Introduction

Volumio Community Forums Introduce Yourself
1

Hello Volumio Forum,

I have recently built a DAC with various components and chose to use Volumio as my player/streamer for my audio. The DAC built is a DDDAC 1794 with 4 DAC modules in parallel and some modifications to the circuit by Doede Douma, a BeagleBoneBlack ver C and a Twisted Pear Audio I/V converter on the final stage to drive a 50W Jolida Tube amplifier and a set of open baffle loudspeakers (Hawthorne Audio design and drivers/crossovers). The data for the DAC comes from an UnRaid NAS box with 16TBytes of storage all connected with a wired LAN throughout my home. It has taken a little time to get everything working and now it is fine tuning time. I selected Volumio because of features like the ability to stream from internet radio sites as well as the ability to connect to the NAS on my network. I do find the Linux environment a challenge as I have not used an OS like this in 20 or so years (mostly Windows these days) but am looking forward to discovering more on the OS as I use it more. Looking forward to discussions on your Forum.

Cheers,
bwdddac

2

Hi,

May I ask why you put 4 DAC in parallel?

3

A few notes about the DAC’s used in this circuit are that they are non oversampling when configured the way this circuit uses them so no digital filtering/signal processing is applied to the signal (the raw data you get is what the DAC’s reproduce). Since the DAC’s are current output devices and they are summed at the output of the DAC’s any conversion jitter would be reduced by the number of DAC’s that are paralleled together thus reducing the overall conversion jitter. This reduces any linearity issues with individual DAC’s being used. The circuit also uses 8 - DAC’s to convert the digital to analog, 4 DAC’s in parallel for right channel and 4 DAC’s in parallel for left channel. This realizes the highest signal to noise ratio possible from the DAC. It seemed like a neat idea to try and it does sound better than my older Phillips Streamium DAC. I also have a HOT Audio DAC that uses a Wolfson chip and it is very good for the price but not quite as quiet as the 1794 DAC’s. My understanding of it to date!!

Cheers