Alright, I've gone back and forth on this one a little. These suggestions are full of bias for what I'd like to see, so keep that in mind
Let's look at the HP amp design:1. There's the TPA6120 that I've put together a few times. I like this one very, very much. Skinny has a proto of this one and he seems to like it too.
2. There's Ludo's design, which I must admit I've not heard. But his abilities speak for itself and he does have an interesting design.
3. There's the Millet Hybrid, something that also interests me greatly. I doubt it'll perform technically on the level of the above two designs, but we all know that there's more to a design than just specs. There's also a few things in favour of this design, like the diamond buffer topology that I'm a big advocate for.
I think it's important that we consider which topology we go for prior to talking too much about features. I'd like to see this culminate into something, so forgive me if I'm the baddie that has to make the cold, hard decisions
Here's a quick good/bad for the above: (Forgive me Ludo, please insert comments applicable to you)
TPA6120 Good- Brilliant specs
- Brilliant results
- Cheapish (around R600-R700 without a case if I had to guess)
TPA6120 Bad- I've built many and I'm bored with it
- Will be in kit form, no ready assembled option
- Nothing else really.
Ludo's creation Good- Very interesting design
- He's prepared to assemble them for you
- Not sure about price
- I believe it would have brilliant specs and sound as well.
Ludo's creation Bad- Can't say, I hope Ludo gives us a price though, so we can get a feel for it.
Millet Hybrid Good- An interesting design
- Many, many built over at diyforums.org and HeadFi
- It uses valves.
- I'm keen to try it, but I'm being biased
- PCB has already been designed and can be bought for around R200 landed.
Millet Hybrid Bad- Gonna be expensive. Around R2k for the complete kit with boutique parts and case. Maybe around R1400 without the case and boutique parts.
- Shipping will be another R400 or so. Can help if we get many of these to save on shipping and the discounted rate.
- Will be a kit, not ready assembled.
Then there's the USB option:1. Use a PCM2702. Done this, ok sound. Hardly in the league of the HP amps though, but very simple and cheap
2. At Beezar.com they have the grubDAC. This also uses one of the PCM27xx devices, but it has a much better Wolfson DAC. Kit is $50 with a case, $35 without.
3. Get a Musiland 01US device. This uses Async transfers on the USB bus using an FPGA and has a good dac as well. Costs $80 landed and is so worth it.
This about all you gonna get out of me for now. Why don't you guys discuss these options amongst yourselves for a bit and see what comes out? I'm also hoping Ludo will pipe in with some pricing for his creation
I also understand that not everyone will want to spend the same amount of cash on this, but for this to work we need to get as many guys interested in the same thing as possible, to save on parts, shipping and time.
