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Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ.

Second the Chime, excellent sound. (long)

You can build a Chime for around $800, which might sound high, but you get a lot of bang for your buck at that price. It takes a while to build, but if you're patient and follow the directions and schematic carefully, it is a very rewarding project.

I have compared mine against my Phillips 963sa, a Parasound CDP1000, and a Meitner Bidat, and it has bettered all of them to my ears. SACD through the 963 doesn't sound innately superior, just different, and I wasn't using a superlative transport for comparison.

The Chime outputs 1.2 volts, which might be low for your amplifier. The USB input converts USB-SPDIF, and not directly to I2S. This is because there is a SPDIF reclocking circuit before the conversion stage. Check out the webpage for details. I'm very, very pleased with the sound of my unit. It doesn't sound "tubey", it has a high level of timbral resolution, detail, and a more organic, real sound than any of the other digital sources I've compared it with.

The DAC uses Burr Brown PCM1704 converters, in synchronous oversampling mode (no asynchronous upsampling). There is a resistor to convert current to voltage, then into a zero feedback tube output stage. There is an option on the digital board to use fast or slow rolloff, all you have to do is solder two pins on the board together that are next to each other to implement slow rolloff, fast rolloff is the default.

You can also just use the HagDAC without the tube output stage. Build it into a chassis with connectors and power it with a 12 volt SLA battery for a lower cost solution. There are opamps built into the digital board so that it can be used without the tube stage. I would recommend getting the connectors for the digital board from the parts list and soldering them to a seperate board, then connecting from there. Then you have a modular DAC board that can be used until you decide to build the full Chime, and when you do, you can just lift the board out of the sockets and put it into the Chime.

Hagerman is fantastic to deal with, he even repaired my digital board for free when I stupidly broke it by shorting it to the chassis when I was making a stand alone version of the Chime. I was so grateful that I decided to lay down the green and build the whole enchilada. I never compared standalone vs. full chime, but as I recall, the standalone version offered a lot of the sound quality of the tube output version.

Lemme know if you have any questions.
-Aaron.




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