gbyleveldt
AVForums Grandmaster
As some of you have noticed, I've basically been threatened with pitchforks if I don't actually make something commercially of the latest DAC that I've designed over the last year. While the original intent of the DAC has been to make something commercial out of it it was never my intention to strike out on my own and actually do this. I've been hoping for a benefactor to take the design and run with it, all the while sitting back and see the money roll in 
Needless to say, the design started off as an 'affordable' DAC and very quickly morphed into a rather complex and imposing undertaking. It took almost a year of not only digital design, but also a rather unique analogue stage, and I can confidently stand back and look at it with a reasonable sense of pride. Some of the members here have had a chance to spend some time with it and seem to share my sentiments in this regard as well.
Unfortunately, reality quickly kicked in and I realised that - to get this level of performance - it will not be as affordable a product as the previous products were. This kinda took the wind out of my sails a little, as the cynic in me doesn't see the current economic climate being able to sustain worthwhile levels locally of this type of product. So, it kinda went dead for me and selfishly, I've already had a DAC so the desire to make more just wasn't there.
It so happens that I've been 'accosted' by two investors to actually make a product out of this. Strangely enough, these investors believe in the product enough to want to commit a rather significant amount of money into the project, so this may just end up becoming a reality! Because I'm generally risk averse, and because of pressure here, I think it's maybe a good idea to see how many of you would be interested. Granted, it's probably the type of thing you'd want to spend time with before parting with money, but it would help us to get a feeling from members here in order to make sure that there could, in fact, be a market for a product like this locally.
Enough blabbering, here's what it would have as far as features are concerned:
- Multiple digital inputs. I'm thinking of having SPDif, AES Balanced and Toslink inputs. It's probably good enough to just have one of each, but if there's enough demand I can add more, although this will push up the price as the Pulse transformers aren't cheap.
- I'm still undecided on Async USB. I've managed to secure a source for an OEM USB Async board that'll just plug into the DAC board, with the Windows driver software already developed. I've not completely debugged it in the DAC and have a few quirks to work through, but this is a definite possibility should there be a demand. Again, however, it'll push up the price of the completed unit and is not part of the budgetary summary below.
- I like clean interfaces. The prototype DAC uses an LCD display as it's a nice way for me to display diagnostic information of what's happening inside the DAC. That being said, it's not something that'll be used that often in real life and affordable LCDs have pretty poor visibility especially if you look at it from an angle. OLED displays that are large enough are super expensive in small volumes and I don't think it'll add enough value to the result to warrant the expense. So, I've decided to have simple LEDs to show the input and sample rates. You'll also have one button to select the input and one to switch power on. Simple.
- The DAC will have two sets of analogue outputs - One set Balanced and one set Single Ended. An important thing to note is that the whole DAC is natively balanced. There's no quasi balanced voodoo here! There's 4 FULLY DISCRETE I/V stages in the design, and the only opamps I use are for the individual DC servo's for each of the 4 I/V stages. The single ended stage is also not neglected - it features it's own FULLY DISCRETE differential amplifier to get a single ended output. All the output signals are sent through non-feedback Diamond buffers as I like their sound. And don't ask for technical specs as you won't get any. I threw away my objectivist card when I designed this and actually engineered some second order harmonic distortion into it.
Whew...
What will all this cost I hear you ask? That's a tough one and something I agonised over for a long time, as I had to maintain a balance between what I think is affordable and what the performance was going to be like. I believe I've found that balance in the R13,000 to R15,000 mark. Bearing in mind that an MDAC is only a fraction cheaper than this and they make literally thousands of them (thus having the benefits of quantities of scale) I'm really relieved about the performance I've managed to achieve for the price. And I make the comparison with the MDAC because they both use the same ESS Sabre DAC chip, although I believe my design sounds different enough that that is the only comparison that needs to be drawn.
