Hello,

I recently assembled a Buffalo III + Placid HD + Placid HD BP + IVY DAC.
I have found a broad lack of qualitative descriptions of the sound of the buffalo kits, so here is my experience.

I tested only using the single ended output of the IVY stage.
Voltage and current settings in the supplies are as per the integration guide.
Output was set to 0.7Vrms approx. based on some advices on this forum.

Until now, I've listened in the following systems configurations:

System 1:
Modjeski RM-10 (EL-84 Push Pull)
Avant gard Duo horns
(Here we also compared performace with an Audio Aero DAC)

System 2:
Vintage Packard Bell EL84 Push Pull
DIY Saba Greencones Openbaffle (Lukas Fikus project)
(here I also compared with Gigaworks DAC CS8416+PCM1798)

System 3:
Vintage Magnabox 6aq5 Push Pull
DIY Saba Greencones Openbaffle (Lukas Fikus project)
(here I also compared with Gigaworks DAC CS8416+PCM1798)

Conclusions:
Based on some listening on those 3 system configurations, and comparisons with the other 2 dacs mentioned before, my impresons is that this Buffalo with IVY stage configuration has:

Pros:
great detail,
great soundstage,
great bass resolution
great highs resolution
great dynamics
so lots of potential to be a killer DAC.

Cons:
too much highs and bass turns out to kill the mid (vocals), so it doesn't sound very musical or pleasant to me, you can get tired of listening to the music, basicly because highs seem to have lots of detail but too much SPL compared with mid freqs.


This DAC seems to have great attributes, everything is there, so the DAC seems to have lots of potential. I just don't know if the IVY stage is right for me, and I would like to tweak or change the I/V stage to get the sound I am looking for.


If I could put the sound of the mid (vocals) in front and maybe reduce the strenght of the highs and bass a little bit, I think that the IVY could sound better on the systems I tested.
Someone knows how to tweak IVY to get this behaviour?

Right now I bought a Legato stage, based on comments about better midrage and I expect to get better results with this one.

This is just my opinion about IVY sound. I see qualitative opinions as possitive and constructive feedback.
It can't be just a matter of taste here, there is correct and incorrect sound reproductions.
If you have more detail based on more SPL in high frequencies, it sounds great but in my opinion it can sound aggresive and get you tired.

I will really appreciate other opinions about my experience or ideas to tweak it in my desired direction.
Thanks in advance and thank to the disigners of this great DIY DAC modules.

Best,
Charly

Edited by user Monday, September 24, 2012 9:12:48 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thanks Luis,

1. Yes, it s a buffalo iii + ivy IV.
2. I am using a single spdif module.
3. My source is a dedicated vortexbox server with a m-audio audiophile 192 sound card (digital coax output), I also tested with an old huge JVC CD player.

All the listening was done comparing sound with two other different dacs under same conditions.
So I tend to believe that at least my implementation has too much highs.

To reduce voltaje to 0,7vrms y changed for resistors (have to check which ones), wondering if this could have caused a different frequency response.

Legato is coming home so that will be my next test.

Cheers

In my experience "some" old tubular power amps have high input sensitivities and 2Vrms at 0db then to be way too much for them. Since with this DAC volume is digital and we have at least 10 extra bits, it would be worthy to try it in its original conf. of 2Vrms and see what happens.

Perhaps a more effective way to test solely the DAC/I/V stage combination, would be to connect to it directly.

I use Sennheiser HD600 headphones connected to the balanced outputs of my IvyIII. I'm not aware of any lack of mid-range (or indeed lack of anything - the sound is superb).

As said before I opened this thread for more qualitative discussion about ivy and legato sound with buffalo dac.

Also, I wont be able to have an opinion after lot of listening with different speakers and amplifiers.

I want to clarify that lately I was hating the sound of the dac so I was thinking something had to be very wrong.
I rechecked manuals, this forum and the diyaudio forum.

At some point at realized that the shunt probe terminals of the placid hd power supplies indicated how muy current was shunted and that we needed certain amount to be sure that the boards are not running out of current.

So the dac power supply was at 5.25v but I realized the shunt current was almost zero.
So I made sure to rise the shunt current to 125mA. The supply is running pretty hot now, before it was cold.

I have the feling that sound improved a lot. Before was nervous and analytic and now just more relaxing.
Anyone had a similar experience?

Now I will have to relisten both IV stages again, and start from scratch.

Cheers

I agree Luis,
We just need to make sure we are producing some heat in the PSU, so the boards are not running annemic.
As said, I had found shunt current to be 0.01mA (the limit in the scale of my voltimeter) so I raised it a little bit :)
I had the impression that now it s sounding a lot better, and that before this change it soudned nervious, metallic, analytic.

Anyone has experienced this ?

Thank you Russ!
I should report back soon :)

Just my experience - I use Buffalo II with Audio Note output stage based on E88CC (6922) tubes.

I find this to be perfect match.Nothing is exaggerated, tonal balance is excellent.
My Placid PSU runs pretty hot.

I wish that TP has a tube output stage kit, I think it would be a great match for ESS 9018.

Haven't tried IVY III or Legato.

So, Legato has better midrange than IVY III? How many people seems to think that?