XXHighEnd

Much as I'm sure the next version of XX will be amazing, what I'd really love is:

- 3-band phase-accurate ('Phase Sure' ;)) crossover built into XX
- 'NOS2' DAC with separate low/mid/high BNC outputs per channel (2x 1704s per band = only 12 in total!)

Too much to ask?

Mani.

Mani, not too much to ask. But we ran out of BNC chassis parts.

Peter

Damn. Show-stopper.

I don't doubt that it'd take a lot of work, but I really think this is the way forward...

Mani.

Do you stop at 3 channels though?  I need six!  That's a big strain on Neutriks BNC production capacity.

Seriously though Peter, is the NOS2 shelved?  I still love the idea of a discrete dac.

Anthony, don't tempt me. But Yes, I guess so.
Maybe there comes a time that we really don't know what to do, so I'd dare to start building a first piece of that (2500 components for 2ch) 8ch puzzle including power amplification.

But no.

I'd rather adopt the idea of making a DAC with an FPGA in the center, while the FPGA can do FFT's. I think this does not exist yet, while our Paul was a kind of forced to do that for an internship. This was against all odds, but he managed. The whole idea of that project of concern was to replace DSP code because that was too slow …

Of course, especially for Mani - because he always asks - there will be 10 parameters which 256 settings each.

But yes, that should be able to create a few channels for frequency bands …

Peter

Sounds great! Thanks.


But the DAC has only 2 channels - surely we need 6 channels in order to output 3 bands per L/R channel. What am I missing or misunderstanding?

Mani.

My request is totally reasonable... in the 'nothing-is-impossible' world Peter inhabits, at least. Yours, however, is plain greedy.

Edit: Are you really using 12 SET amps in your system???

Mani.

Yes.

Later:  But I should add that they are monoblocs...6 amps in each side.

Is this something to do with the "USB replacement" interface you teased last year?  Or was Paul sidetacked to something else...the DSP?

Anthony … haha, I thought you would come up with that in this very topic. But no.
First off, what I talked about last year never came about in the first place (I suppose because of a lack of time). Secondly, what I talked about ~2 months ago, was something else, albeit still an interface at that level. But as it appeared (I bought a box full of hardware for it) that can not work yet. I expect it to come, though.

Regards,
Peter

Glad I did not disappoint!

Looking forward to it.  Am a bit sad about the NOS2 shelving which would suit me more than the multi-band dac with filters at pc software level.  Analogue sources and all that...

With the filters in the fpga somewhere ?
 :o
It would be a new DAC all right, which does *not*  require PC software. :)
Do you happen to know anyone who sells time ?

What a great product if there was such a thing...

What a totally phenomenal idea!

(My only concern would be the affect that a powerful FPGA running at full tilt might have on the DAC chips. But presumably this could be mitigated with due care?)

Mani.

Nah, I reckon keep the filtering in the pc software if possible.  Three (or six!) bands transmitted to the dac with a fancy interface that Peter and Paul develops, perhaps even with one cable.  Three (or six!) dac outputs direct to six (or twelve!) amplifiers.

But only good for computer playback.  If you have any analogue sources then the filter needs to be line level or speaker level or a mix of both.  Or Peter gets funky with a sota ADC in front of it all with volume control and source selection which is all starting to sound like a preamplifier which is a dirty word as far as Peter is concerned.

But it would be nice, especially if the ADC was truly transparent...and the RIAA equalisation was applied in software between the ADC and DAC, and the dac could push 4VRMS plus.

It's nice to dream...

My dream from day one has been that the DAC be totally immune to anything that happens before it. 10 years later...

Mani.

Yes, 10 years later.  It's not like Peter is not trying...

Oh sure. But if Peter hasn't managed to do it...

On the upside, at least the Phasure software and hardware allows us to make the most of the less-than-ideal situation we all face. And I think we can all agree that the results can be stunning.

Mani.