The true experimental tweak thread

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Will it be as good as the volume attenuator control? I don't know until I've tried!

 

Few years ago I compared a cheap jack to 2x RCA adaptor (looking similarily like those on your picture) with Audioquest Hard Mini

and the sonic difference was for me that time surprisingly big.

I see a risk you could lose too much sound quality on those jack to RCA adaptors.

 

Another tip could be Schiit SYS passive preamp Schiit Audio, Headphone amps and DACs made in USA.

 

I didn't read all posts ... why do you need jack? Is it intended for headphone output?

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Nice setup! Does it really fit to $1000?

The Perfect power ultra isolation transformer comes with some housing or do you need to DIY something?

 

RCA to 3,5mm TRS female adaptor>3,5mm TRS to XLR cable

Why that 3.5mm TRS inbetween? I would try to avoid two pairs of additional connectors.

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The bad news is that this combo plugged directly into the Chromecast Audio does'nt sound good at all. It creates loud hum noises.

The good news is that my Oehlbach DAC Edition 40 will arrive tomorrow. I will re-check the attenuators plugged into the RCA outputs of the DAC with just one RCA male to TRS female when I get it. If it is the same story it is definately a no go. Let's see tomorrow. I'll be back! 

 

I am interested in your evaluation of Oehlbach DAC Edition 40 price/performance ratio.

I found on the manufacturer site also this interesting information: In addition to PCM, 1 bit DSD data signals, needed for the perfect reproduction of DVD audio and SAC media, are also processed. Quite curious for 100EUR device. Not written up to which resolution but it could be up to DSD128. Some driver has to be provided for Windows as it supports 192k PCM.

 

You can check the effect of attenuator with headphones (prefferably of higher impedance) and compare it with direct inserting of headphones into Oehlbach. That should answer how much is lost with the adaptors and the attenuators.

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2 hours ago, Cornan said:

What about the ticking sound then

 

Is the ticking sound the same with the standard power supply as well as battery?

 

Quote

 

I still hope that my coming QED analogue RCA cables will cure that issue though. Anyway, with music playing it is all gone and sounds marvelous for the money! ?

 

 

I would expect that tweaks on the analog side will not resolve the ticking issue. You can try more digital sound sources with your mini DAC, this way you cound find out if the ticking issue depends on particular sound source.

 

2 hours ago, Cornan said:

If it beats this battery pack I will be thrilled to say the least! ?

 

What for battery pack are you using?

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2 hours ago, Cornan said:

To be honest I think the ticking sound is purely due to the DAC via toshlink.

 

2 hours ago, Cornan said:

If the RCA cables from DAC to active speakers do not resolve this issue my last resort will be to change the Chord C-Lite to a Digital coax to 3,5mm spdif between CCA and DAC.

 

IMO the question is if that tick 'comes' into DAC from from CCA optical output. If you have some other sound source with optical out, you could verify that. In such a case maybe SPDIF iPurifier could help. It has dual coax/optical in/out.

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1 hour ago, Cornan said:

Actually, it would be great fun to know what you all carry with you on your travels abroad? I have a friend in Texas that virtually carry his whole main setup with him. I surely do not! But, what do you carry with you to foreign countries?

 

I travell with heavily DIYed 10 years old iPod 5.5G (Wolfson DAC output is directly led to headphone jack, the original iPod's headamp is disconnected), then external headamp is used. I travel mostly with Brainwavz B2 IEMs, but sometimes also with foldable orthodynamic headphones (almost 30 years old) of former USSR production Amfiton TDS-15.

 

 

 

Not to be all, my iPod contains alternate Rockbox firmware to behave as ordinary portable player without iSpecialities.

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On 4/5/2017 at 2:14 PM, Cornan said:

Regarding the Oehlbach DAC Edition 40 ticking. I strongly believe it is a muting relay in the DAC that is causing the clock-like ticking when music is stopped after being active. It is not present when playing music, skipping tracks or pausing the music. It is ONLY present when the music playback is stopped after an active signal to my active speakers. If I for example power on my active speakers and have opened BubbleUPnP and selected an album the ticking is not there. It is ONLY there if I first press play and then press stop. If I press pause instead the ticking is not there.

Not so sure I can actually cure this issue. The ticking noise can only be increased/descreased via my active speakers volume control. If I control it via BubbleUPnP (which I normally do) the ticking noise is not increased/descreased at all.

 

 

 Maybe this could help (read all the answers):