ECdesigns

[yogibear]

1 hour ago, hopkins said:

 

I have always fantasized about vintage full range drivers. I got a hold of a pair of Zenith, these: 

 

http://www.glowinthedarkaudio.com/zenith-49cz852.html

 

I tested them in an open baffle. Very easy to drive, impressive dynamics and detail, but it was not satisfying for every day listening, just a really interesting "experiment". Can you share more information about your setup? 

 

Concerning the volume setting of the PD, which amplifier do you use it with? 

 

Kevin from glowinthedarkaudio and I have a few amps and FR drivers in common, playing in Open baffle. Though I never had much space for Telefunken Open baffle but may be soon by year end. I too have the same 12" Zenith drivers. They make surprising bass in my L shape Open Baffle. My current baffles are 24" X 40" from front and 18" deep on one side, along the walls, to avoid cavity resonance from the walls. (Side baffle and side walls will do that, so aligned the side baffles of L shape to the walls.)

 

The room is pretty modest, 11'X12' and far from ideal for my OB design but still enjoyable. The current drivers are (retrofitted on the 12" driver cutouts) 8" Matsushita / Technics / National Panasonic 8PW1, kind of triaxial coz of cone design with a phase plug, alnico, 95dB and only 8 watts RMS. In my little experience, high dB FR drivers mate well with a few watts of tube amps. The amps are well designed with excellent frequency response and low distortion. I have a few different amps. Currently playing is PSE 6080 mono blocks with volume controls and make 5 wpc. I have setup the volume on the amp at mid way and control the music level through PD remote.  Not a good looking setup as I am always experimenting. Have also built 2 way with bass assisted by 15" drivers. 

 

Picture of setup attached.

[Khronos]

I am sorry for derailing the thread, but now that people are talking about widebanders I feel obligated to become the devil and tempt men's hearts.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/363299600125?hash=item549657f6fd:g:E~IAAOSwdQRgjZqN

[tapatrick]

39 minutes ago, yogibear said:

In my little experience, high dB FR drivers mate well with a few watts of tube amps.

Too early to make any definitive statements but I can also confirm that the EC products seem to combine very well with low watt tube mono amps and full range speakers for an analytically lush SQ. Waiting patiently for the PD - S to see what it will bring to the party.

[realDHT]

This summer @rowli came for a visit to my town, bringing with him the new powerdac-r as well as his UPL / DA96 combo 😊. So this means that we finally had the opportunity to do a listening comparison between the final clock-upgraded version of my modified ECD U192 / DA96 combo and rowli’s  stock UPL / DA96 combo. And, even more interesting to me, my first listening and comparison with the powerdac-r.

 

The mods I made on my fractal setup some year ago was to move the circuit boards into a good metal casing, integrating  a shunt attenuator and upgrading the power supplies, as well as to add some new separate regulators for subcircuits. The purpose was to have a convenient one-box solution that improved the looks, shielding, and hopefully the sound of the original.  

 

Early this summer I extended this mod by exchanging the 2 audio oscillators with very low phase-noise Driscoll oscillators designed by Andrea Mori.    

 

Before comparisons we level-matched the 2 dacs tightly with a 1 kHz sine signal and accurate voltmeter.

To summarize, my heavily modded U192 combo sounded very similar to rowli’s stock UPL combo. Even with sighted listening, we both had trouble hearing clear differences and picking a preference in loudspeaker or headphone listening. When we moved on to blind testing none of us could reliably tell them apart during the time we had available.

 

Not sure what takehome message to make out of this, other than that it takes a lot of effort (if even possible) to beat the UPL, using an USB source. For my U192 we were using a very good DIY music server that I spent a lot of time and money on developing. If we had been using an average computer I’m guessing that the UPL would have won.   

   

Obviously the most relevant comparison to evaluate the modding would have been against a stock U192/DA96, but none of us own one. 😳

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

45 minutes ago, realDHT said:

And, even more interesting to me, my first listening and comparison with the powerdac-r.

 

Congrats on your work!

Too bad indeed that you did not have a stock U192. It would have been interesting then to compare the two with both DACs... 

