live ? If so i can manage to have time to visit your lab :)

If not i have to wait until my venue (end of august) to pick up vfets and mdac2.

best regards,
 
hluga said:
Johnw,
I've got an opportunity to go to plzen for a conference close to June 8. Is it close to where you live ? If so i can manage to have time to visit your lab :)

If not i have to wait until my venue (end of august) to pick up vfets and mdac2.

best regards,
Click to expand...

Hluga,

Plzen is very close to the Germany Boarder - we are about 600km away! Czech Rep. is a long thin country and we are located at the opposite of the country :(

We can arrange accommodation for you if you would like to visit but its a far trip!

Your almost closer to France then to us when your in Plzen :(
 
Steven Toy said:
Last week I had a play around with the Creek Evo 50 CD player compared to my Rega Apollo R/MDAC L3 Toy combination.

I understand that Dominik had a part to play in the development of this player. I also note that it uses two Wolfson DAC chips and has an op amp output stage.

It bettered the Rega/MDAC combination for dynamics, bass drive, Timing and tunefulness.

The Rega/MDAC were slightly ahead on texture in the midrange.

On balance the Creek was the overall winner.

Swapping the Mark Grant Oyaide digital interconnect for one by Audio Mica narrowed the gap in terms of timing and bass drive but the Creek was still ahead.

We ran out of time so I did not get the chance to try the following:

● Using the Creek as transport with the MDAC L3 Toy as a DAC.

● Allowing the MDAC to warm up for more than a couple of hours.

My suspicions are the weak link is the Rega or the data transfer between the devices. Would clock locking likely fix this?

I wanted to stay with half-width cases as they can be accommodated on one shelf but I accept that MDAC2 will eventually be a full-width design.

The Creek seems incredibly well-made and the slot - loading mechanism is great.

Despite the Rega's relative shortcomings it has bettered most PC/streamer alternatives that I have tried so far with the exception of some of the kit brought round by Mark/Item including the Aurender X10. As a main digital source I intend to stick with disc spinners.

I welcome thoughts, particularly from John himself.

Please do not contest my findings thus far because this will simply generate heat and no light. I'm looking for causes and solutions to meet MY needs.

Your mileage may differ. Obvs!
Click to expand...

Similar mileage here.

http://www.thehifistore.co.nz/includes/pdfs/review-27.pdf

The Creek player is the one that I could live with instead of my UnitiServe feeding the Resonessence Mirus DAC via S/PDIF. In fact I am living with it :)

Jan
 
janerik said:
Similar mileage here.

http://www.thehifistore.co.nz/includes/pdfs/review-27.pdf

The Creek player is the one that I could live with instead of my UnitiServe feeding the Resonessence Mirus DAC via S/PDIF. In fact I am living with it :)

Jan
Click to expand...

Jan,

As usual the review is full of errors - for starters the CD servo is NOT a DVD IDE drive but a CD slot loader with custom designed servo board whose Mechanism we originally sourced for the Lakewest CD transport project and Dominik had great fun designing the servo PCB - likewise "Custom control software written by Creek" is fictional. The idea was to make the servo solution available for other designs, and we designed it into Creeks player.

But they are VERY nice units :)
 
VAT is 20% in the UK and duty on hi fi gear is usually a few percent, so you end up paying up to about 25% of the cost inc shipping.
 
iansr said:
VAT is 20% in the UK and duty on hi fi gear is usually a few percent, so you end up paying up to about 25% of the cost inc shipping.
Click to expand...

It pretty much the same here in Czech Rep. I'm sure they have tried to standardised sales tax across Europe as much as possible.
 
Having lived with the Auralic Aries for a couple of months I've been really impressed using both optical and USB connections. Somehow I managed to brick the unit last week and it's had to go back to manufacturer , which meant I've been using my old NetTop again. There's certainly a noticible change for the worst (with oilmex isolator via USB). Not sure if ever invest in a CDP again. Although if Domonik gets round to clock locking / modding an Oppo I might be tempted.
 
JohnW said:
Jan,

As usual the review is full of errors - for starters the CD servo is NOT a DVD IDE drive but a CD slot loader with custom designed servo board whose Mechanism we originally sourced for the Lakewest CD transport project and Dominik had great fun designing the servo PCB - likewise "Custom control software written by Creek" is fictional. The idea was to make the servo solution available for other designs, and we designed it into Creeks player.

But they are VERY nice units :)
Click to expand...

Subjectively they are indeed, especially at the price point.

Doesn't the Creek also have an opamp analogue stage, though?
 
Hi JohnW,
On the Tag dvd32r player you have a synclink connection to allow the receiver to control the clock on the player. Can this somehow be controlled by the mdac? It is connected via a coaxial cable.
Always have read that this unit is very low jitter and excellent cd transport, especially when connected with this cable to the tag av. Wonder what's the performance like compared with today cd players.
 
iansr said:
VAT is 20% in the UK and duty on hi fi gear is usually a few percent, so you end up paying up to about 25% of the cost inc shipping.
Click to expand...

To find the amount of duty included in the invoice price, use the formula:

Duty inclusive invoice price × duty rate ÷ (100 + duty rate)

For example, if the duty inclusive invoice price is £1,100 and the rate of duty is 10% the duty included in that invoice price is:

£1,100 × 10 ÷ (100 + 10) = £11,000 ÷ 110 = £100

Therefore the included duty is £100.

Note: the included duty is the last item to be deducted.


(From HMRC)

The price on which duty is paid includes the shipping cost.

Then they add VAT (currently 20%) to the new total.

Then the shipping agent charges you a fee to collect this money before they will deliver it. :eek::eek::confused::mad:


Ian I thought you were in the USA.
 
John

Apologies, I've tried searching through the threads but can't readily find the answer:

What ADC chip are you planning on using for the L3?

Thanks
 
ChrisPa said:
John

Apologies, I've tried searching through the threads but can't readily find the answer:

What ADC chip are you planning on using for the L3?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Chris,

A pair of PCM4202's as these are true 1Bit Modulators = true "DSD" output.

The dual complementary "Mono" single bit data outputs will be converted to PCM via the FPGA when required. We can offer various ADC filtering options for PCM.

The Master clock rate will be selectable, in Digital Pre-amplifier mode we will operate at a slightly higher clock rate then the rated Max, but well within the typical silicon tolerances of +/- 20%.
 
Rjpcardoso said:
Hi JohnW,
On the Tag dvd32r player you have a synclink connection to allow the receiver to control the clock on the player. Can this somehow be controlled by the mdac? It is connected via a coaxial cable.
Always have read that this unit is very low jitter and excellent cd transport, especially when connected with this cable to the tag av. Wonder what's the performance like compared with today cd players.
Click to expand...

Rjpcardoso,

There have been no advances in Clock design since the TAG DVD32R was designed, so there is no reason why an older machine should have worst jitter then a modern designs - its only down to the skill of the designer.

DVD will have worst Jitter Specs then CD due the the requirement of multiple clock rates. A second problem is that I with a DVD player the Audio Clock is derived from the Video Clock via a PLL circuit. and not direct from a "Clean" Crystal oscillator.

I have no technical details on the TAG's synclink system so cannot say if the MDAC can be made to work with it.
 
Steven Toy said:
Subjectively they are indeed, especially at the price point.

Doesn't the Creek also have an opamp analogue stage, though?
Click to expand...

Yes, the Creek is based on a standard Opamp circuit - but then so is the Mirus.

The Analogue stage was designed by Creek audio's designer with feedback from ourselves - one of which was to actively bias the Opamps into ClassA with current sources :). This is a trick we use to squeeze the last ounce of performance from affordable opamps.
 
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