TDA1541A DAC through I2S

Thanks Ian,

That in all seriousness is very enlightening, never noticed that before!
How is the sound progressing with the dac and Pi?

Chuz,

Drew.

Hi Drew,

I am just having the first proper listen to the Pi using a standard TDA1541A chip, the music coming from a USB drive plugged straight into the pi (WAV files) and first impressions are extremely positive.

I usually feed the DAC with a Philip CD-Pro 2M CD transport which is very highly rated (I believe it was used in some of the very high end Naim CD players) and I have always thought the CD player was extemely good. Comparing the Pi to the CD transport it is not yet apparent that the Pi is in anyway inferior to the CD player.

I built the DAC with an IC socket for the TDA chip so that I could experiment with different versions of the DAC chip and I am very fortunate to own a double crown version, which now I know the Pi works I will plug in and see if things improve further.

I have to say I thought I would have to reclock the I2S to get the jitter down to a suitably low level. However, based on what I am hearing now, I am not sure I need to bother. I will however try building a large linear powersupply for the Pi, currently it is using a 1A HTC phone supply and obviously this could be improved. Not sure it will make that difference to the sound but I wan to get it to be done properly.

Cheers
Ian

Hey Ian,

Excellent! I am looking for a Holland S1 or 2, if you come across 1 or 2…
Will hopefully be following your lead here soon, have a reclock already here, will be interesting to see what comes of it. Look at a linear choke loaded, feeding a ccs to a shunt reg power supply, you may be surprised at the difference…
Thanks for doing that testing, really appreciated!

Chuz,

Drew.

Ian,

Meant to ask, what dac build and system are you running!

Chuz,

Drew.

Hi The DAC I scratch built myself. It is non-oversampling with passive I/V. The three power supplies to the TDA1541A are all super regulated via completely independent supplies. The gain stage after the passive I/V I copied from a Thorsten Loesch design on DIY audio and consists of an anode choke loaded ECC88 valve. Again the HT PSU is regulated.

The rest of my system is all scratch built or heavily modified. The pre-amp is a scratch built 6080 valve with EL84 anode CCS. This feeds a pair of DIY hifiSupply Lady Day2 300b power amps. The power amps have been modified from a 6SL7 driver and now use Siemans C3M pentode drive. The speakers are Bastanis (I cannot recall the model off the top of my head).

Cheers
Ian

Hi Drew,
I meant to ask what reclocking system do you have?

Also what experience do you have with it in terms of improvements?

Cheers
Ian

Hey Ian,

Currently havent hooked it up, but from all accounts it seems to reduce the differences between sources, it is iancanada’s FIFO from diyaudio group buy. I also have his I2S to PCM board which will feed the Left and Right data to the tda1541 simultaneously, which apparently is also very good!
Have access to what in Australia is called a KillerDAC, a rather tuned version running TDA1541 chip. One day I hope to own one…
I have dvdbprojekt’s Red Baron board here for testing this sort of thing so this will hopefully be getting built up soon as well as a Buff III with a tube output stage.
The remainder of my system will be ranging from Lenehan ML1 Reference monitors(beat the Magico Mini’s according to a NY Audio GTG) fed by either Trancendant Sound Beast amps or AtmaSphere M60 clones with 6336 tubes, both OTL amps, to an electrostatic panel set up called the Acorn from ER Audio in Perth, Australia, these are looking to be driven by OTL Direct Drive amps. Digital front end is currently a Wadia 3200 modded or a Marantz CD94, analog I have Garrard 301’s, a Commonwealth 16" table, an Orpheus Silex table and a Thorens TD150. Am building a Vacuum State RTP3D copy for preamp duties.

Look forward to getting this running and letting you know how it sounds and the differences the reclock makes.

Chat soon,

Chuz,

Drew.

Hi IDM,
what dac TDA 1541 did you use?

Do you think it’s possible to link raspberry throug I2S to a marantz CD 50?

Hi everybody,

it’s an old post I know but I am preparing to connect the i2s bus from a HiFiberry DAC PLUS PRO to a tda1541A but I a bit confused what to connect from P4 (dac plus) to the tda1541A.

Could somebody help me?

Thanks in advance.

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