AYA II 2014 TDA1541A DAC DIY board or kit from Pedja Rogic of Audial

[hochopeper]

GB closed, possibly some extra PCBs available after dust settles.

45 day lead time on kits so looking at getting started around July or August depending on how we go sourcing components.

[statman]

Circuit has been released ,glad to see the opa861 output stage is still there, will be interesting to compare it to stacked 844 on older Rodjic board. I'm going all out, with Ian's FIFO, isolater, 2x clock, I2S-PCM boards, and Amanero USB input. 192 capable.

This will be the real 1541 Killer dac, sorry cant help myself!

[hochopeper]

Circuit has been released ,glad to see the opa861 output stage is still there, will be interesting to compare it to stacked 844 on older Rodjic board. I'm going all out, with Ian's FIFO, isolater, 2x clock, I2S-PCM boards, and Amanero USB input. 192 capable.

This will be the real 1541 Killer dac, sorry cant help myself!

 

 

I'll be doing the same but I will use the si570 clock board which will give me two buffered outputs from the one i2s input. I can feed one output from the si570 to the i2s to PCM converter and on to AYA II and the other output to a separate DAC and compare with totally synchronised low jitter clocks for the killer comparison of an excellent TDA1541 DAC (maybe I even build two of them and run differential outputs?!) and alternative DACs on the second i2s stream (say ESS and others). I only realised that this was possible recently when Nada was asking me about this DAC and I had a think about how I'd put one to use in my headphone system (I'm committed to DSP-based active crossovers on my speaker system so it is more challenging to use one there).

 

I'm certainly looking forward to getting that set up for myself as Pedja's revisions in this 2014 variant looks quite interesting!

[Nada]

I'm going all out, with Ian's FIFO, isolater, 2x clock, I2S-PCM boards, and Amanero USB input. 192 capable..

 

Thats going to be my feed too.

 

I believe with Ian's PCM board the TDA1541A will run in simulataneous data mode with much less intrinsic jitter compared to the usual I2S feed.

 

 

Its expected to be capable for 384kHz so should sound interesting with the best digital oversampling and filtering. Arguably XXHE or Bughead do the best maths available in audio digital oversampling. These players provide an eductaion in the sound of NOS versus OS options on the fly.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Nada

[statman]

Nada

I just got an Amanero/Ian's FIFO/isolater/Si570 clock/Buff3 going, with much help from Chris, sounds great, I expect the 1541 version to be maybe even better, interesting times! 

[statman]

Ive had an AYA2014 board going for a few days now. Its run from an Amanero usb-i2s into an Ian FIFO/isolater/Double clock running 45/49 clocks/PCM-I2s board, 384KHz  capable,  into the AYA. Now my reference dac, a little more detailed and accurate than the AD844 version, (this one uses OPA861) but that big wide soundstage you get with minimal jitter.

The Soekris discrete r2r dac shows promise, but so many filters to try, most of them dissapointing compared to the stock original filter which was warmish but very pleasant, everything ive tried since then has been a bit closed in, especially when compared to the AYA. But it will be a marvel if something so simple and inexpensive can be made to sound as good as the complex AYA ive built. I suspect it may get there.

[acg]

Ive had an AYA2014 board going for a few days now. Its run from an Amanero usb-i2s into an Ian FIFO/isolater/Double clock running 45/49 clocks/PCM-I2s board, 384KHz  capable,  into the AYA. Now my reference dac, a little more detailed and accurate than the AD844 version, (this one uses OPA861) but that big wide soundstage you get with minimal jitter.

The Soekris discrete r2r dac shows promise, but so many filters to try, most of them dissapointing compared to the stock original filter which was warmish but very pleasant, everything ive tried since then has been a bit closed in, especially when compared to the AYA. But it will be a marvel if something so simple and inexpensive can be made to sound as good as the complex AYA ive built. I suspect it may get there.

 

New reference dac...wow.  

 

Reading this just makes me want to get my AYA II up and running.

[statman]

New reference dac...wow.  

 

Reading this just makes me want to get my AYA II up and running.

I ve got two of the old  AYA2 , one with all the Ian gear, essentially same as my AYA2014, I think the 2014 is a big step up, even with both  running in sim data mode.

And its not just the AYA2014 , all of Ians gear is making a significant contribution. A great combination of SOTA digital and and old time R2R chip.

BTW just tried another filter in Soekris dac that has brought it very close to AYA/Ian board.

[hochopeper]

Are there any more impressions on the aya ii?

I did get to hear aya ii + FIFO briefly last year but have been waylaid in building my own by the arrival of my first child.

I am building at the moment. Plan is to have a dual aya ii with differential output and to use this as a learning project with thorough analysis of performance with some new gear I hope to order in April. So I'm building with hopes that I finish before the test gear arrives.

Some questions for others (mostly @statman)

Has anyone tried dual differential configuration of these? There is an inverted data ouput on Ian's i2s to PCM board that allows this. I will mostly use mine with a differential headphone amp. Haven't seen many others with dual differential tda1541 DACs, will be interesting to try out!

Has anyone tried jlsounds USB i2s board into the FIFO. I don't expect a difference from the amanero but am interested to hear thoughts regardless

Thanks,

Chris

[statman]

Are there any more impressions on the aya ii?

I did get to hear aya ii + FIFO briefly last year but have been waylaid in building my own by the arrival of my first child.

