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Welcome to the DIY DAC WIKI

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INTRODUCTION

This wiki relates to modifications of the CS4397/CS4398 DAC boards that have been available from Hong Kong, typically via Ebay sellers gigawork, biglawhk or snow48_6 (http://myworld.ebay.com/gigawork/, http://myworld.ebay.com/biglawhk/, http://myworld.ebay.com/snow48_6/).

The wiki is born of the very successful "Any Experience with this DIY DAC" thread on DIYAudio.com (http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/137976-experience-diy-dac.html). There is a wealth of information contained within this thread (notably on the use of passive transformers for analogue output) but its size hinders its usability. The wiki has thus been created to provide a structured resource. We hope it helps.

Some images have been lifted from the original thread. If you are the owner of these images and do not wish them to be included here, please feel free to remove them.

DIY DAC Specifics

In most instances the DIY DAC makes use of the following components:

PCM2902 - USB receiver chip. http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/texasinstruments/pcm2902.pdf
CS4398 - DAC chip. http://cirrus.com/en/pubs/proDatasheet/CS4398_F1.pdf
CS8421 - Upsampling chip. http://www.cirrus.com/en/pubs/proDatasheet/CS8421_F3.pdf
CS8416 - S/PDIF receiver chip. http://www.cirrus.com/en/pubs/proDatasheet/CS8416_F3.pdf
or
DIR9001 - S/PDIF receiver ship. http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dir9001.pdf

12x 1N007 discrete diodes are used to rectify the AC into DC. http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dir9001.pdf
2x Dual OP-amps (NE5532 by default) are employed. http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/fairchild/NE5532.pdf

The USB receiver section utilizes a 12.000mhz clock. The optional upsampling board uses a 24.576mhz clock.

There are five DC power rails. +15V and -15V for the analogue OP-amps and 3x 5V for the digital circuits.
LM317 based regulators are used for all five rails. Trimmers are provided for the two analogue rails.

In stock form the DAC requires AC input of 13V - 0V -13V and 9V - 0V to function.

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