Young DAC

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Comments

  • It probably will work with the majority of affordable usb dacs, just not those that use their own specific none Linux compatible driver.

    Any old POS usb dac using a TAS chip will be fine, just those needing custom drivers won't, ie the asyn dacs that offer much higher data rates than standard async dacs
  • Updated Young driver appears to be available today!

    http://www.m2tech.biz/all.html
  • Alright. I have just ordered such a box just to see what it is capable of. I will test it on my Aune DAC and compare it to the Touch as transport.

    It is of course a serious limitation if the onboard usb driver won't work with the majority of the affordable USB DACs available.

    Best wishes,
    Peter
    What Simon just said. 
  • Updated Young driver appears to be available today!

    http://www.m2tech.biz/all.html
    I won't be able to try it for a week as my macs at the doctors and I'm away for a few days. Does anyone fancy trying Kanye and Roisin?
  • Not me, I'm afraid. My Young is awaiting a replacement :-(

    I'm sure there will be some willing ears though.
  • I've just got a mate round. Hooked his mac up with Young, downloaded new driver and hey presto! No clicks !!
    Problem seems to be sorted, excellent !
    Will need to listen closely for a bit longer but so far so good on 44.1
  • Works fine for me..
  • edited March 2011
    I have an Alix box (Yoyage MPD) that I'm experimenting with.  The Young is a no-go there.  M2Tech, like some others, are likely to not go that route since Class 2 USB Linux is public shareware and would require that the driver specs be made public.  By the way, it has nothing to do with aysnch or higher sample rates....the Antelope Zodiac Plus and Gold (384k) both are pure Class 2 USB and work directly with Voyage MPD Linux music servers.
  • Thanks Ted.

    I will start another thread about using a Voyage MPD as a music transport since the Voyage MPD dpesn't work with the Young DAC.

    Best wishes,
    Peter
  • Had a good listen to the Young this morning and the new driver seems to fix all the previous issues.

    Sounds awfully good via Decibel, good bless Macs and Dacs.
  • Must get mine back to @coops. I'm not sure he has any replacements yet, though...

    Feeling really left out ;-)
  • Is Decibel a music player for itunes?
  • Just found it that decibel is the Ayrewave player

     

    Cheers

  • edited March 2011
    It is standalone, but can work with iTunes providing library management.

  • I wished they hadn't changed the name was Decibel Ayreware? Fidelio was???
    David delivery due Monday!
    vb Keith.
  • Yes, Ayrewave said all along the name would change once the product was released for sale, as Ayre is not involved in the sales.  And Fidelia is a player from Audiophile Engineering; their beta code was called Twilight.  Don't worry...there are beta.test code name changes all the time.  Yesterday was called Scrambled Eggs before it was released.  :)
  • Hi, Ted I was a beta tester for Twilight ( as was) just getting old!
    See if you can get hold of a Trinnov room optimiser box, they have a US distributor, I believe and let me know your thoughts!
    vb Keith.
  • Keith, I have chatted with Curt (US rep) at Trinnov for several years now, watching Trinnov develop.  Very cool, especially for us multichannel fans.  I'm still skeptical of speaker correction (seems too destructive) but their ideas abour room correction and mic setups are quite revolutionary.  The pro mic looks like some proctology exam on Star Trek! 

    :-O
  • Whatever we talk about, we always come back to Royds  #-o

    And Alan will be along soon with his pic of a hospital sign...

    And we'll start talking about Groundhog Day in the Movies Discussion...

    And I'll get me coat 
    :-D
  • I wished they hadn't changed the name was Decibel Ayreware? Fidelio was???
    David delivery due Monday!
    vb Keith.
    Does that mean I will be getting mine too  ;-)
  • Might do !
    Ted Hi, he Trinnov unit appears to be the only commercially available unit that doesn't kill the sound, in fact I believe it to be transparent, certainly with a digital source.
    Keith.
  • Groundhog Day is my wife's favorite movie of all time.  :)

    Keith, I will put trying to secure a Trinnov  on my to-do list (growing instead of shrinking), thanks.
  • Multi Cell delivered the Lithium Ion rechargeable battery pack , just waiting for some Youngs to try it on, I have the correct shipping ref and they will be here v soon, David so sorry for the delay ( although you must be getting used to it by now)
    Keith.
  • It'll be an Old DAC by the time it arrives, Keith :-) What's the realistic ETA?

    Paul on the Wam is building me some sexy new interconnects with some groovy pluggage and it looks as if they'll be here before the Young :-O
  • David Hi, they arrive Monday, with you Tuesday, unless they arrive too late for special delivery!
    If there is a 74 serial I will send it!
    vb Keith.
  • I shall be waiting by the front door for postie. Woof!  ;;)
  • Down boy! Stop slobbering everywhere!
  • Keith, et al,
    I'm confused.  I thought everyone (like David/Uglymusic) already got their V2 Youngs.  Is this a V3??  If so, what's new? 
  • The analogue stage of my V2 went wrong, so I'm awaiting my second V2 Young.
  • Ted Hi, this is V2.1!
    vb Keith.
  • V2.1? I'm blessed!
  • I wanna new one!!!!
  • Is this in any way related to the noise/hiss I hear in the right channel?  In some instances i get a swooshing/phasey sound (have a UPS tag to ship back to Italy) and even when that anomaly is behaving I sense a real sensitivity to high frequencies that cause some low level noise.  Tracks that have natural tape hiss; on other DACs those tracks are listenable and tape hiss is pretty centered and expected...on the Young I have significant hiss that is louder and troublesome in the right center/right part of the soundstage.  Others here in the US are reporting similar "static", which one could argue still points to a possible board change error by the dealer, but I'm doubting it..  Anyway......good luck with the v2.1.
  • No. I got no sound at all. I blame it on SWMBO.
  • I've never had the hiss either - just the crackle.

