JACQUES HIFI PAGES

UPDATES : ESS9018 well married

The buffalo DAC, while incredible, is quite weak taken direct to an amp. So I had to try my mykonos buffer with this incredible dac.
And as I expected they mate PERFECTLY.... the incredible details match with the frank sound of my buffer in a heaven of tone.

I mean, it's not only my personal opinion. I really know you always need external ears to judge hifi, so everytime there is a major changement in my rig ,
I invite some of my best friends/audiophiles to listen to it carefully with a choice of their own fave CD.

That was the case here and none of their trap-CDs could shoot down this configuration i.e. :

philips cd750 as drive --> ultramatch upsampler --> sabre dac ess9018 --> mykonos --> homemade T-class 2 x 90w amp --> elipson 4240

I also had to get him a new drive. My choice went to this great Philips cd750 which is very similar to the cd722 I love as a transport.

Here is the stock spdif signal....ugly 'one' but let's take this signal from its source : the SAA7350 ....

....first try using an inboard 68ohm resistor ...then I tried 75ohm...but best result was 150ohm..go figure :

I really wanted to use the behringer ultramatch---in fact the chip CS8420 --to upsample the Philips to 24 bit....
Sound seems in fact a tad better, but on the oscilloscope that's another story :

weird....I really think I must steal the sdif in and out on the ultramatch like this :

But I fear soldering in this ultra-small circuitry....maybe some day I'll get the guts.

MY PREAMP/BUFFER : MYKONOS     AMPLIFIERS  SPEAKERS  CD PLAYERS  DAC  DRIVES / TRANSPORTS  OSCILLOSCOPE TEST DRIVE  TURNTABLES  DCC PLAYERS 

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