We have the good news for all of you waiting for lower cost Audial DAC – such a unit comes soon.
It will be again non oversampling TDA1541A based design which shares the most of design solutions with most advanced The Model.
AYA II vs. The Model
AYA II shares the general topology of The Model, with a couple of differences that made possible some savings – mostly in supply section, and in the output stage where I/V part is made with integrated circuit (but it still doesn’t employ the feedback). Instead by transformer, the output is capacitively coupled. The case is also less expensive though it is still made of very solid anodized aluminum.
Figure 1: AYA II prototype on top of The Model prototype
Also, apparent definitive cease of production of Black Gate capacitors forced the move to the other solutions, but we found more than decent replacements: SMD packaged PPS (polyphenylene sulphide) capacitors for TDA1541A active divider decoupling, and Rubycon ZA for power supply local decoupling.
AYA II vs. previous AYA
With regard to the previous AYA DAC (released as DIY project only), the AYA II employs no additional reclocking of any kind, but other than the S/PDIF it comprises also the USB input. General topology of the output stage is not changed (IC based non-feedback transimpedance I/V stage followed by non-feedback voltage buffer) however the used part is new, and it is the OPA861 that is now employed instead of the AD844 used in these projects since 2003. Supply has been somewhat revised as well.
Sales
Estimated official start of sales is the 1st December.
Up to now the payments were possible only by classic bank transfer, but we work to make possible also online payments by credit/debit cards and if all goes well this should be set in a couple of days.
To stay up to date…
The next week you can expect the next issue of Audial newsletter with more definitive info on AYA II.