Lessloss Audio Products

Excellent proposition, except for the selectable output buffer IMHO.
I would like to add/propose:

- Enough voltage from R2R ladders to avoid an output stage, like MSB or the TOTL Totaldac do.
- Use Rogers board (the Duroid ones look amazing) for everything, not just for the R2R ladders.
- Finemet core silver wired transformer for the PSU (and a sota one, like Tribute or Monolith Magnetics)
- All sockets and connectors Furutech NCF rhodium.
- 4x BNC I2S connection, no sidegrade from AES/EBU stuff like HDMI or RJ45 I2S.

I suppose that such a configuration would probably be much more expensive than the proposed 5k price, but...wouldn't it be awesome?

 

Alright, joking aside there's obviously a market for that kind of thing. Just at or above $5K seems to be the correct price point these days. As long as you use the moar expensive versions of already adequate parts and perhaps an unnecessary buffer stage or two the results can be defended from any attack.

At that cost perhaps you add the I2S hdmi style input and switches for clocking integration with media streamers. And, at that price or perhaps at the 6.5K mark, you add an LPS wall wart and throw a super capacitor into that separate power supply room to fully assuage remaining jitter audio nervosa.

Of course all of us around here will be upset at the inevitable price increase of your current TOTL to 3K and may start muttering evil nothings under our breath

 

Beefier / linear PSU seems like not a bad idea...

Why not build a few different prototypes and test them on SBAF ears, to see which of these changes actually makes it sound better. I vote for improved sonics (even if diminishing returns) over audio jewellery. Leave that to the experts (see Lessloss thread).

 

1. Entirely separate PSU, because bigger heavier separate power supplies makes people believe it's better. Then you can also charge for an upgrade to the power umbilical cord.
   
2. Transformer coupled outputs. Maybe on the headphone outputs too. Silver as an upgrade option.
3. Silver traces and solder.
   
4. Clock input, because letting people connect their other fancy gear into yours triggers a dopamine rush.
   
5. Not just selectable outputs, give people plug-able modules to swap out. They have to work for it, but only a little bit.
   
6. A remote control. Better yet, no remote but something that can learn to react to a separate existing remote like SPL does for their phonitors.
   
7. Heat sinks to make people think it's important. Copper heat pipes for something something faster thermal equilibrium.
   
8. or some nice fancy wooden cases or veneer.
9. Spiked feet, or ball'n'cup feet, or both.
   
10. Signed certificate of authenticity, with included measurements for each unit.

 

@Armaegis, you're being sarcastic but you just designed my dream dac.

 

@Armaegis knows that all these things count
Every small thing adds its 2c and there are a lot of small things.
To play in with the best there can be no ignorance.

 

OK, do all that stuff above, but stick it in a hacked up Altoids tin.

 

I can see the following for potential lowering of the overall noise floor, possibly adding more dynamic range:
CNC cut single piece aluminum cabinet.
Power supply in a seperate "room" in the cabinet.
multi-layer PCB, with extra thick ground plane layer.
similar to Matrix XSP implementation

Large FPGA would be useful for creating more complex filters.
I'm not certain what the selectable output buffer adds other than marketing feature.
If the display has dynamic operation (bar graphs) that could compromise the noise floor. Static displays might be ok. It would be nice to have a more user friendly description of filter selected and current sample rate.

 

I wasn't even being sarcastic for half of those
Get yourself a nice oven controlled crystal clock or atomic one.
Put a mini heating blanket under your ladder dac for better thermals until someone finally puts in a heating circuit into the dac itself.
Don't forget the power conditioner/regenerator in front of the amp so any grunge won't be able to make its way back into the dac psu.
etc.