What did you think of the powerDAC-R? Remind me: are you using active speakers with DSP? 

[realDHT]

6 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

Congrats on your work!

Too bad indeed that you did not have a stock U192. It would have been interesting then to compare the two with both DACs... 

What did you think of the powerDAC-R? Remind me: are you using active speakers with DSP? 

Tnx ! Yes indeed that would have been the relevant comparison. 

The speakers use ASP, so all filtering/bass-compensation etc. is in the analog domain using OPA1656 op-amps

 

I will write about my impressions of the powerdac -r :) 

[realDHT]

BTW the ASP is located in the upper box above the DAC in the picture, so I made a very similar enclosure for that one. 

[realDHT]

Next up was the listening to the powerdac-r, that I had very much been looking forward to!

This time it did not take a long time until I could hear a difference.

After maybe only half an hour I knew I would have to order one to replace my modded U192/DA96 😊

 

I agree with what has been said here before, you can clearly hear that it is a sibling to the former fractal dac, it has very similar qualities IMO, and on some records/tracks, it sounds very similar. Yet, at some recordings, it is like the powerdac brings out another layer in the music 😮 and makes it easier to perceive and follow some rhythmic/melodic content in the music that were not as obvious before (I noticed this for example with Eva Cassidy, Wayfaring stranger from ‘Songbird’ album .

Another clear example was in Bach - Concerto for Oboe & Violin in C Minor BWV 1060 (English concert /Trevor Pinnock) in how real the solo oboe sounded, and how the ‘color’ of the oboe very clearly contrasts to the strings. Big difference. And then I really find the former fractal dac amazingly good.     

 

So the last iteration of clockmodding on the fractal dac was only used for some week until I heard and then ordered the powerdac-r and had to tear everything apart again 😂. But a good thing is that the PD-r boards (2) takes less space than the U192+fractal boards (3), so that I can re-use the enclosure and most of the other components for some powerdac modding 😀

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

12 minutes ago, realDHT said:

so that I can re-use the enclosure and most of the other components for some powerdac modding

 

I'm assuming you read John's explanations which I quoted above. The design of the powerDAC seems pretty "air tight" with little opportunity for modding/improvement. Do you have any ideas? 

[numlog]

Better clocks? The driscoll clocks from Andrea Mori are without a doubt better than any off the shelf clocks.

[realDHT]

6 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

I'm assuming you read John's explanations which I quoted above. The design of the powerDAC seems pretty "air tight" with little opportunity for modding/improvement. Do you have any ideas? 

Yep, the mod is for looks and convenience, as I want/need a shunt attenuator in my system. The built in volume of the PD doesn't go well with my ASP/speakers (when changing volume its sends out a DC pulse that is amplified by the ASP and makes things somewhat scary (moves my bass cones several centimeters). I hope to reach a sound improvement too, but I consider that a bonus and not something I count on. In fact I already did the mods 😀, I will post about them here. 

[realDHT]

2 minutes ago, numlog said:

Better clocks? The driscoll clocks from Andrea Mori are without a doubt better than any off the shelf clocks.

Stay tuned 😁

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

2 minutes ago, realDHT said:

moves my bass cones several centimeters

 

I noticed exactly the same thing with my speakers one day I took the grills off (after posting my initial review). I asked John and there is nothing to worry about, but I understand it could make you nervous :) 

[numlog]

1 minute ago, hopkins said:

 

I noticed exactly the same thing with my speakers one day I took the grills off (after posting my initial review). I asked John and there is nothing to worry about, but I understand it could make you nervous :) 

if its enough to move a woofer a few cm, what do you think it will do to a headphone driver?

[realDHT]

1 minute ago, hopkins said:

 

I noticed exactly the same thing with my speakers one day I took the grills off (after posting my initial review). I asked John and there is nothing to worry about, but I understand it could make you nervous :) 

Yep but in my system the bass cones moves much longer than a normal speaker because of the ASP/dipole compensation in the bass..

[realDHT]

2 minutes ago, numlog said:

if its enough to move a woofer a few cm, what do you think it will do to a headphone driver?

It think it will probably be no danger except perhaps for a system like mine with large active bass dipole-compensation.

