Doede's dddac1543 kit

    This year, I was blessed to save enough cash to upgrade my 'cd player' which is actually a dvd player :P The search for a new cd player and/or an external DAC was very interesting. At audioasylum, there was a buzz about the Toshiba SD-3950 - a giant killer?! This made the cd player hunt easy enough. The price at that time was about USD50! If it is not that good, it would still upgrade my current dvd player with a progressive scan output and the video quality is said to be very good.
    As for the external DAC, the ff came up:
  • Scott Nixon
  • Ack!Dack!
  • CI Audio
I wanted to get the Ack!Dack! based on reviews floating around at AA but my budget couldn't afford it. So, I kept on researching and found out about Doede's dddac. Try as I might, I really couldn't absorb all those technicalities surrounding the design :P Anyway, it was a very good candidate and I just needed some confirmation on how does it sound. That confirmation came from Peter Burke and so I sent Doede a mail for an order. The rest as they say is history and here are some pics I took during the building process:

The battery that will supply the power to the board:

on top is the finished 'accu checker'

the accu checker board


the main dac1543 board without the dac tower yet

with the dac tower; working unit with terminals


testing the dac with the headsave classic and senn px100. i didn't want anything to happen to my main audio gear :D

closeup on the dac


a source of heatsink for the oven chips :D

got what i wanted. ready for coupling!


heatsinks glued on the sides of the tower

a nice view from the top


the dddac1543 in its case

poor shot of the front


Many thanks to Doede Douma for supplying the kit and for a great design!

And of course to Peter Burke for the technical help :)

How does it sound? Well, with the dddac, my system now sounds more analog ;)

back to my A/V Deck
Copyright © 2004
mote's art
all rights reserved