Building a Great Sounding DAC with a Little Help from My Friends

Les Bordelon has been building renowned designer and author Erno Borbely's designs for many years. Using his accumulated experience and knowledge he now, in cooperation with Erno, embarked on a DAC design where all parts and subsystems are optimized for a synergetic final result. The article gives many design considerations and addresses the overall configuration, type and brand selection for the DAC chip, I/V converter, jitter considerations, power supply regulation choices, peripheral circuitry and more. The result is a preamp/DAC that can hold its own against the best systems available. PCBs and parts for those wishing to build the design are available from the author.