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MDAC First Listen (Part 00101001)

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JohnW said:
As the FWC now allows the extra space, we are investigating the possibility of adding the HDMI interface - it will most likely be an extra "Plug-in card" to avoid delaying the release date.

If it can be add without delaying the project we will - but either way the Fusion DAC will have "optional" HDMI inputs which will allow multichannel support via the Fusion Master / Slave units or pure DSD extraction from compatible SACD players.

I'm very happy for this as we will now not need to develop a custom extraction card to be retrofitted to DVD / SACD / BR players :)

This is the type of advantage working with miniDSP and going FWC has allowed.
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John, I currently have one slave unit on order with you which I want to use as a digital cross-over. With possibility of HDMI inclusion (now or in future) I may be interested in ordering more slave units if Fusion DAC can be used as a proper A/V also through miniDSP (i.e. being able to decode DTS and other encoding standard).

Can you expand your vision on where the HDMI input might go?

By the way, I am not a great fan of touch screen technology. Great to look at but not my favorite as an input device. Dirty screen, in-accurate input potential, etc. Hopefully, the remote you chose can also be used to do most functionality. By no means a deal breaker for me but just something to consider when selecting remotes.

Finally, thank you very much for all your hard work, specially in the last couple of weeks. I am very glad you have allowed me and others to be part of the creation of this great product.

Cheers!
 
I am also more interested in a remote that does not need line of sight than in the touch screen.
 
iansr said:
I am also more interested in a remote that does not need line of sight than in the touch screen.
Click to expand...

:p

When you have kids, a touch screen can be useful when the youngest has hidden the remote in her dolls handbag .

If my new room is allowed I'll install a touchscreen entry lock :D

And for some reason my kids love fiddling with remote battery covers I now have two remotes with missing covers ... one of them my MDAC remote !

I'm sure there's a chinese copy of the Devialet remote for John to investigate ;)
 
TimR said:
Hi John, I thought one of the main advantages of developing a custom interface for the Bluray player (e.g. Oppo) was to provide a clock-lock to the DAC. Will a standard HDMI interface provide for clock-locking?
Click to expand...

Main advantage for me was to be able to extract the raw high Res PCM & DSD data streams :)

Let's see what the clock jitter is, but we can optimise the Fusion DACs advance clock circuits to optimise the interface even if we are clock slaves.
 
BrainPK said:
Will any of this room optimisation and equalisation etc which miniDSP brings to the party be of any use to some one like me who simply plays CDs and is only interested in the best possible SQ from two channel stereo?
Also, would the cd slot have any SQ advantages over my Primare CD player which was a very expensive (£1600 top of the range in 2002 )which I use as a transport.Thanks
Click to expand...

Hi BrainPK,

I too am only a stereo listener with a vintage Linn set-up. The new Linn Exact system makes much of their 'Space Optimisation' technology which to me offers the same technology as the miniDSP Dirac (an old Linn name:)) series:

http://www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series

at a much lower cost. The way I understand this room correction stuff, is that the speaker output (especially on old vintage gear) may be coloured or not flat across the frequency range (20-20K) or the room acoustics mean that frequency patches are absorbed or enhanced to varying levels depending on the stuff in the room and its layout. By placing a microphone at various places around the listening position an analysis can be made inside a computer by software that knows what is fed ito your system and what comes out at the listening position. This analysis can then be used to correct any sags or highs by adjusting the digital music steam going into the dac in real-time by a DSP processor.

The result being an almost studio-like an-echoic chamber to listen to your music without having a studio or an-echoic chamber....and I would expect you could probably choose effects like concert hall, night-club, what ever.

I haven't properly researched this or heard one of these units, so all I've said above needs to be taken with a big pinch of salt as I'm prone to jumping to conclusions and over-interpreting what I think I understand.....nevertheless I'm very keen to try this as if one could get a flat frequency response, then the speakers and listening room layout can almost be taken out of the equation for a perfect system (for oneself).

It also has the possibility of being a digital crossover for active speakers (which is what the Linn Exactbox offers) and I'm very interested in this aspect too as digital signal processing offers superior filtering which is far more precise and stable.

Please feel free to correct me.....I would appreciate your efforts and learn more.

Oh...about your CD unit, I'm sure this will make a great source for the Fusion Dac and will probably be better than the unit John is providing in the box....I would suggest, you buy the Fusion with the CD unit as this is a very low cost option (neater solution) and if it proves as good as yours....simply off-load yours and buy something else...CDs or JD?...otherwise have two CDs ready to switch between from your couch.

The Fusion Dac front panel design by John is really really nice! He has a knack of easily exceeding my expectations.
 
Both are bit accurate data, but in the case of the I2S the DAC is not normally the clock master due to the complexities of supporting different sampling rates. Easy for a single sampling rate, but gets rather more involved when needing to support 44.1 & 48KHz and there multiples sampling rates. This is automatically handled via Asynchronous USB.
 
timola said:
Hi BrainPK,

I too am only a stereo listener with a vintage Linn set-up. The new Linn Exact system makes much of their 'Space Optimisation' technology which to me offers the same technology as the miniDSP Dirac (an old Linn name:)) series:

http://www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series

at a much lower cost. The way I understand this room correction stuff, is that the speaker output (especially on old vintage gear) may be coloured or not flat across the frequency range (20-20K) or the room acoustics mean that frequency patches are absorbed or enhanced to varying levels depending on the stuff in the room and its layout. By placing a microphone at various places around the listening position an analysis can be made inside a computer by software that knows what is fed ito your system and what comes out at the listening position. This analysis can then be used to correct any sags or highs by adjusting the digital music steam going into the dac in real-time by a DSP processor.

