cheapo Audiophonics DAC Sabre ES9023 on ebay

[cohomology]

hi,

New here and looking forward to finishing my first build. I want to have a ES9023 dac and found this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Audiophonics-DAC-Sabre-ES9023-I2S-vers-Analogique-24bit-192KHZ-ll-/301441579838?hash=item462f517b3e:g:YccAAOSwD0lUj2EL.

Does anyone have experience with these boards? Do they come with oscillators? If not, can you recommend an inexpensive but decent oscillator to go with it? Thanks!

[balbuze]

I’ve got this board. It runs out of the box by selecting hifiberry driver. No need external oscillator. It sounds good for the price !
But no hardware volume control.

[cohomology]

Thank you sir! That is exactly the kind of info I am looking for! I am gonna try it out as it only costs about the same as two burgers.

One more question for you sir, I see it needs to be wired to the RPi, does the board come with wiring diagram?

[balbuze]

No diagram at the time I bought it. But easy to find. Have a look at Audiophonics site. I’m not at home, but tomorrow I’ll have a look if you still haven’t found…

[cohomology]

One reviewer on ebay seems to like this board a lot. I am attaching the review for anyone interested:

The sound is good to the price as is, but with a few modifications, it can compete with DACs costing several times this little gem.

I recommend a little soldering for best results.
You can power it from a Raspberry Pi or the like, in which case you should only connect ONE gnd or else you might end up with a noisy ground-loop. I would recommend a CLEAN 5V supply instead (USB battery power banks proves to be good and stable low-noise power supplies).
I also recommend to keep the I2S-cables as short as possible to avoid picking up noise. This results in a cleaner digital signal with less error-correction (jitter), hence a better sound.

If you have the nerve to solder directly onto the SMD components, you could do my modifications AT YOUR OWN RISK. I have more than 30 years of soldering experience. Keep in mind, you could easily fry the board instead …

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

All modifications are done AT YOUR OWN RISK, and I take NO responsibility for destroyed boards!

I soldered small capacitors (8,2nF, though other values might prove better) directly onto the SMD-mounted DAC- and XO-chips. Especially the XO-mod made a huge audible difference. The impact of the DAC-mod is a smaller, but still gives a significant improvement to the sound.

I have deliberately NOT pointed out which pins to solder, as you would need a good knowledge of CMOS and SMD-circuits before even switching on your soldering iron, unless you deliberately want to burn your board instantly.
Specs for the SMD-chips, along with following the PCB and using a voltmeter, would lead to finding the right pins in minutes or seconds.

Good luck.

The unmodified board sounds fine, however the modified version is in a totally different league.

[il_mix]

Interesting review @cohomology! BTW, quite cryptic…
I have some soltering/electronic experience (basic example, I’m gonna solder the DAC pins on RPi, since have the old model without P5 header). I know what the SMD DAC is, and I suppose the XO is the oscillator. But the hint to solder a capacitor directly “onto” the components sounds a little vague to me…
Power filter? (capacitor between VCC and GND)
Output filter? (OUT R/L to GND?)
Something else?

Can someone guess the right pins?
I mean, we have been warned enough in the message… Shame on me if I fry something.

Thanks!
MIX