I am building at the moment. Plan is to have a dual aya ii with differential output and to use this as a learning project with thorough analysis of performance with some new gear I hope to order in April. So I'm building with hopes that I finish before the test gear arrives.

Some questions for others (mostly @statman)

Has anyone tried dual differential configuration of these? There is an inverted data ouput on Ian's i2s to PCM board that allows this. I will mostly use mine with a differential headphone amp. Haven't seen many others with dual differential tda1541 DACs, will be interesting to try out!

 

Has anyone tried jlsounds USB i2s board into the FIFO. I don't expect a difference from the amanero but am interested to hear thoughts regardless

Thanks,

Chris

 

Chris

Congrats on arrival of bub.

I'm still using the Aya2014 and still think its the finest dac I've heard, I've had $15K dacs alongside it and while they certainly are just as "hi-fi" in terms of all the audiophile nonsense, they dont come close to the beautiful sound of the AYA, there is something about R2R chips that is just so  enjoyable.

I have Amanero with the Aya , and JL sounds boards here, and intending to try JL sounds with Ian's gear, I believe it is superior to Amanero, but so far haven't used JLsounds in this configuration, only with "no-dac" and AK4490. 

It was a priority to replace the Amanero with JL sounds, but then I tried Raspberry Pi2+ straight into Ians FIFO, no usb, and since then I find it hard to listen to anything else.

Yeah I know the Raspberry is not considered serious hi fi, but Ian's FIFO does wonderful things to it, it's supposed to reduce jitter to zero levels, I dont know what it does but it sounds superb, and running at 10% CPU , which has to be a good thing.

Using Moode player, which I've come to like very much, hasn't got the graphics, versatility of JRiver, but damn i'm enjoying my music so much these days. 

The latest FIFO's  have switching for two inputs so I can choose Amanero or Raspberry, but not using usb much, unless I want to use JRiver with much more music on it. 

Cant help you with dual diff, I'm not a fan of dual diff operation, imo it just loses some of the timbral beauty that flows from conventional outputs

[statman]

Btw, I've also got a similar setup with switchable Amanero or Raspberry into all of Ian's FIFO gear and then into an old Krell cdp , but only using the dac chip and output stage - PCM1702 with an output stage consisting of about 200 jfets, really over the top, but same result, beautiful sound.

Combining these old R2R dac chips with modern digital implementations is very successful imo.

I'll try to post some pix sometime this weekend.

[hochopeper]

Hi Mick,

 

Thanks for that, gives me some more ideas!

 

The diff thing is just because I can ... I'll able to take a single ended output from it too but I have some really nice headphone and low powered power amps that have diff input. I'm going to try it out then decide if I want to keep the second DAC in there or experiment with it in my lounge room active system though it is already complicated enough so I'm not sure about that.

 

Another thought for you, with the si570 and version two of the dual xo board from Ian there are two i2s outputs, so I will probably hook that up to a second DAC which will give some interesting experiments too. I have a little ess DAC here that has a Joachim Gerhard designed filter and jfet buffer output stage that I think I might put on the other output of the FIFO. Will certainly be interesting to compare these two different approaches with the same quality digital front end.

 

Cheers,

Chris

[hochopeper]

I'm actually assembling 4 of these boards at the same time ... Slow progress.

[acg]

Haha...feel free to do five if you want to go slower Chris!

[Sir Rab of Everest]

I'm actually assembling 4 of these boards at the same time ... Slow progress

It would be faster if you weren't trawling SNA! Back to the hot iron, lad!

[just Kidding!![emoji28]]

[hochopeper]

Pi 3modelB announced ... Think I'll order one after dinner. New one is 64bit, quad core, faster cores.

Need something to drive an oled display anyway so this might do both.

[Gordon Macfarlane]

Pi 3modelB announced ... Think I'll order one after dinner. New one is 64bit, quad core, faster cores.

Need something to drive an oled display anyway so this might do both.

Found this the other day :https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/139108638/lattepanda-a-45-win10-computer-for-everything which could be interesting

Edited February 29, 2016 by Ozcall

[statman]

Pi 3modelB announced ... Think I'll order one after dinner. New one is 64bit, quad core, faster cores.

Need something to drive an oled display anyway so this might do both.

 Try it as front end, you wont be dissapointed!

[hochopeper]

Well I pulled the trigger on ordering one ... will try it out.

 

I'll also have some high resolution measurement equipment on hand in April hopefully and I am interested to see impact on the analogue output of things like switching the wifi on/off by looking at PSU noise and analogue outputs. I'm also hopeful of taking a look at the measured performance of the AYA II in a few different configurations, especially impact of the synchronous DEM clock and simultaneous modes.

Edited March 1, 2016 by hochopeper

[minivan]

late to the party, have the aya ii pcb sitting in the drawer for  over a year.

finally finished building the dac, have it hook up to iancanada 's fifo ii, i2stopcm gear.

use a pair of ndk clocks bought from

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/group-buys/309435-ndk-nz2520sda-oscillators-buy.html

 

transport is raspberry pi with iancanada's isolatpi for isolation running picoreplayer.

 

didn't use the usb,spdif of the dac, so i just tapped their power supply to feed iancanda's fifo ii, clock,i2topcm,isolatepi.

 

great sound ,very analog and smooth, good extension on both end. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2018 by minivan