NOSDAC

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Soldato
Joined
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I took delivery of a Derek Shek NOSDAC this morning. I've been after one since reading up on the superb reviews these bits of kit have received on various forums including Zerogain and AVForums. There hasn't been one negative comment about them and seeing as you can diy one for about £80 or get a pre-fabbed one delivered for about £170 it seemed like a no-brainer.

My system up to this point has relied upon MP3s and FLACs steamed off my pc through an X-Fi into my amps via a Chord Chrysalis IC. I knew that this wasn't exactly optimal as I have been asking a £50 sound card to use it's cheap on-board dac to process the tracks through the em-storm that is the case of my pc.

Unfortunately I haven't got my arcam cd72 handy to do a direct comparison of it's dac with that of the NOSDAC, but thus-far I've tried to be as objective as possible - it's hard to be so when you've trying to justify a nice shiny new purchase to yourself!

d2_back.JPG


The back has connections for optical and coax-in.

d2_front.JPG


The X-Fi is connected to the DAC via a Creative Digital I/O module and Cambridge Audio 1m Coax IC. The Lineouts of the Shek are connected to the 8000s with a Chord Crimson IC.

In use the NOSDAC is a revelation. Compared to running via the lineout on the sound card it's like a veil has been lifted from the speakers. The soundstage spreads out a mile and the vocals really come to the fore. Bass tightens up and cimbles now really sound like cimbles rather than bin lids! Greenday's "Welcome To Paradise" used to descend into a tangled mess when things started to get busy, however now it's like the band are right there in front of you - you can literally place every instrument in relation to the others, and the clarity of each individual piece is breathtaking. Tom Petty's "Free Fallin" has taken on a whole new dimension - the bass is deeper and more contolled, the vocals dynamic and the highs so less stressed. "Teardrop" by Massive Attack sounds just like the first time I heard it in the MoS back in late 1997 - the magic is back!

I don't know whether a NOSDAC really does compete with £500+ DACs as the people on Zerogain reackon, but I can safely say that it blows my cd72 and X-FI out of the water!
 
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The more I listen to it the better it gets. I can do an exact comparison with the X-Fi's line-out simply by selecting it on the amp with the remote. The difference is night and day! I though Bi-Amping made a spectacular change but it's nothing compared to this; it's like the speakers have completely disappeared and you're now simply listening to the music as it should be rather than the speakers.

On "Telegraph Road" Mark Knopfler is literally sitting in front of you with the guitar. I'm beginning to see why people spend so much money trying to attain high fidelity now.
 
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Most NOSDACs appear to be based on either the older 1543 chip or the newer 1545a. The Monica 2 on diyparadise is one of the most popular if you want a cheap 1545 diy job -

http://diyparadise.com/dackit/1545bdackit.html

You can get the all the diy bits shipped to you from

http://www.diyparadise.com/shop/ for about 90 dollars - it says
"All the parts required to assemble Monica DAC up to PCB level.

You need to get your own wires, RCA sockets, solder"

They'll sell you a prefab one in an ali case for 300 dollars: http://diyparadise.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=7

monica_charlize.jpg


(The monica 2 is on the right - the one on the left is a T-Amp)

The one I went for is the Derek Shek D2 which is about £185 delivered from Hong Kong. It's based on the 1545a and has both optical and coax in. The Monica 2 only has Coax in.

http://www.sigtone.net/
 
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looks good. id want a kit with quality parts like the d2, but i dont want to spend that sort of money on a pre-built d2 just for a swanky box to put it in. id rather biuld a top quality dac myself and stick it in something nice and simple:)
 
Well the cheaper Monica2 diy kit uses the same vitals as the d2 so in theory should sound just as good - it's certainly one of the most popular on the Zerogain forum.
 
Cool, glad your happy, looks nice too.

Im going to be happy with the DAC in my marantz cd-63 for years to come. It's going to get its final upgrades this summer if i can afford it, with multiple 5v regs, dedicated TX PSU's, servo clock divider, and BG caps (ontop of the current ones), then it will be the ultimate £12 player :D:D:D
 
i bought a derek shek ultimate *** dac with reclocking a while ago, that must be his new model :D ,great sounding dacs at a good price,you can often find him selling on ebay, mine cost £130 about 10 months ago.
 
Interesting.

I currently have a bluegears be-inspirer outputting via optical (handy as this card can carry dts/dolby and normal game sound over optical) to my nad t753 av amp and my 4 b&w 601s2's b&w centre and ASW1000 sub.

My issue is where would i put the dac in this setup and would there be an improvement to sound quality?

I need the optical out to carry my 5.1 channel sound. Are there 5.1 channel dac's?

Any advice?
 
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Paul -C- said:
Would a Derek Shek NOSDAC improve the sound quality between my X-Fi and my Videologic Sirocco Crossfire speakers?
Click to expand...
Any decent DAC will improve sound quality on any set of speakers by virtue of the fact that a DAC is specifically designed to convert the digital signal to analogue with the highest precision whilst the DAC on the X-Fi will be specced to a budget. How much improvement you'll see is anyones guess but it'd definately come down to how good the speakers are at realising the extra detail and clarity the DAC provides.

One word of advice though - the dreaded X-Fi "crackle" bug will try and mess things up if you're not careful. I'd been messing with my setup and couldn't understand why I was getting a crackle now over coax and not on the normal lineout. After a bit of fiddling I realised that if I plugged the Digital I/O module all the way into the back of the X-Fi (so that the minijack was flush against the backing plate of the pci card) the connection somehow picked up a load of static and this could be heard as crackling! By gently pulling the minijack out a little bit (creating a gap between the jack and the pci card) the crackling has magically vanished! God damn Creative for their crappy build-quality...
 
Thanks for the info, I'll need to research it some more I guess.

I must have been lucky with my xfi though, cos I've never had a problem with it... (I'm now expecting a puff of smoke from my case :P)
 
It's definately worth having a read up on them on AVForums and Zerogain forums. Unfortunately, as they're not really mainstream kit, it's hard to get a demo of one to see whether you like it. However, if you're handy with a soldering iron it's hardly an expensive little project to build and you may just get a massive increase in sound quality as well!
 
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