Finished my Gabster dac a few days ago. With all Gaby's information and guidance it was fairly easy to build for this newbie. The sound is amazing. So far I like it better than my Schiit Yggy+ OG. That is really saying a lot. I will give it a few hundred hours break in and then A/B them. Thank you Gaby for sharing this project and for all the guidance you give. You and your ion-canada videos are what got me started in DIY about a year ago. I have learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Jim D
Hi Jim I am very happy that you managed to get my TD1 built and that you like it and experiencing the beautiful sound. Feel free to share your experience on forums That will help the TD1 project. If you like to share your system on the Chanel just send a few photos and how you feel about it, my contact is on my site. gabster.ca/Contacts/
I have had expensive mistakes in this hobby. I had a cheap ess9038q2m dac board that I have been modifying only to total it just when the sound had improved drastically and I was ready to wind up modifications. If curses were real then I might be cursed. At first I connected power supply polarity wrongly. Due to tiredness or old age, I forgot the polarity that I had assigned the wires and ended up switching polarity. I guess that's why wire colour codes are there. Luckily main regulator failed gracefully and only it and electrolytic caps were damaged. I managed to replace the regulator and replace all electrolytic caps. The final straw that broke the camels back was when my 300VA toroidal transformer just died unexpectedly and I had to use an old E-core transformer salvaged from a UPS. Due to my failure to learn from my mistakes and not being thorough, I assumed that the wire that produced half voltage(half of other wires measured together) when measured against each of the two wires was the 0v centre tap. It turned out not to be the case. I designed power supply for a centre tap transformer and the centre tap was the ground. This time the regulator failed by passing all input voltage to output which cascaded through all regulators into to the chips (DAC chip and microcontroller). VCC lines going into the chip have a continuity to ground which I think means the chips are gone. I''ll purchase another board with the same chip but different design. My budget is under $50 so your TDA DAC is out of my reach for me for now. I hope I like the sound of it stock since the board that I have earmarked is all SMD components which means modes will be much riskier than a through hole board.
its the best DAC but that rig got beat with the ugly stick. bro, words for you 3D printer. or get some clear plexiglass if you want to show off the rig. edit: those caps/conditioners are huge
Finished my Gabster dac a few days ago. With all Gaby's information and guidance it was fairly easy to build for this newbie. The sound is amazing. So far I like it better than my Schiit Yggy+ OG. That is really saying a lot. I will give it a few hundred hours break in and then A/B them. Thank you Gaby for sharing this project and for all the guidance you give. You and your ion-canada videos are what got me started in DIY about a year ago. I have learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Jim D
Hi Jim
I am very happy that you managed to get my TD1 built and that you like it and experiencing the beautiful sound.
Feel free to share your experience on forums
That will help the TD1 project.
If you like to share your system on the Chanel just send a few photos and how you feel about it, my contact is on my site.
gabster.ca/Contacts/
That power box is a cool thing thank you for showing us how to really connect everything the easy way
Greate idea for beginners. It's also worth mentioning that always on plug can be used to constantly power PurePi (to charge batteries).
Great idea
I have had expensive mistakes in this hobby. I had a cheap ess9038q2m dac board that I have been modifying only to total it just when the sound had improved drastically and I was ready to wind up modifications. If curses were real then I might be cursed.
At first I connected power supply polarity wrongly. Due to tiredness or old age, I forgot the polarity that I had assigned the wires and ended up switching polarity. I guess that's why wire colour codes are there. Luckily main regulator failed gracefully and only it and electrolytic caps were damaged. I managed to replace the regulator and replace all electrolytic caps.
The final straw that broke the camels back was when my 300VA toroidal transformer just died unexpectedly and I had to use an old E-core transformer salvaged from a UPS. Due to my failure to learn from my mistakes and not being thorough, I assumed that the wire that produced half voltage(half of other wires measured together) when measured against each of the two wires was the 0v centre tap. It turned out not to be the case. I designed power supply for a centre tap transformer and the centre tap was the ground. This time the regulator failed by passing all input voltage to output which cascaded through all regulators into to the chips (DAC chip and microcontroller). VCC lines going into the chip have a continuity to ground which I think means the chips are gone.
I''ll purchase another board with the same chip but different design. My budget is under $50 so your TDA DAC is out of my reach for me for now. I hope I like the sound of it stock since the board that I have earmarked is all SMD components which means modes will be much riskier than a through hole board.
We all had our share of costly mistakes happens to the best of us
You should try a ProtoDac it’s easy, good and in your budget
Easy and simple.. looks at robot contraption on table 😢
its the best DAC but that rig got beat with the ugly stick. bro, words for you 3D printer. or get some clear plexiglass if you want to show off the rig.
edit: those caps/conditioners are huge
It's called the off button, turn off the stereo and listen to the world, far better.