Building own DAC

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Evening all. I remember a while back, possibly several years, there was quite a bit of discussion on here about people building their own DACs - there seemed to be a favourite kit but I can't remember what it was. Does anyone do this anymore? Is it worth it - I guess I'm looking to learn something by doing it. Can you point me to a specific kit - I don't really want to order hundreds of small components.
 
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I suppose it depends on the reasons for wanting to do it. If you're hoping to save money then no probably not, but as he's mentioned learning something from it then i don't see why he shouldn't. It could then lead him onto building his own Amplifier in the future if he enjoys it.
 
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Yes it is more for *fun* and learning than any other reason - that said if it was going to cost me a lot more to build my own DAC that was significantly less good than an off the shelf one then I probably wouldn't bother.

(by the way - could I use a fiio e7 to drive a stereo amp via 3.5mm to RCA connectors?)
 
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Mmm maybe I should check the Fiio out - that said it would be interesting to actually build something plus the Fiio E7 seemed to be a portable device, I'd just have it driving a stereo from a PC. As such it seems I'd be wasting its abilities ...
 
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The cost/performance of budget DACs will probably beat any homebrew effort hands down simply because of volumes of scale. As Marvt74 said, if you're chasing performance tweaks then there's a whole world of solutions. They're not cheap compared to off the shelf budget gear, but that's not generally the idea behind these builds. It's to get the performance or tweakability of very high-performance consumer products at a lower cost.

If you're asking questions like this though then it's a big step to take to start building something let alone tweaking the performance to learn from it...
(by the way - could I use a fiio e7 to drive a stereo amp via 3.5mm to RCA connectors?)
 
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FiiO E7 might not be the best solution if it's going to be speaker use only, as it will be functioning as a DAC/headphone amp, then to speaker amp, which is not ideal. It will work, but ideally you'd want just DAC with line out to the amp. This can be achieved with the E7, but it does mean adding a L7, allowing for line out connection.
 
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Thanks for the input, lots of interesting things here.
Marsman - I didn't know about the L7, I'll have a look at that, thanks
Lucid - humour me, I'm not really after performance or a budget solution, mainly interested in doing a spot of soldering in the evenings. What solution would you go for? My question about the 3.5mm to RCA was really two things that I didn't explain very well (i. if the E7 had a lineout and ii. what the general feeling of using a 3.5mm interconnect to a stereo was, I've never found them to be very substantial in terms of the amount of metal on metal contact)
 
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I have the E7 and the L7. So basically the L7 has the usb to line out connection that you need really if your hooking it up to amp and pc.
Works pretty well, il post a pic tonight if I get time.
 
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Lucid - humour me, I'm not really after performance or a budget solution, mainly interested in doing a spot of soldering in the evenings. What solution would you go for?
That's impossible for me to answer because my requirements would be different to yours. But if you want some practice soldering than it would make sense to start with an inexpensive kit with a lot of discrete components and to avoid anything that includes surface mount components.

Google: Mini 1793 DAC kit. That should be a relatively straightforward build as a first time project.

After that then perhaps have a read of the diyAudio forum and see what the guys there are tinkering with. Beware though, once you scratch the surface you may find that your requirements change each time you read another opinion. :D ;)

Try this for starters

what the general feeling of using a 3.5mm interconnect to a stereo was, I've never found them to be very substantial in terms of the amount of metal on metal contact)
I think that by the time you've got to a solution that lets you hear the difference between a 3.5mm jack and phonos then you'll have moved way past jacks as a connection method :D
 
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