Deltec Little bit/Enlightenment DAC's

Hi everyone,

Ok, this is my first post!:boogie: .

Im trying to pick up a deltec little bit dac at the moment as my friend has one and it seems to make a big improvement to our sytems.

Does anyone know how the deltec enlightenment dac compares to the little bit dac?...


Ive actually tried using a TDA non oversampling dac, which I bought over e bay, but with not so great results.

This came with a 9volts adapter which says it is intended for use on a camera, so im not sure whether this could be the problem.

 

I have a DPA Little Bit 3. It was highly recommended by HiFiWorld in the nineties. However, I tend to find it a little dull and lifeless.

I have an Arcam Alpha 5+ and an Alpha 5 that have both been highly modified. The sound is alive, detailed and vibrant: Totally different to most of the modern bitstream players. There is one for sale on ebay at the moment for £160 modified by the same guy who did mine.

 

Comparing the E-Dacs with the little bit 3 -night and day. I've kept hold of my LB3 as a nice bit of history, it still holds its own (imho!) against players in the 300-400 category and has a reasonable range of inputs. I've owned several E-DACs - the DX 32, SX 64 (I guess a precursor to the DAC 64) and an SX 128 (this along with a 50S pre-power combo are one of the few hifi items I've really regretted selling...). The E-DACs are much more detailed and transparent compared to the little bit 3, and have the deltran clocking thingumy which improves things with a dpa or other suitably modded transport. The DXs come up on ebay quite often but I've not seen an SX recently. There are some power supply problems with these DACs which can lead to failure (especially if they've been left on 24/7) - this can be recified by mods done by Chevin Audio. As for parts availability I think that there would be difficulties with obtaining FPGA chips unless you could contact any ex-dpa guys. I'm sure that there are other people on the forum with more dpa experience than me who could comment.

Neil

 

What Neil said.

Actually fixing DPA kit isn't impossible. The bits in the dacs that fail are the regulators (no heatsinking, run hot) which tend to dry out the reservoir caps - all easily fixed. The only other likely thing that can go is the SPDIF input buffer (Texas Instruments uA9732 IIRC) which can be killed by stray ground currents - bewary of connecting to cheap DVD players with switchmode supplies, and use a lead that connects earth before signal conductor. Fortunately this too is easily replaced at home - it's an 8pin DIL chip (like an opamp), and avalaible widely for £1.50ish.

As for the FPGAs - these are unobtainium, since they were programmed in-house by DPA. I rather doubt these would be a cause of failure though.

I'm a bit of a DPA fan too - I use the DPA50S pre/power amp and also have about the place a PDM1.2 dac, a Little Bit..and an SX512 aquired broken but which I rather hope to fix soon.

 

I notice that there is a DX 32 on epay at the moment:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DPA-DELTEC-DX...871056118QQcategoryZ81741QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

- it's the older version (newer ones have stainless steel casework and a black acrylic front panel) but have identical circuit boards. Probably worth around the £100 / £125 mark.

Neil

 

Back to the original questions... a bad psu and low voltage will cripple the nos.. Get a good 12vdc for the white nos or a 14.5vdc for the black nosIII.....you can always pm me for more info.

 

Which FPGA is used in the DPAs? If it's a Xilinx Spartan then it's volatile and requires external eprom. The FPGAs can also be hand-soldered if you know what you're doing.

And I wouldn't say unobtanium for any of them, if you know the right people...

 

nos dac adaptor

My nos dac is the white transparent version.

Would I be best off getting a new 12volts adaptor from somewhere like maplins to use with the dac?.

 

You should be able to get a good idea if thats the problem, make certain its a regulated supply for about £15

 

Just wondering what psu stands for?.

I know this probably shows up my lack of technical know how!...

 

power supply unit