dear monica
over the years, you have given us sooooo much. words can’t even describe the depth of emotions you have brought us, you have brought us to the pinnacles and depths of the human emotions. yes, we all know that music has that effect but with your singing, aha… like a true master, you make it look so effortless. damn.
but as much as the tda1545 has given us, i sincerely believe we have gone as far as we could with it. there may be more ground to be gained but this is likely in incremental iotas rather than quantum leaps.
as such, though i don’t like it, i have been seeing another girl. please, before you get upset, hear me out. give me a bit credit for being honest with you.
well, it has been a longggggg journey, a lot of ground work, a lot of wooing…
getting her to sing is one thing but coaxing her to sing her heart out… now that is a challenge!
faint heart never won fair lady, you know the saying, and i persevered. i kept at it.
many months later… she slowly yielded…
now, you know i love wood chassis but everyone else seems to prefer cold, hard aluminium. okay, if you want this, you’ll have it!
i wired her as a dac-preamp. err, since there is no gain stage, output is just slightly more than 1v. guess you can’t call her a dac-preamp? then how about “dac with variable output”? okay with you?
if you look closely, there are 4 black gates non-polarized n series capacitors per channel. these are the red capacitors. since these are now out of production, am i the only manufacturer in the world to still use it in my products? so be it!
note the series of resistors? that’s the key to her singing. these are high accuracy 0.01% and 0.005% resistors, and these form the ladder in “ladder dacs”.
note that the 2 identical boards are Left/Right channels. there is no commercial dac chip here. this is a discrete dac, so called as it’s made out of discrete components. [and a helluva components!]
okay, now let me tell you the virtues of this girl!
she sings like no other! she is truly unique.
hearing her sing, i have a feeling she is implying subtly, she’s too good for me.
over the years, i have seen many girls but, being the critic that i am, i could always nitpick. that’s why i have never stopped working here. the search goes on… [is this developing to an obsessive compulsive disorder?]
never mind me! but with her, the nitpicking stops. the search ends here.
for she is in a different league. for she has this rare ability to put away the oft-heard “digital/analog” debate away for good. for she sings and she sings and she sings!
thus i want to tell the world, i have finally found Miss Right. [not miss always right]
my dear monica, since you are the inspiration for my starting this path, since this is a discrete dac, i will thus name her Discreet Monica.
Is it SPDIF input? Is it passive preamp? As shown.
hi ck
yes, the above is wired for spdif input.
active, not passive preamp. no gain stage though.
yeo
very well done!
Congrats…
I have an invention that would work quite nicely on that circuit. I just have to try and make some money out of it before I can tell anyone!
But, I can only see a passive volume knob on the photo?
hi ck
i’m not sure i understand you. send me an email offline.
yeo
Hi Yeo,
It has been years since we exchanged thoughts or talked to each other, since you left penang for glitzy KL. My journey in DIY had also taken a back seat due to other commitments.
Am interested to learn more about when you would have the discreet monica available for tests/sales.
If you need any help with SMT, do let me know.
Thanks and regards
Al.Shan
hi alshan
nice to hear from you again!
the discreet monica is available. i could send you one to try out.
yeo