FS: DACS DIY Paradise Monica II, Lite Audio DAC-AH, Trends Audio UD-10

Gaara

SOLD SOLD SOLD - Price for UD-10: $85 shipped - SOLD SOLD SOLD

Condition:

Good condition, slight mark on the front which is hard to notice, as well as a small one on the left side. The mark on the front is about a pin head size, on the left about the width of a pencil eraser.

Terms:

The DAC will be shipped doubled boxed and insured from a pet and smoke free home in the original packaging. Accepting Paypal (add 1.5%) money order, or personal check from buyers who have verifiable good feedback here or Agon. Must have at least 50 posts.

Description:

This is a USB Transport which converts the USB output of a PC into optical, coax, BNC, or AES/EBU. It can also be used to hook directly into a amp or headphones.

If the user likes I can package in the optional battery pack at no additional charge. The stock batteries do not work...apparently this is a common issue with these units. I never bothered to get new rechargeable because the difference between using the USB's power and the batteries was reported as to be nonexistent.

Trends Audio developed the Trends UD-10 USB Audio Converter, which works as an external sound card with various formats of digital output and decoded headphone output. It effectively isolated the serious interference from within the PC/Mac case. e.g. the high frequency data signals, the switching-mode power supply and the FAN motors, etc.

On the other hand, Trends UD-10 upgrades your PC/Mac to be a hi-end audio source. Thanks to the excellent power supply handling, the high accuracy clock and the sophisticated digital output circuit, the Trends UD-10 makes your PC/Mac to behave as a high-end CD transport to work with an external DAC



SOLD Price for Monica II: $150 shipped SOLD

Condition:

Good condition, no blemishes to be seen. The LED is blacked out as I find them to be annoying, so it lets out a subdued red. If buyer wants I can get rid of the black, a quick wipe of rubbing alcohol and it is gone.

I am missing one screw for the top of the enclosure, if I can find it I will replace it.

This unit was purchased April 2007 and was used in a PC rig up until recently, only replaced with the USB Monica to simplify things.

Terms:

The DAC will be shipped insured from a pet and smoke free home. Accepting Paypal (add 1.5%) money order, or personal check from buyers who have verifiable good feedback here or Agon. Must have at least 50 posts.

Description:

The DIY Paradise Monica2 DAC is a non-oversampling 16-bit DAC with no digital filter and a passive output stage. It uses the ancient Phillips TDA1545A DAC in a very simple circuit and employs asynchronous reclocking with a 80mhz oscillator.

This unit was assembled professionally by Bob Walters, an engineer in Portland, OR with over 40 years experience in hifi.



SOLD Price for DAC-AH: $120 shipped SOLD

Condition:

Good condition, no blemishes easily recognizable.

Terms:

The DAC will be shipped double boxed and insured from a pet and smoke free home in the original packaging. Accepting Paypal (add 1.5%) money order, or personal check from buyers who have verifiable good feedback here or Agon. Must have at least 50 posts.

Description:

The DAC AH uses 8 Phillips chips, and does not over sample. Instead, it uses a technique that lines 8 Phillips TDA-1543 chips in a row. Feeding the signal from one chip to the next corrects for any errors and is a substitute for over sampling. This provides you with performance of some of the more modern CD players but at a fraction of the cost.

Note: The DAC-AH does not recognize PCM or LCPM 2 channel material from DVD


Thanks.

Jared

Gaara

UD-10

RuSsMaN

I'll take the DAC-AH.

Gaara

Russman I just sent you a PM.

sucks2beme

The Monica 2 gets very good reviews. How does it sound VS the DAC-AH?
What a horrible looking case:eek:
Looks like the case my old headphone amp was in when I got it.
I believe the circuit board for this dac is rather small?
If so, it should fit inside a smaller black case.

Refefer

The Trends UD-10 is supposed to be fantastic.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/trendsaudio_ud10_e.html

snow

I will take the monica ll. I want to try an outboard DAC.