    (Which still isn't 100% gone - but if I deselect 'choose best sample rate' in decibel & let Young upsample to 384 it goes entirely.)
  • I just want to thank Simon for the Pana FM suggestion - man, that is one of the best spent 40 euro cents in my life! All of a sudden I hear more details and I have a thunderous bass, separation between instruments is better and I cannot find one single thing that I dislike from the change. Again, I owe you one.
  • Hi, is it possible to get a step by step guide (with photos?)?
  • edited April 2011
    Well,

    I don't have a digital camera at the moment but what I did is remove gently the four rubber feet on the bottom, using a thin blade to push them up on one side(without scratching the aluminum of course) then unscrew the four bolts under the feet. Before that I had taken off the rings around the connectors and unscrewd the bolts on the AES and toslink connectors. The most difficult part is to release the ulnocking mechanism of the AES connector - there is some tiny space below the metal release part that lets go of the XLR connector - you have to push inside a very very fine screwdriver or some hard metal device and gently push it in until it is released and you can pull it out. Then it is easy to take out the DAC board,the flat cable to the front supplying the display is released with gently pushing the two locks on the sides. Then you need a good desoldering station because the capacitor is a tight fit, I am not sure but the board looks like a multy layer one. I am good at soldering but I asked a friend who is doing that for living to do it for me - it is not the regular DIY stuff unfortunately... Hope that helps, will be glad to answer any questions. But Simon was right - there is a difference and for me it is worth the risk.
  • I told my friends about the change and when they heard that the cap was a Capxon they laughed out loud - they are not very popular among people who work in the field. Obviously.
  • I told my friends about the change and when they heard that the cap was a Capxon they laughed out loud - they are not very popular among people who work in the field. Obviously.
    Mmmm....  i was just listening to the "Definitive Burt Bacharach" when I read this thinking to myself that "Do you know the way to San Jose" by Dionne Warwick had never sounded better. Now, I'm not so sure. But seriously, for those of us who can't work a hammer nevermind a "desoldering station ?", the Capxon cap question will come to haunt our every waking hour until we can get the bloody thing replaced by a Panasonic. Maybe someone should tell Marco ?
  • Thank you for the guiede. I think I am too much of a chicken to dare the try...

  • If I have to honest I would not do it if I did not have someone with a lot of experience behind my back. And it voids the warranty also, at least for me the money for the Young is not insignificant. Every audio device will benefit from upgrades like that and it is great to have the option to try a different PSU as that makes a lot of difference, you don't need to change the cap to get good sound from the Young, for example my battery pack had much greater impact than that change and I am still struggling to find a way to recharge the A123s so I can listen to the DAC for more than a few hours and then wait for a day to have them charged again.
    I did compare the sigma11 to the A123s and to the supplied PSU and you can easily guess the results - A123s are way ahead of the two, the sigma being quite good too and definitely better than the original supply. If I could only find a charger... Anyway, the Young continues to impress me and if I were you I would sweat too much about caps changes, just listen to music and look for someone coming up with a good PSU for the Young, I am sure people are working on that. I feel bad about posting about the Panasonic FM impact, Simon was much wiser than me as he just mentioned it and I made it sound as if people are hearing only half of the Young at home, that is not the case, believe me.
  • If I have to honest I would not do it if I did not have someone with a lot of experience behind my back. And it voids the warranty also, at least for me the money for the Young is not insignificant. Every audio device will benefit from upgrades like that and it is great to have the option to try a different PSU as that makes a lot of difference, you don't need to change the cap to get good sound from the Young, for example my battery pack had much greater impact than that change and I am still struggling to find a way to recharge the A123s so I can listen to the DAC for more than a few hours and then wait for a day to have them charged again.
    I did compare the sigma11 to the A123s and to the supplied PSU and you can easily guess the results - A123s are way ahead of the two, the sigma being quite good too and definitely better than the original supply. If I could only find a charger... Anyway, the Young continues to impress me and if I were you I would sweat too much about caps changes, just listen to music and look for someone coming up with a good PSU for the Young, I am sure people are working on that. I feel bad about posting about the Panasonic FM impact, Simon was much wiser than me as he just mentioned it and I made it sound as if people are hearing only half of the Young at home, that is not the case, believe me.
    Nothing to feel bad about, you must tell it exactly as you hear it, that's how things move on & improve.
  • I thought the cap swap bought low level, but worthwhile improvements, but it is a bugger to fit as the board is SMT and the solder does not flow or clean as you might expect.

    It might indeed be worth Marco using the better part as standard. If he looks at it, and it measures better than maybe he would. 
  • Meanwhile, we non-solder ninjas are looking for other tweaks :-)
  • My replacement Young is on the way!!!!  :D
  • Great news!
  • What are we going to talk about once we've all got upgraded PSUs, the Mac drivers are sorted and the solder ninjas have done their thing?
  • THE VAUGHAN   >:-) >:-) >:-)
  • When are we expecting to see a bug-free example?  :-"
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