ProtoDAC TDA1387 X8 project

[bobdcarr]

Wow, I must say, for the price of a Pi3B+ and a ProtoDAC, this is definitely the best value out there.

I ran a comparison between the ProtoDAC (with linear Power Supply) and my current setup, Allo DigiOne --> SPDIF --> Arcam iRDAC (with linear Power Supplies).

I am in no way saying the protoDAC is not awesome, but I did hear some discrepancies between the 2 systems (I've probably tried a dozen other systems before choosing on the Allo / Arcam solution). Here is my opinion of the ProtoDAC in comparison:
- Low end  not as focused
- less bite / punch (not as impactful)
- slightly less sparkle
- less wide of a soundstage

Very subtle differences but noticeable. 

Here are my questions:
- will the reclockers (Kali / Fifo) fix any of this?
- Will moving the power supply to the ProtoDAC PCB, instead of USBmicro have any affect?

FYI, I am using this as one of my reference tracks (if you click, it will download the wav file):
https://archive.org/download/sts-test-de...0theme.wav
or entire cd here (will not download wav, just the web page):
https://archive.org/details/sts-test-dem...-vol.i-wav

Thanks to everyone involved in this entire project (I have been a Moodie for a couple years now).

You currently have the teaser setup. A little taste of what is possible. Reclockers and isolators will help significantly. The power supply can affect soundstage and bass. The C3/C4 Panasonic caps take about 60 hours to break in. The ultracap and LifePO4 power supplies have very good low bass punch. Also, more transparent output coupling caps, such as the Jantzen Superior Z-cap (large, but 3.3uF fits the PCB better) mentioned by @Ludomaniac in post #427.

Don't forget to set polarity inversion to ON in Audio configuration, DSP options.

Thanks, the polarity reversal helped, it's pretty close in sound now to my original system, the previous commetns stand but even less subtly, lol.
I was going to ask about burn in. Been playing for 24 hours now, I'll give it another comparison next week. I am going to try to isolate the 5V supplies and supply the DAC PCB with LifePO batts. Might have to try those caps as well.