REGARDS SNOW

Gaara

Sucks2beme,

From Positive Feedback: "Monica has the advantage over most of the DACs I have heard in that her midrange is gloriously warm, liquid, and seductive. Whereas the Nixon (1543 chip) and Lite Audio DAC-AH (8 x 1543) have good bass and smooth highs, they can’t touch Monica in the midrange. And that is where most of the music is. Monica is scary transparent when playing acoustic guitars, voices, percussion, etc. Feed Monica to a good tube preamp and you know you are hearing something special."

I tried comparing them but found it difficult as the DAC-AH has 2v output while the Monica is closer to .9-1v. My impressions were that the AH had more aggressive highs, the Monica had more natural sounding Mids, and the AH has much more bass. I prefer the bass on the Monica because it seemed that the AH was adding a little bit of bass to everything. Overall I preferred the Monica for normal listening and liked the AH in my workout rig because of the added bass and more forward highs.

As for the case it could be done but it would be a lot of work. It looks like the board is mounted to a piece of copper which is glued onto the plastic, I just tried a couple of screws and it looks like they are glued into place to. You would also have to desolder and resolder most of the wiring done to the jacks.
See new pic above.

Let me know if you are interested as Snow has a firm offer to buy.

Thanks.

Jared

Gaara

Snow,

I am waiting back on sucks2beme as he posted before you. I can't tell if he is interested or not but I don't want to step on anyones toes.

Thanks.

Jared

sucks2beme

Gaara wrote: »

Snow,

I am waiting back on sucks2beme as he posted before you. I can't tell if he is interested or not but I don't want to step on anyones toes.

Thanks.

Jared

Go ahead and sell to Mr. Snow. He committed first while I was fence sitting.
Doesn't look that bad for a transplant. A smaller project case they use for
headphone amps would be a very good fit for this DAC.

snow

sucks2beme wrote: »

Go ahead and sell to Mr. Snow. He committed first while I was fence sitting.
Doesn't look that bad for a transplant. A smaller project case they use for
headphone amps would be a very good fit for this DAC.

Are you sure? It really doesnt matter to me. I will take it if you dont want it but if you do please go ahead. I (Assumed) when you were asking about the comparasion between it and one of the other DACS you were only making conversation.:) Giving it a bump so to speak.

REGARDS SNOW

sucks2beme

snow wrote: »

Are you sure? It really doesnt matter to me. I will take it if you dont want it but if you do please go ahead. I (Assumed) when you were asking about the comparasion between it and one of the other DACS you were only making conversation.:) Giving it a bump so to speak.

REGARDS SNOW

It's yours. I'm researching DACS. I may go ahead and do one of these from scratch with no case. The AMC player has room for it inside, eliminating an I/C. Please post your impressions.
This seems to be a very good DAC.
Sorry for any confusion. I really need to stop being lazy and use PM's for my silly assed questions.

snow

sucks2beme wrote: »

It's yours. I'm researching DACS. I may go ahead and do one of these from scratch with no case. The AMC player has room for it inside, eliminating an I/C. Please post your impressions.
This seems to be a very good DAC.
Sorry for any confusion. I really need to stop being lazy and use PM's for my silly assed questions.

Well only if you insist. If you do decide to build one yourself, it looks like you may want to get the Rudolf Broertjes' SS I/V Gain Stage kit to go with it because of the very low output. its an extra $28.00 I think. http://diyparadise.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=64

REGARDS SNOW

snow

Thanks for the speedy shipping. +1 to shack

REGARDS SNOW

Gaara

moved

snow

The DAC arrived today and I will be spending a few hours playing with it.

Many thanks. SNOW

Gaara

The UD-10 is still avaliable, great for use as a USB Transport to hookup a high end DAC to a PC. Now $85.

Updated the pics also, I figured out the macro feature on the camera I use.