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Re: DAC output amp kit, anyone?

Hi Everybody, especially Kevin Carter,

I am the builder of the K&K current DAC output amp prototype and thought I would write in to shed a little subjective light on what it sounds like. My board is not the pcb that Kevin will offer but was made of G10 and hardwired with teflon insulated silver coated copper wire. Even the JFET's were hand wired. Before I get to the sound, you all should know what my digital board came from Gill Audio and has Burr Brown PCM 1704's, a Crystal input receiver, Burr Brown ISO150s's and Black Gate bypass caps in the analog section. The digital power supply has a pulse dampening resistor and the analog power supplies are choke loaded. The digital and analog ground planes are connected with a small high frquency choke to block digital noise out of the analog side. On the input side, there are Lundahl pulse transformers that can accomodate SPDIF ansd AES/EBU. All seperate power supplies have common mode chokes. I hope there aren't details I have left out. Back to subjectivity land. I first built this DAC on a piece of plywood as the chassis wasn't ready yet and discovered early on that Kevin's output amp sounds very good. I didn't know how good until I rebuilt all the parts in a steel chassis with a fully enclosed, magnetically shielded power supply box and took it over to the Kitchen Mastering Studio. For fun, we set the output levels of four DACs the same for fair comparison. All but the K&K/Dave Gill DAC and a Pacific Microsonics HDCD DAC/ADC were eliminated. The others sounded really bad in comparison. After hooking up a professional real to real tape deck to the analog to digital side of the Pacific Micro and than out to the DACs could we determine, without doubt, that the K&K DAC sounded most like the actual tape feed. I was astounded at how great this little current DAC output amp sounded. The midrange clarity was superior. All the rest of the audible spectrum was fantastically well balanced and high resolution but the midrange smoothness and depth are what got me. Even on an Adcom DAC, from the mid-ninties, that has the K&K output board has these same characteristics. Kevin has achieved a digital presentation that is usually associated with LP/vinyl playback. I think his K&K phono stage kit has this kind of ease and clarity. I have one of these kits built and have been listening to records a great deal, lately. I am very familiar with its sound. The DAC output board is cut from the same cloth. I buy CD's and have very eclectic taste in music. I don't buy audiophile approved music and this means that a lot of titles are recorded, mastered and produced without special sound consideration. Recordings that I thought were terribly treated in the studio now sound great. I'm not talking about soft mushy, dark sounding digital like so many DAC's from the 90's. I'm talking about clear, easy to listen to and utterly dynamic digital sound. I am dumbfounded over and over at how good some of these CD's sound. I'm convinced that digital chips are pretty good sounding but the output boards are awful. For a little effort and money, anyone can improve greatly their digital experience. The board is a little bigger than a 3X5 note card. Kevin can tell you the exact size. Build it!!!! I can't wait for someone else to second my opinion. Subjectivity is a beautiful thing and I love my K&K DAC. After having lived with a Proceed PDP3 for 5 or 6 years, than building and living with Kevin Carter's K&K output board, I have a completely new respect for my CD collection. There no upper midrange glare, no dark Levinson grayness and certainly no high treble roll off. The imaging and soundstage are the best I have ever heard, bar none. AND BASS!!! This output amp does bass, wonderfully. I mean tuneful, full bodied and harmonically rich bass. Sometimes I hear prodigous bass without definition, but Kevin's DAC board sounds like music, like the real thing. Back to the midrange, time after time, during listening, I just sit and smile to myself about the state of the art sound coming out of something I built myself. I hope some of you builders, who have big CD collections like I do, will try it. Have fun.

Bergen4



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