For this to be worthwhile for me and for the target price to be achieved, I need to make just over 20 units. Ambitious, I know, but I do think there's been enough rumbling to get firm commitments for half of that. So, I'm prepared to commit this to a project provided there's interest in at least 10 units, with the guarantee that you only commit cash once you've had time to audition one.
Who's in? State your intent here!
Needless to say, the design started off as an 'affordable' DAC and very quickly morphed into a rather complex and imposing undertaking. It took almost a year of not only digital design, but also a rather unique analogue stage, and I can confidently stand back and look at it with a reasonable sense of pride. Some of the members here have had a chance to spend some time with it and seem to share my sentiments in this regard as well.Unfortunately, reality quickly kicked in and I realised that - to get this level of performance - it will not be as affordable a product as the previous products were. This kinda took the wind out of my sails a little, as the cynic in me doesn't see the current economic climate being able to sustain worthwhile levels locally of this type of product. So, it kinda went dead for me and selfishly, I've already had a DAC so the desire to make more just wasn't there.
It so happens that I've been 'accosted' by two investors to actually make a product out of this. Strangely enough, these investors believe in the product enough to want to commit a rather significant amount of money into the project, so this may just end up becoming a reality! Because I'm generally risk averse, and because of pressure here, I think it's maybe a good idea to see how many of you would be interested. Granted, it's probably the type of thing you'd want to spend time with before parting with money, but it would help us to get a feeling from members here in order to make sure that there could, in fact, be a market for a product like this locally.
Enough blabbering, here's what it would have as far as features are concerned:
- Multiple digital inputs. I'm thinking of having SPDif, AES Balanced and Toslink inputs. It's probably good enough to just have one of each, but if there's enough demand I can add more, although this will push up the price as the Pulse transformers aren't cheap.
- I'm still undecided on Async USB. I've managed to secure a source for an OEM USB Async board that'll just plug into the DAC board, with the Windows driver software already developed. I've not completely debugged it in the DAC and have a few quirks to work through, but this is a definite possibility should there be a demand. Again, however, it'll push up the price of the completed unit and is not part of the budgetary summary below.
- I like clean interfaces. The prototype DAC uses an LCD display as it's a nice way for me to display diagnostic information of what's happening inside the DAC. That being said, it's not something that'll be used that often in real life and affordable LCDs have pretty poor visibility especially if you look at it from an angle. OLED displays that are large enough are super expensive in small volumes and I don't think it'll add enough value to the result to warrant the expense. So, I've decided to have simple LEDs to show the input and sample rates. You'll also have one button to select the input and one to switch power on. Simple.
- The DAC will have two sets of analogue outputs - One set Balanced and one set Single Ended. An important thing to note is that the whole DAC is natively balanced. There's no quasi balanced voodoo here! There's 4 FULLY DISCRETE I/V stages in the design, and the only opamps I use are for the individual DC servo's for each of the 4 I/V stages. The single ended stage is also not neglected - it features it's own FULLY DISCRETE differential amplifier to get a single ended output. All the output signals are sent through non-feedback Diamond buffers as I like their sound. And don't ask for technical specs as you won't get any. I threw away my objectivist card when I designed this and actually engineered some second order harmonic distortion into it.
Whew...
What will all this cost I hear you ask? That's a tough one and something I agonised over for a long time, as I had to maintain a balance between what I think is affordable and what the performance was going to be like. I believe I've found that balance in the R13,000 to R15,000 mark. Bearing in mind that an MDAC is only a fraction cheaper than this and they make literally thousands of them (thus having the benefits of quantities of scale) I'm really relieved about the performance I've managed to achieve for the price. And I make the comparison with the MDAC because they both use the same ESS Sabre DAC chip, although I believe my design sounds different enough that that is the only comparison that needs to be drawn.
For this to be worthwhile for me and for the target price to be achieved, I need to make just over 20 units. Ambitious, I know, but I do think there's been enough rumbling to get firm commitments for half of that. So, I'm prepared to commit this to a project provided there's interest in at least 10 units, with the guarantee that you only commit cash once you've had time to audition one.
Who's in? State your intent here!
