Soekris "dac1541": DAC/Amp - Stream of Consciousness Impressions

RS-232 is older than dirt. It's only used up to about 20 Kbps. With Bell wire, it will run 50 ft or more.

 

Yeah, I know.
But if the interface works fine is you are slowly typing, but has problem sending a file, seems to me that it could be a data corruption problem.

 

More likely an implementation problem. RS-232 is not anywhere near as defined as Ethernet, USB, etc. It's only defined for Physical Layer, if I remember correctly. There are lots of ways to configure packets in RS-232: and if each end is not designed around the same protocol, there can be errors or complete silence.

 

So you made me check what I did years ago lol
Baud rate is 115k, protocol is xmodem, and my cable was longer than a foot, maybe 2-3 feet long. It doesn't have the feel of a protocol error to me, imho a protocol error would either work or not.
That said, we can agree to disagree.

 

Hey, I am no expert in RS-232. It got used around our labs a lot, and basically between 2 devices that were designed to talk to each other, would work regardless of how shitty the cable assembly was.

The fact that it worked eventually is pretty mystifying. I am way out of my depth in troubleshooting anything like that.

 

Ya, no idea what was going on. It was my first attempt at doing the firmware update. Honestly not sure. My unit is headed back to Soren for the coax and volume pot upgrade. He said he would look everything over and I'm sure he'll have to load the firmware again after the upgrade. Soren's customer service is top notch.

By the way, is there a version 1.21 of the firmware? I could only find 1.20.

 

Where is this instruction page?

 

RS232 can also either use hardware or software flow-control. Baud rate, parity, control flow all have to be set properly.

 

https://randytsuch-audio.blogspot.com/2015/11/soekris-r2r-dam-dac.html

 

http://soekris.dk/download/dac1541/

 

@soekris should update their download webpage with a link to the 1.21 firmware.

 

dac1541 firmware rev 1.21 is at http://www.soekris.dk/download/dac1541/1541_full_121.skr
It's not officially released yet, as those who really wanted it at first haven't provided feedback....
Btw, the only difference compared to 1.20 is a change in some clocking circuit as a few DACs had issues....

 

No significant change for me wrt 1.20. It stil has problems with DSD under mpd (both 0.20 and 0.21) on ARM-32 - the problem may lie with mpd, actually. No problem whatsoever with Audirvana on my Mac. Sound is great as ever. This is not the most silent DAC [1] but it has that "high mass turntable" sound that I really love.

[1] I have to put my head inside the Le Cleach horns to hear the faintest of the faintest crackles. The horn is driven by a tweeter with 110Db sensitivity, following a 10Db attenuation in the Xover via an autotransformer, and 26Db of power amp gain. The amps are directly connected to the DAC out, with only separation transformers in between otherwise there's s buzz. Mind you, if I move back 50 cm there is no audible noise. And no noise in the headphones as well. Other DACs may *measure* better and produce no faint crackle in the above quite artificial situation, but who cares, if they do not sound as good.

 

Want to order a new 1541 in time for the New Year.. The US reseller, modhouseaudio, claims they are waiting on new units, and I have not had a reply from the official Soekris email. Excited to order a unit soon.. anyone else in the same boat?

 

Still enjoying mine, good unit, good value, good for your health, good for you.

 

I am very sad for the folks at ASR that will never get to listen to it because it does not measure like some of their preferred DACs. And I have heard a few of their favourites which, I can tell, were definitely not enjoyable.

 

It is possible to make dop over coaxial ?

 

DSD over s/pdif is limited to dsd64 (using DoP, yes).

 

I don’t think 1541 support dsd over S/pdif dop now (firmware 1.20)

 

The dac1541 only support DSD over the USB interface. I'm planning to add support for DoP over SPDIF in a future firmware release.