The result being an almost studio-like an-echoic chamber to listen to your music without having a studio or an-echoic chamber....and I would expect you could probably choose effects like concert hall, night-club, what ever.

I haven't properly researched this or heard one of these units, so all I've said above needs to be taken with a big pinch of salt as I'm prone to jumping to conclusions and over-interpreting what I think I understand.....nevertheless I'm very keen to try this as if one could get a flat frequency response, then the speakers and listening room layout can almost be taken out of the equation for a perfect system (for oneself).

It also has the possibility of being a digital crossover for active speakers (which is what the Linn Exactbox offers) and I'm very interested in this aspect too as digital signal processing offers superior filtering which is far more precise and stable.

Please feel free to correct me.....I would appreciate your efforts and learn more.

Oh...about your CD unit, I'm sure this will make a great source for the Fusion Dac and will probably be better than the unit John is providing in the box....I would suggest, you buy the Fusion with the CD unit as this is a very low cost option (neater solution) and if it proves as good as yours....simply off-load yours and buy something else...CDs or JD?...otherwise have two CDs ready to switch between from your couch.

The Fusion Dac front panel design by John is really really nice! He has a knack of easily exceeding my expectations.
Click to expand...
Thanks timola for the very comprehensive reply and to John for his earlier one.I was thinking along those lines myself but am just trying to get things clear in my head.I fully intend subscribing to the FWC as I'm especially interested in the superior psu which will be inbuilt.Everything else is simply a bonus.
 
Timola, bear in mind that digital room correction can only go so far; if you have a fluttery room, you'll still have a fluttery room. Or if you have sympathetic resonances and the like, they'll still be there. However, to even out the bass response, it sounds ideal. I'd love to also try it with headphones, so that the bass response can be tweaked depending on listening levels (as the perceived level of bass relative to the rest of the frequency range changes as the volume changes)....
 
Last year i signed up for the mdac2 project, payed 300 gbp . The full size chassis is no problem for me , i want to go for the best sound quality.

So i have to sell my mdac and get a new fusion dac / mdac2 full width chassis build and tested by john?
I really like to know what i have to pay to get my new fusion dac. I don't understand anymore, because i see a estimated price from 300-400gbp is that besides the 300 gbp which i already payed? Or will there be additional cost? Because earlier we also had to pay 350gbp for the diy board?

Touch screen is nice to have, a good psu is a must have. I now have a streamer running daphile and a teradak lineair psu and that really sounds great...
 
JTC said:
Timola, bear in mind that digital room correction can only go so far; if you have a fluttery room, you'll still have a fluttery room. Or if you have sympathetic resonances and the like, they'll still be there. However, to even out the bass response, it sounds ideal. I'd love to also try it with headphones, so that the bass response can be tweaked depending on listening levels (as the perceived level of bass relative to the rest of the frequency range changes as the volume changes)....
Click to expand...

I'm really interested to see how effective it is. There are some people who are really enthusiastic about EQ/Room control to the extent that it's a requirement and the most significant advancement in audio these days. Hope it lives up to the hype and having right at the source seems like the best place for it. Roll on FDAC!
 
Jeroengrt said:
Last year i signed up for the mdac2 project, payed 300 gbp . The full size chassis is no problem for me , i want to go for the best sound quality.

So i have to sell my mdac and get a new fusion dac / mdac2 full width chassis and i really like to know what i have to pay to get my new fusion dac. I don't understand anymore, because i see a price from 300-400gbp is that it besides the 300 gbp which i already payed? Or will there be additional cost?

Touch screen is nice to have, a good psu is a must have. I now have a streamer running daphile and a teradak lineair psu and that really sounds great...
Click to expand...

Pretty sure its:

Cost to help fund the project: £400
Cost to develop the internal gubbins: £400ish (at cost)
Cost to develop the chassis & HQ PSU: £300ish (at cost)

Total = £1100 with the difference being what you have paid already (£700 for most) and if there are optional extra such as vishay foil resistors (£100ish) or slot loading CD drive (£35ish) then that needs to be paid for too... bit hazy on this bit.

Feel free to correct me.
 
Jeroengrt said:
Last year i signed up for the mdac2 project, payed 300 gbp . The full size chassis is no problem for me , i want to go for the best sound quality.

So i have to sell my mdac and get a new fusion dac / mdac2 full width chassis build and tested by john?
I really like to know what i have to pay to get my new fusion dac. I don't understand anymore, because i see a estimated price from 300-400gbp is that besides the 300 gbp which i already payed? Or will there be additional cost? Because earlier we also had to pay 350gbp for the diy board?

Touch screen is nice to have, a good psu is a must have. I now have a streamer running daphile and a teradak lineair psu and that really sounds great...
Click to expand...

The FWC Chassis will be GBP250 to GBP300 extra, so if you can sell your MDAC for that then you have no extra net cost :)
 
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