Ordered this from China, and with a high current 5VDC Power Supply I had laying in box, sweeter audio quality was easily audible. Separating the CLK/Data signals is definitely the best way to listen to Digital Audio. Temporarily had to remove the S/PDIF (RCA) cable because the I2S PCB has a direct male to male HDMI adapter connecting it to the Sony Universal Player. An Optical cable is connected temporarily until I does some careful RCA 75Ω 90° Plumbing to get around the I2S PCB. The Dual HDMI outputs (Video goes to my Sony STR-DN1080N - “Audio” feeds the I2S PCB). True DSD over PCM Stereo playback is now heavenly.
Works with ANY BluRay Player that has an HDMI Output. For SACD Playback (@ 2.8MHz) player must be SACD compatible which the Sony is. Will also work with the cheaper Sony UBP-X800.
You can more or less convert a Oppo 103/103D/203 to a super legit hifi transport for less than $800. I bought my oppo 103 for $200 on craigslist(the guy had never seen someone so happy to buy an old bluray player before lol)…but, since they don’t make them anymore and I would otherwise have no way to rip SACDs - so it’s priceless.
Keep everyone up to date on how it sounds! Congrats again!
2.0 SACD DSD works great but for Multichannel 5.0 SACD’s, I’m stuck using the Stock chips inside the Sony AVR. When I play Multichannel PCM, the DS Sr. is used for the Front L & R while the Sony’s PCM DAC’s are used for the Center & Surrounds. Let’s see…$40.00 for the Adapter PCB, $400 for the Sony Uni-Drive/Player. The only thing can’t do with it is rip SACD’s.
I’ll definitely look into it. I have a PS3 that a friend was using to rip SACD’s It’s a boat anchor now because the firmware was updated by someone plugging it into the internet.
My Power Supply & DC Regulator. 12.5A may be overkill for this adapter board, but it’s been buried in a box for a few years. Bought it at Fry Electronics (R.I.P.) a few years ago for a car amp I used to power a Subwoofer. Absolutely no Switching noise and the Voltage Regulator’s output has 100uF Vishay Aluminum Electrolytics bypassed with some 100nF Sonicraft Capacitors I had removed from a previous Project.
I don’t see that the source is providing I2S into the board. It is taking regular HDMI in and generating it’s own I2S output. It may work but not as well as if it had connect to the internal I2S buss of the transport.
PS Audio’s no longer offering the SACD Layer of SACD discs anymore on the next Gen Disc Transport. If I am wrong, please correct me in my ability to deliver “Fake News”.
I can’t afford or could ever justify spending thousands of dollars on a box that just spins discs. I’d rather use that money for DAC’s (love the DS Sr. BTW), amps, interconnects and of course media.
I can’t find the schematics for the UBP-X800 or UBP-X1000ES so hacking into the PCB and fly wiring the CLK/DATA/GND pins is not happening. I am fully capable of doing that kind of work if I knew what pins on what chip to solder off of (see my DIY hack of the 5.1 Balanced XLR, Fixed Outputs of the Sony STR-DN1080 AVR). What difference would it make whether you tap off the internal I2S pins or the neater/cleaner solution offered by a $40 made in China PCB ? At the end of the day, it’s the DirectStream Sr. that does all the work anyways. But it does require a clean Digital Input (Galvanically Isolated would work too I guess). I2S has made a great improvement in my system even better. $Megabucks Disc Transport or $400 Sony Universal Disc Player (cheaper used or NOS) with a $40 HDMI to I2S adapter board. Add to that a clean high current 5VDC Wall Wart or separate Power Supply and you have a Kick Ass source for Peanuts.
Believe it or not the transport plays a HUGE part in the sound you are going to get from your dac. If you have a large collection of CD’S and SACD the transport is a worthwhile investment. I personally have never heard another source that can compete with what I hear with the DMP.
The board is awesome on SACD’s/DSD files but sucks on PCM (I keep the S/PDIF and USB inputs on the DS Sr. for that).
I run the front L/R with the DS SR.'s Volume Control. The Center and Surrounds have independent Digital Pots courtesy of the MiniDSP’s that I use to EQ all five Sealed Box Bose 901’s.
The L/R MiniDSP has I2S outputs that I want to connect to I2S Input #2 one of these days thereby bypassing the 48/24 DAC that currently feeds M700’s. Funny thing is improvements made by the DS Sr.'s XLR out’s feeding the MiniDSP are then going through the MiniDSP’s DAC are clearly heard. I’ll post a diagram of my system soon on the Systems Diagram Topic page.
‘… sucks on PCM’ : Have you read this thread?–> Getting Oppo DSD output to the DS via I2S. In the beginning of that thread they discuss a board that looks identical to yours, and later in the thread (before post 114) they seem to solve the problems regarding PCM.
Regarding MiniDSP being transparent to the DS analog signal quality: I experience the same with my Lyngdorf preamplifier/crossover filter/room correction unit - the extra AD DA conversion seems to do very little harm to the DS signal.
I never masked off the pins for the 5V from my Sony’s HDMI and it works great. I’m assuming that the Chinese Adapter board internally switches off the HDMI 5V when it senses that an external 5V supply is used.
FWIW posts 197 - 206 in the thread I mentioned talks about blanking off pin 18 to prevent the 5V, and one says it improved the SQ. May be the board they sell now is improved (?)
I’m going to try that with back to back HDMI to 20 pin. 2.54mm pitch adapter boards I have. I just won’t connect pin 18. Would have tried it tonight but I didn’t have any header strips laying around .
Your effort is highly appreciated. I’m showing some images from the other thread here for our convenience. You can also skip connecting pin 15 to prevent the pre-emphasis/de-emphasis signalling that worsens SQ from PCM sound tracks.
Thanks Standahm1. Got everything working as per the the Post from the other I2S Forum Topic. Thanks for heading me that way.
PCM still sounds like crap but the Coax input will do for now. I’ll try the Pin 15 mask over once I order more HDMI breakout boards (I messed the exiting ones up - oops).
I have a Sony UBP-X800 myself so I’m a bit curious if you were able to find corresponding settings in your X1000 to the Oppo settings in the other thread?
Exact same setup. Don’t even worry about the 5V disabling either. Simply plug in the “BigBoard” into the HDMI “Audio Only” and keep your regular Video HDMI connected to your AVR/TV Set so you can see watch/stream content. From the 6 Pin I2S Out of the big board, wire it to the 6 pins of the I2S in of the “Little Board” and make sure you do the pin swap for the L & R channels. It was super easy and not too much of a “Klugdefest” going on behind the Player. I masked pin 15 and the Sony no likey.
Get this to interconnect the “big Board” to your Sony X800
No need for a Disc Transport since the X800/X100ES does the job and quite well to my ears. Now you can Stream Netflix/Amazon/Hulu in Stereo via the DSD Sr. Overkill but it’a becasue we can…LOL.
I also use the onboard DLNA/Windows Media Player USB’d to my HTPC/Music Server to access all my PCM files, Concerts, Movies, etc via the Ethernet connector. DSD files are via USB (Audirvana) , SACD discs, or the USB ports of either my Sony X1000 or my Sony STR-DN1080
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