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I'm in the process of setting up a basic opus and plan to go dual mono, and add a IVY for the output stage. My question is do I need 1 or 2 IVYs to do this. I've been searching documentation and to me it seems like 2 IVYs would physically work but be overkill? If 1 IVY will do I just wire each opus output to the respective inputs on the ivy
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2 IVYs would indeed be best. Do you plan on using balanced or single ended outputs? Edited by user Thursday, June 30, 2011 5:11:30 PM(UTC)
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Russ White wrote:2 IVYs would indeed be best. Do you plan on using balanced or single ended outputs? Both preferably, I'll likely build a balanced amp at some time after this project is done. Regardless I have singled ended speakers that would run off it as well.
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Actually, I've thought it over and I think I'm going to stay in the unbalanced realm for now...but that opens up a couple more questions.
1. If I'm going the single ended route, is there still a point to going dual mono?
2. If there is, for singled ended is only 1 IVY needed, vs 2 for balanced?
Thanks...
On a side note I got my opus + spdif trans + lcdps up and running smoothly, a big thanks to Brian and Russ for all the documentation available for their products.
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abills3:
If you are going to stay single ended, consider running the single stereo Opus or dual mono Opus (Opi ?) into a Ballsie Lite buffer stage. You can bypass the output caps on the Opus boards with the Ballsie as a buffer. In addition, the IVY III and the Legato both use the same buffer as the Ballsie to convert balanced to single ended.
I had a similar situation building a dual mono Opus and decided to go with the Ballsie Lite. It sounds very nice. I would put it up against retail DACs in the $2K to $3K range easily. Having said that, $2K does not buy you much in the retail DAC market. A used retail DAC is a different story. For the $35 price of the Ballsie Lite, you have very little to lose. However, my guess is that you will actually like it! I do! I am saving my IVY III board for a Buffalo when the become available again.
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drsteve wrote:abills3:
If you are going to stay single ended, consider running the single stereo Opus or dual mono Opus (Opi ?) into a Ballsie Lite buffer stage. You can bypass the output caps on the Opus boards with the Ballsie as a buffer. In addition, the IVY III and the Legato both use the same buffer as the Ballsie to convert balanced to single ended.
I had a similar situation building a dual mono Opus and decided to go with the Ballsie Lite. It sounds very nice. I would put it up against retail DACs in the $2K to $3K range easily. Having said that, $2K does not buy you much in the retail DAC market. A used retail DAC is a different story. For the $35 price of the Ballsie Lite, you have very little to lose. However, my guess is that you will actually like it! I do! I am saving my IVY III board for a Buffalo when the become available again. Hmmm would this be because just running SE from an IVY skips the filter stages?
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No, SE stages on the Legato and IVY are post filters.
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abills3:
The WM8741 has its own built in filters. There are 5 filters in total. 3 filters can be accessed via the Opus HW setup.
I would not worry about additional low pass filters.
My setup: FLAC - SqueezeBox Touch - SPDIF 8804 Receiver - Dual Mono Opus w/ Ballsie Lite - Simaudio Moon i-1 integrated
Sounds very, very nice. Believe me when I tell you I am a picky guy when it comes to audio.
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So the IVY would be sort of underused since the Opus has filtering stages built in, and doesn't require an I/V stage like the COD or Buffalo, and I'd really just be using it for the bal/se stage that's the same as a ballsie?
Thanks
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The Opus is based on the WM8741 DAC chip. This is a voltage output DAC chip and does not require I/V conversion since this is already done on the WM8741.
In my application, I found that additional low pass filtering as found on the IVY III or Legato is really not necessary. In fact, some people actually disable the additional low pass filtering on the IVY III when running the Opus into it.
If you plan on using Balanced outputs now or in the future, you will need to go with the IVY III or Legato as they will output both Balanced and Single Ended.
Initially, I had planned to run the Dual Mono Opus balanced. However, I ruined my life by listening to and became infatuated with the Simaudio Moon i-1 which only has Single Ended inputs.
And, yes, the conclusion that I came to was that I would only be using the IVY III for Bal/SE conversion. Therefore, I bought a Ballsie board to use a buffer stage and jumped the output caps on the Opus boards.
The setup works well for me. Like I say I am a very, very picky guy when it comes to audio.
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BTW - The COD and Buffalo DACs are current output DACs and will, therefore, require I/V (I = Current/V = Voltage) conversion.
Google the datasheet for the WM8741 DAC chip. It will give you additional info on the DAC and how to set it up in hardware (HW) and software (SW) modes.
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I'm planning to build a dual mono Opus that will feed a balanced preamp ( a BAT VK-3i ). So it's correct that I don't need an output stage at all - I can just output directly to the preamp?
Thanks.
Scott....
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Scott Stansbury wrote:I'm planning to build a dual mono Opus that will feed a balanced preamp ( a BAT VK-3i ). So it's correct that I don't need an output stage at all - I can just output directly to the preamp?
Thanks.
Scott.... You could, but I would not, really you should have an output stage with low pass filter for best results. Also you may need BAL/SE conversion.
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