Bottlehead DAC prototyping takes another step forward

Doc B. · 21903

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Offline Tubejack

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Reply #15 on: October 17, 2012, 02:48:24 AM

There are 10 types of people in this world,
Those that understand Binary and those that Don't!


Offline Jim R.

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Reply #16 on: October 17, 2012, 05:00:00 AM
I had a tektron 2a3 amp that used a nixie tube for a channel selector display.  Of course it didn
't do anything for me, but guests always remarked how cool it was.

John, aren't you worried about noise from the hv needed for the nixie tubes?

-- Jim

Jim Rebman -- recovering audiophile

Equitech balanced power; uRendu, USB processor -> Musette DAC -> 5670 tube buffer -> Finale Audio F138 FFX -> Cain and Cain Abbys near-field).

s.e.x. 2.1 under construction.  Want list: Stereomour II

All ICs homemade (speaker and power next)


Offline Bill Chase

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Reply #17 on: October 19, 2012, 08:51:51 PM
John / Doc,
   I just wanted to confess to eagerly "lurking" on this topic & say thanks for all the work to date.  When this is ready, I'm all in!
Cheers,
Bill

Bill Chase
Digital music collection enjoyed thru:
   Mac Mini to Jolida Glass DSD DAC
   BeePre & Stereomour I
   Seductor EL84 Amp
   DecWare Ultra Preamp w 5x Paramount 300Bs with Magnequest Iron
   Crack with Speedball
   SEX v1
Guitars and Ukulele enjoyed by Tode


Offline denti alligator

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Reply #18 on: November 18, 2012, 07:04:21 AM
Any progress updates? Any chance it would be ready for next Xmas? Depending on the price, I might be able to commit for that.

- Sam

Rega P3-24 (w/AT 150MLX) w/Groovetracer upgrades / Eros II / FLAC >J.River >DSD256 >Gustard X20 / Moreplay > Stereomour II / Klipsch Forte II w/Crites upgrades / C4S S.E.X. 2.0 +Nickel MQ Iron / Speedball Crack / Sennheiser HD600 w/Cardas cable


Offline grufti

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Reply #19 on: November 18, 2012, 01:54:24 PM
RME has been using FPGA's in their studio gear for more than a decade now. They have the interfaces and the upgrading down to a science. I am very fond of their products and I am glad that you decided in favor of this approach.

Best of luck. It must be a ton of work.



There is an FPGA that is the heart and soul of this DAC, it pretty much does everything. It does the S/PDIF decoding, the USB decoding, all the work for the very low jitter adjustable clock that follows the S/PDIF data rate, output encoding, display drive, and pretty much everything else.

...

John S.



Offline Doc B.

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Reply #20 on: November 19, 2012, 01:55:34 PM
Woo hoo! The new boards arrived today! John and will be talking over the next few weeks and getting this new prototype up and running in the system.

Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
President For Life
Bottlehead Corp.


Offline Natural Sound

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Reply #21 on: November 19, 2012, 02:07:25 PM
Woo hoo! The new boards arrived today! John and will be talking over the next few weeks and getting this new prototype up and running in the system.

Sweet, good things come to those who wait.

.



Offline Wormwood

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Reply #22 on: November 19, 2012, 04:35:11 PM
Doc,

It's going to be portable, right?

(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmistermort.typepad.com%2F.a%2F6a010535d07789970c0120a5a72c3b970b-800wi&hash=9599384ed40393d38084b872ce551c4683c22180)


Looking forward to seeing how it all shakes down.



Stephen



Offline tdogzthmn

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Reply #23 on: December 18, 2012, 06:48:36 AM
Are there any progress images of the DAC in it's current iteration?  I saw/heard an early prototype at last years bay area meet but wasn't able to see the internals.   



Offline Paul Birkeland

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Reply #24 on: December 18, 2012, 07:06:37 AM
At this point, we ordered the iron for the new power supply for the new PCB's.  We are just about wrapped up and ready to ship Bee Pres, and once we are over that hill, it will be all hands on deck to wrap up the remaining work to be done on the DAC (though we can't do much without the power supply at this point).

-PB

Paul "PB" Birkeland

Bottlehead Grunt & The Repro Man


Offline Chris

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Reply #25 on: December 27, 2012, 01:30:14 PM
"Are there any progress images of the DAC in it's current iteration?"  Uhh, I think Wormwood provided the photo of the Dac....  Doc was so thorough in the design that he even included the kitchen pan.... He tried the "kitchen sink" , but found it would dramatically increase the shipping charges so chose to go with the pan....... And the "included" blanket is due to the fact you will be so much in love with the sound, you are provided with the option to be able to sleep with it....... I believe anyway......
« Last Edit: December 27, 2012, 02:04:52 PM by Chris »



Offline tdogzthmn

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Reply #26 on: December 28, 2012, 09:49:20 AM
I was thinking a nice future upgrade for the DAC would be network connectivity. That would be quite useful for those running their music off severs in a different location from their music system. The Raspberry Pi would make a nice and affordable Linux computer which could be built into the DAC. Just a thought.



Offline Doc B.

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Reply #27 on: March 19, 2013, 04:45:50 AM
Just a quick update - power supply components are on hand and the design team is working on the physical layput of the DAC today.

Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
President For Life
Bottlehead Corp.


Offline Natural Sound

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Reply #28 on: March 19, 2013, 07:30:00 AM
Quote from: tdogzthmn
The Raspberry Pi would make a nice and affordable Linux computer which could be built into the DAC. Just a thought.

I'm using a Raspberry PI with Raspian (Debian Linux) as a NFS file sharing computer and a PC Engines ALIX computer as an MPD client. The Raspberry Pi is an amazing little computer for $35.

http://cheap-silent-usb-linux-music-server.blogspot.com/



Offline tdogzthmn

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Reply #29 on: March 19, 2013, 11:26:11 AM
Doc, Glad to hear things are moving again on this project!