[Raj]

Hey Hugh,

 I'm interested in a dac for my diy cd pro 2 project, are there any others out there that would like an aksa dac? May be if enough of us ask Hugh he'll sort it out!

Thanks
Raj

[PSP]

Hi Raj,
yup... I have to agree.  A Hugh Dean-designed DAC, considering Hugh's extraordinary ear and sense of music and sound... boggles the mind, yes it does        

[AKSA]

Folks,

I'm certainly thinking about it and discussing it at length with Ben, my digital wizard.

We are in complete agreement on the approach and the chipset.  The sonic pressure points relate to jitter, I-V conversion purity, analog output, power supplies, oversampling, and filter regimes.  We have thought in depth on these aspects and, I believe, with input from the public domain and various significant minds in the area, come to some interesting conclusions about clocks, power supply topologies, oversampling rates, filter systems, and I-V conversion.  I-V is a HUGE issue not well done and could be expected to be one of the greatest strengths of the Aspen design.  Ironically tubes are NOT the best option for I-V conversion!

I own two Crystal Semi evaluation boards, one a 24/96, over which I have pored for hours trying to get inside the heads of these clever people.

Ben and I feel that our DAC could be one of the best in the world at moderate cost, and are both very excited about this project.  The biggest challenge will be the pcb design, which will be quite tricky to lay out as I deliberately constrain the pcb to single sided.  Double sided boards are potentially unreliable in a home assembly context due to through hole plating issues.  For myself, I feel confident that with perhaps 200 hours work such a pcb is possible, and would sound fantastic.

However, our DAC would build on past experience, and I'd have to say that it would be designed to complement the GK-1.

So that's where it's at, but no promises on when.......  I've been embarassed on this one before!!      
 
Cheers,

Hugh

[bluesky]

Hi fellow Aksaphiles,

I would wholeheartedly endorse Hugh, and our Aksa audio community, on this one.  It is a product that I would love to see and would defintely purchase.

The interest in Scott Nixon's Dac is apparent and Hugh's credibility is second to none.  I can't help but feel that it would be a real success.

So Hugh, keep on researching!

Ian

[Raj]

Hi,

For anyone interested in a diy transport check this link

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4034

This is my current project. I have a friend working on the power supplies. The transport has an onboard dac (18 bit), and as a standalone unit seems very similar to a naim player which was priced at over £2000 add the 'special' power supply and you're looking at nearly £4000. Sonic frontiers also use this transport in their high end line, there are others also. The plan is to get this cased and up and running and eventually team it up with a world class dac, hence the questions to Hugh. Should be a way to get high end sound for a reasonable price - properly done this could rival commercial offerings upto £10,000 or so!
Here's the address of the supplier for the transport

http://www.daisy-laser.nl/homeoptics/

Thanks
Raj

[PSP]

Hi Raj,
That CDP project looks extremely cool... I am very interested in how this sounds when you are done, and in any thoughts you have about construction (this is probably not the right board for that.... but if you could send me some e-mail when you have been listening to music long enough to form an opinion, I would be very grateful).

Best regards,
Peter

[Raj]

Hi,

You're right this wouldn't be the right place for a review of the transport. If however Hugh does make a suitable dac then it will be worthwhile to let others here know how it could be integerated with this transport. I'm sure there are quite a few of you guys who are very happy with your amp, but feel that the source needs to be up to scratch. In any case here's some further reading for you to do if you're interested in building a transport regardless, the advantage of this transport is that it has a built in dac which although isn't seen as the greatest in the world is still pretty good, check this link

http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?730

Also here's a sort of review by two guys who are respected better than me with regards to their audio prowess

http://www.geocities.com/agalavotti/cdpro.htm

If you do live in america there's a group purchase of this transport going on right now at diyaudio.com, although I live in england I've added my name to the wiki just in case they can sort it out, you could make a reasonable saving here.

Thanks
Raj

[Humbert]

I would absolutely love to see a DAC kit from Aspen.

Raj, I'm with you on that Homioptics/Phillips setup. It's supposed to sound pretty wonderful as is, but with an Aspen DAC attatched would be sublime!

It's got a digital output so attatching a DAC should be easy.

I'd like to see your power supply section, and listening impressions too. If you post them, email me with directions. Oh, and send a picture of your completed box and thanks to Nicholas Thevissen who set up the Homioptics site.

[Raj]

Hi,

Apparently digital out is ok, as long as the dac you use counters the jitter with  reclocking upon input, but 12s connection is supposed to be better still, but  only high end manufacturers use this connection for ouboard dacs, spdif is still the fashion. 12s  transmits different parts of the signal independantley, which apparently reduces jitter, but I suppose you need to keep the wiring short   .  It may be possible to bypass the digi in on a dac and wire the 12s directly to the relevant places on the dac pcb. I've been looking round for a dac for this transport and have a couple of things in mind, but I'll wait and see what Hugh does, good thing is that the built in dac should keep me going till then

Thanks
Raj

[peranders]

Hugh before you start, think once again about the pcb. New DAC's radiates lot's of EMI. It's hardly possible to make a double sided pcb and get this approved in Europe. My DAC (see my homeapge) didn't pass CE approval. I had emission 10 dB over the limit in 100-300 MHz.

Have you seen the state of the art DAC? PCM1792, 132 dB S/N!!! Brand new and I haven't got any datasheet yet.

[AKSA]

Hi Per-Anders,

My thanks for this information;  very valuable.  If anything causes real headaches for this project, it would be EM problems.....  DANG!!!!!!!!!1

Hugh

[peranders]

Here is the link to PCM1792:
http://www-s.ti.com/sc/psheets/sles069/sles069.pdf

58 pages loaded with information!!!