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Overlooked sources for DAC's?

HatchetJack said:
I'm not an electronics whiz so I don't know if it's doable or not but the factory
installed Dac's in the playstation 1's model # 1001 or #5501 had the most
desirable Dac. If one could somehow remove it and stream the sound from
the computer to the amp? I would be very pleased if I could get music out
of my laptop to sound like my 5501 playstation.
Click to expand...


Yeah, that's the kind of thing....

and it sounds possible.
 
whoaru99 said:
Did a bit more research...yup, not quite as easy as putting in a tap to the DAC input. Need to add a S/PDIF receiver/decoder such as CS8416 then this feeds the DAC chip.

Actually doesn't look that hard. I have an old CDP I might give it a try one day...
Click to expand...

And it sounds like a playstation or dvd player may be a good source for the parts to tap into...

this is getting good!
 
My plan would not be to take the parts out, only to add in the necessary spdif receiver and input jack to the existing case/unit. The CDP or whatever has all the necessary power supplies ready and waiting inside for the conversion.
 
Necessary spdif receiver? What is it exactly and if the playststion 1 does
not have it could we farm it out of some other junk piece? Would you come
off the usb into the spdif and tap onto the inputs from the dac in the
playstation? I mean I know there are better Dac's out there but for me
and just the occasional concert stream that sound would be much imroved
and plenty good enough over the glassy hum sound out of the laptops
minijack.
:lurk:
 
The receiver takes the digital signal from the player output (USB or toslink/coaxial doesn't matter for the sake of discussion) and converts/decodes it back to a signal the DAC can understand and work with. Then, the DAC takes this digital signal (or signals) and converts to analog audio.

An spdif and or USB receiver is an integrated circuit (with relatively simple pinout) that you'd have to build into the player you were going to use for the conversion to a DAC. Of course, you could take all that out and put in a separate box, but seems just as easy, and maybe even a bit "tweakier" to convert the unit in it's original housing.
 
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whoaru99 said:
The receiver takes the digital signal from the player output (USB or toslink/coaxial doesn't matter for the sake of discussion) and converts/decodes it back to a signal the DAC can understand and work with. Then, the DAC takes this digital signal (or signals) and converts to analog audio.

An spdif and or USB receiver is an integrated circuit (with relatively simple pinout) that you'd have to build into the player you were going to use for the conversion to a DAC. Of course, you could take all that out and put in a separate box, but seems just as easy, and maybe even a bit "tweakier" to convert the unit in it's original housing.
Click to expand...

I *think* the internal digital signals are a variant on S/PDIF called TTL, and the receiver converts it to Coax/TOSLINK.

This is a schematic for going from the S/PDIF conectors (internal) on a Soundblaster card out to a coax:

http://users.eastlink.ca/~cquigley/images/spdif.gif

from this site:http://users.eastlink.ca/~cquigley/sb.html
Click to expand...

much more general info here: http://www.andrewkilpatrick.org/blog/?page_id=215

It seems that AK's own was2sie is quite fluent in this realm and I'm hoping he'll chime in with some "no, no, no, your going about it the hard way, try this ____________"
 
If you have a good A/V receiver you can use its built-in DACs, like I do. Maybe not the best but it beats the heck outta the analog output of my DVD player.
 
beans said:
If you have a good A/V receiver you can use its built-in DACs, like I do. Maybe not the best but it beats the heck outta the analog output of my DVD player.
Click to expand...

Exactly what this thread got me thinking about. You need a digital connection between the source and the A/V receiver, which is easy for a DVD player that has a toslink output, but not so easy for a laptop that only has a USB output. I didn't want to derail this thread, so I started a new thread about USB - toslink adapters.
 
oneinchside said:
I *think* the internal digital signals are a variant on S/PDIF called TTL, and the receiver converts it to Coax/TOSLINK.

This is a schematic for going from the S/PDIF conectors (internal) on a Soundblaster card out to a coax:



much more general info here: http://www.andrewkilpatrick.org/blog/?page_id=215

It seems that AK's own was2sie is quite fluent in this realm and I'm hoping he'll chime in with some "no, no, no, your going about it the hard way, try this ____________"
Click to expand...


Coax/Toslink is merely the connection/hardware level...basically the cable and connection type...coax being electrical, Toslink being optical. They both transmit the audio via SPDIF.

SPDIF is somewhat like a standard, it's what defines the connections and basically the communication protocol/container for carrying the digital audio information from the player output (spdif transmitter) to the spdif receiver in the DAC (DAC in reference to the whole assembly, not just the DAC chip), afaik.

My (limited) understanding is you need the TTL part if using toslink/optical because it's the TTL logic that turns on/off the LED in the toslink transmitter to pulse out the data.
 
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fmueller said:
Exactly what this thread got me thinking about. You need a digital connection between the source and the A/V receiver, which is easy for a DVD player that has a toslink output, but not so easy for a laptop that only has a USB output. I didn't want to derail this thread, so I started a new thread about USB - toslink adapters.
Click to expand...

The same thing could apply...except you'd need a USB receiver chip instead of a SPDIF receiver chip, afaik.
 
On a less technical note... I think I found at least one to start with... right next to my ankle.

It seems that my SoundBlaster cards have 2 separate DACs onboard. I'll post more in a separate thread as it marginal off topic and I don't want to pull this thread away from the search to focusing on just one.'

Link coming soon

*************************ok, here's the link to the other thread.*******************************************
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3856761#post3856761
In short, ditch the original Windows SB drivers and get Asio/Kx for windows or ALSA/Jack for Unix.
Use the output for the rear channel and ignore the front channel (turn it off in the mixer)
Copy CD's to the Hard Drive bit-for-bit and upconvert from 44.1k to 48k that the card can use directly.
Play the 48k flac file from the HD through the "rear anlalog, 4 channel" output (it's black, 1/8" jack)

much better. The high end systems are safe all right, but at least I can listen to Pandora now for a couple of hours without getting a listener fatigue headache.

And it was free.

Now back to the search for the next level of better/ :)
 
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dac

oneinchside said:
What can you tell me about the merits of it's up-sampling?

Do we have a thread/FAQ on sample rates and conversions?

(BTW, that's one of the ones on my "gee I'd like to have list")
Click to expand...


Upsampling your digital music
From 16bit to 24bit, from 44.1 kHz to 96 kHz, TubeMagic D1’s professional-level Audio DAC produces an extremely accurate and distortion-free digital-to-analog conversion.
 
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