[numlog]

9 minutes ago, realDHT said:

It think it will probably be no danger except perhaps for a system like mine with large active bass dipole-compensation.

true, that is a unique circumstance. 

[matthias]

13 hours ago, Khronos said:

I truly hope ECD follows the steps of Soekris and begins OEMing the board.

 

I really applaud such a solution like Soekris also for DIY.

It would be very appealing to put an ECD board in my own chosen enclosure.

Maybe @hopkinscan facilitate such a solution?

Thanks

 

Matt

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

23 minutes ago, matthias said:

Maybe @hopkinscan facilitate such a solution?

 

Let me be very clear here: I am just a customer, and I have no involvement whatsoever in ECD's future projects or business, and that's the way I want to keep things. Anyone can write to them, call them with questions, make suggestions... 

 

I like the products as they are :) 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

7 hours ago, yogibear said:

 

Kevin from glowinthedarkaudio and I have a few amps and FR drivers in common, playing in Open baffle. Though I never had much space for Telefunken Open baffle but may be soon by year end. I too have the same 12" Zenith drivers. They make surprising bass in my L shape Open Baffle. My current baffles are 24" X 40" from front and 18" deep on one side, along the walls, to avoid cavity resonance from the walls. (Side baffle and side walls will do that, so aligned the side baffles of L shape to the walls.)

 

The room is pretty modest, 11'X12' and far from ideal for my OB design but still enjoyable. The current drivers are (retrofitted on the 12" driver cutouts) 8" Matsushita / Technics / National Panasonic 8PW1, kind of triaxial coz of cone design with a phase plug, alnico, 95dB and only 8 watts RMS. In my little experience, high dB FR drivers mate well with a few watts of tube amps. The amps are well designed with excellent frequency response and low distortion. I have a few different amps. Currently playing is PSE 6080 mono blocks with volume controls and make 5 wpc. I have setup the volume on the amp at mid way and control the music level through PD remote.  Not a good looking setup as I am always experimenting. Have also built 2 way with bass assisted by 15" drivers. 

 

Picture of setup attached.

 

OK to post one of your videos? 

 

 

[yogibear]

6 hours ago, realDHT said:

 (when changing volume its sends out a DC pulse that is amplified by the ASP and makes things somewhat scary (moves my bass cones several centimeters).

 Same here with my high dB FRs. Plan to add woofers which will be 103 dB, so will be very scary. But am not so sure / confident to mod PD.

[yogibear]

4 hours ago, hopkins said:

 

OK to post one of your videos? 

 

 

 

Sure.... I wonder how you reached it ! I will testing my all other FRs too on the same baffle with the PD playing. Cannot help room reflections and all these are iPhone recorded so these just give an idea of what PD as a DAC is doing. In person, it sounds amazing in my current experimental setup. Hopefully a new setup in a large room by year end, all driven by PD. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

1 hour ago, yogibear said:

 

Sure.... I wonder how you reached it ! I will testing my all other FRs too on the same baffle with the PD playing. Cannot help room reflections and all these are iPhone recorded so these just give an idea of what PD as a DAC is doing. In person, it sounds amazing in my current experimental setup. Hopefully a new setup in a large room by year end, all driven by PD. 

 

I simply googled "ecdesigns powerDAC" and filtered results by date. Phone videos are tricky. I've tried recording my speakers, but could not even get the camera to focus! Sound was disappointing - will try again with an external microphone. 

[tims]

1 hour ago, yogibear said:

 

Sure.... I wonder how you reached it ! I will testing my all other FRs too on the same baffle with the PD playing. Cannot help room reflections and all these are iPhone recorded so these just give an idea of what PD as a DAC is doing. In person, it sounds amazing in my current experimental setup. Hopefully a new setup in a large room by year end, all driven by PD. 

Sounds great!  That track is very familiar- what is the song/artist?

Thanks

[yogibear]

5 minutes ago, tims said:

Sounds great!  That track is very familiar- what is the song/artist?

Thanks

Thanks. “Shape of my heart”

 

Please Search “Novecento, Dominic Miller” on Spotify.