Another Aliexpress capacitor-fest

[5U4GB]

Another piece of capacitor artwork from Aliexpress:



It looks like a sort of Greek-temple inspired artwork, a colonnade of supercaps surrounding Doric(?) rows of electrolytics and then an inner sanctum (cella) of SMD caps, because if one is good and ten are better then seventy must be even betterer.

You can complement it with this super DAC:

[Haenk]

I really wonder if the discrete DAC is any good. For 1k (plain PCB) it really has to be exceptional, which I doubt. Will it beat the 1792s in my Denon player? Or the 1704s in my Denon amplifier?

[5U4GB]

I was curious too and did a quick search for "ladder dac", and have discovered that they're a thing in the audio woo-woo world, so this isn't just some random electronic art curio.  Of course the results are, uh, mixed.

Still, a great way to turn a few dollars in SMD resistors into $1,000+ of audio gear.

[Haenk]

It seems, tested discrete DAC is not bad, but not better than an average integrated DAC, while good DACs will only cost a third. So probably only a waste of money, they look impressive though.

[SiliconWizard]

It's IMO a complete waste of money compared to a good, modern sigma-delta DAC and I doubt it comes close in terms of THD.
But hey yes, that looks cool. Whatever floats one's boat really.

[tszaboo]

I was curious too and did a quick search for "ladder dac", and have discovered that they're a thing in the audio woo-woo world, so this isn't just some random electronic art curio.  Of course the results are, uh, mixed.

Still, a great way to turn a few dollars in SMD resistors into $1,000+ of audio gear.

Hopefully nobody tells them about the thermometer coded DACs or string DACs because sooner or later we will see DACs with 2^24 resistor in them.

[5U4GB]

Hopefully nobody tells them about the thermometer coded DACs or string DACs because sooner or later we will see DACs with 2^24 resistor in them.

Nah, what you need is a whiffletree DAC.  Just feel the audio purity created through the use of a purely mechanical DAC!

[Kim Christensen]

I remember long ago driving a R2R DAC from a 27C256 UVEPROM as a crude voice playback method. Never knew it was sooo fancy! 

I was curious too and did a quick search for "ladder dac", and have discovered that they're a thing in the audio woo-woo world, so this isn't just some random electronic art curio.

Love how they called it a "Professional designed o-ring transformer" in that thing. 

[themadhippy]

string DACs

use wet string if its an AES signal

[5U4GB]

Love how they called it a "Professional designed o-ring transformer" in that thing. 

Just remember to never run your o-ring transformers at temperatures below 53 °F (12 °C), lest it cause o-ring erosion and they let all the electrons out.