The PecanPi+ has the new AKM R2R chip set, a very precise clock, and a very clean circuit. I'm extremely happy with mine after a few weeks (replaced a Schiit Bifrost Multibit and Allo USBridge Sig with Nirvana SMPS) but I haven't heard the Topping or SMSL to directly compare. Orchard Audio allows returns if you're not satisfied, so check it out and let your own ears decide.
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Rando?
The dac chips in pecanpi+ are Burr Brown, not AKM.
Anyway its a RPi hat dac. RPi are notoriously bad in terms of GPIO bus jitter as well as conducted and radiated EMI/RFI noise that affects dac SQ. That's why Iancanada designed products like FIFO_Pi, Shield_Pi, Station_Pi, etc. Its to fix all the many problems trying to use hat dacs. Its a bad idea and should be avoided if at all possible.
If an RPi must be used, the best way to use it is as a USB host for decent USB dac with some physical distance between the dac and the RPi and or sufficient effective shielding between the two.
The dac chips in pecanpi+ are Burr Brown, not AKM.
Anyway its a RPi hat dac. RPi are notoriously bad in terms of GPIO bus jitter as well as conducted and radiated EMI/RFI noise that affects dac SQ. That's why Iancanada designed products like FIFO_Pi, Shield_Pi, Station_Pi, etc. Its to fix all the many problems trying to use hat dacs. Its a bad idea and should be avoided if at all possible.
If an RPi must be used, the best way to use it is as a USB host for decent USB dac with some physical distance between the dac and the RPi and or sufficient effective shielding between the two.
Okay, if the model dac you refer to uses AK4499 then its not an R2R dac. AKM doesn't make an R2R dac that I know of.
Moreover, the one you just linked to is still an RPi had dac. I have been working with those for a long time. Helped Allo with the initial listening tests of their flagship Katana dac. They sent me dacs, power supplies, USBridge SIG, for free for me to give them listening test reports. Tried Iancanada stuff a long time ago. Posted in his forum about radiated noise problems I found between RPi and the dac. I'm not new nor random to any of this stuff by now. Regarding AKM, they gave me a free AK4499 evaluation board before they were available for sale for me to evaluate. Definitely not a rando, if it means what I suspect it means.
You, OTOH, remind me of the proud owner of a new car who wants to believe he made a good choice, and wants other people to confirm it. Once they buy a car, new car owners typically don't go looking for evidence that the car they bought has known problems and the purchase was maybe a mistake. Rather they only look at confirming evidence that illuminates their new car in a positive way. Maybe they look at magazine ads from the manufacturer and show the nice pictures to family and friends.
Moreover, the one you just linked to is still an RPi had dac. I have been working with those for a long time. Helped Allo with the initial listening tests of their flagship Katana dac. They sent me dacs, power supplies, USBridge SIG, for free for me to give them listening test reports. Tried Iancanada stuff a long time ago. Posted in his forum about radiated noise problems I found between RPi and the dac. I'm not new nor random to any of this stuff by now. Regarding AKM, they gave me a free AK4499 evaluation board before they were available for sale for me to evaluate. Definitely not a rando, if it means what I suspect it means.
You, OTOH, remind me of the proud owner of a new car who wants to believe he made a good choice, and wants other people to confirm it. Once they buy a car, new car owners typically don't go looking for evidence that the car they bought has known problems and the purchase was maybe a mistake. Rather they only look at confirming evidence that illuminates their new car in a positive way. Maybe they look at magazine ads from the manufacturer and show the nice pictures to family and friends.
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The Burr Brown chips dacs boards are R2R dacs.
The AKM dac boards with AK4191/AK4499EX are oversampling multibit sigma-delta dacs, not R2R. Also, they have a few different operating modes not all of which are of the best SQ the chipset is capable of. Designing a really good dac with that chipset is not going to be able to be sold for a few hundred dollars. It could cost more than that just to manufacture. So they just use the chipset as a name brand selling point, not because they are using the chip to best effect. I wouldn't be surprised if the old BB R2R dac chip has the potential to sound better to humans, at least if its not in an RPi hat configuration.
The AKM dac boards with AK4191/AK4499EX are oversampling multibit sigma-delta dacs, not R2R. Also, they have a few different operating modes not all of which are of the best SQ the chipset is capable of. Designing a really good dac with that chipset is not going to be able to be sold for a few hundred dollars. It could cost more than that just to manufacture. So they just use the chipset as a name brand selling point, not because they are using the chip to best effect. I wouldn't be surprised if the old BB R2R dac chip has the potential to sound better to humans, at least if its not in an RPi hat configuration.
I'm not here to armwrestle with you and don't question your qualifications, but I do object to that last childish response. Really? I observed that I liked the sound of this DAC/streamer better than what I had and noted that you were incorrect on your facts about the unit itself. That's all. Check the posted specs on the website, trial one if you want to, but basically you don't know enough about it yet. You clearly hate all DACs that use RPi, so you probably don't need to investigate any further.
I don't hate RPi. I merely know what it is how to use it to best effect. BTW, Allo's next dac after Katana also used RPi, but they did it the smart way. They used RPi as a USB host.
BTW, I did go to their website to see if there was an AKM R2R dac in any of their products. Since you said R2R and you said AKM, any confusion started with you.
BTW, I did go to their website to see if there was an AKM R2R dac in any of their products. Since you said R2R and you said AKM, any confusion started with you.
https://orchardaudio.com/shop/pecanpi-plus-streamer-premium/
"Designed using the R2R flagship DAC chip (AK4499EXEQ)..."
https://www.akm.com/global/en/products/audio/audio-dac/ak4499exeq/
"Designed using the R2R flagship DAC chip (AK4499EXEQ)..."
https://www.akm.com/global/en/products/audio/audio-dac/ak4499exeq/
What's inside the box? Is it this:
This? https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/orchard-audio’s-new-pecanpi®-dac-and-streamer-feature-akm’s-latest-flagship-chips.42734/
EDIT: The most expensive commercial dac I ever bought was a Benchmark DAC-3. Cost me $2,200.00. When Topping D90 came along a few years later for about $700, I bought one of those. The Topping was better than the Benchmark, although the D90 with the original AK4499 chip had some audible flaws. By then I had already designed an ES9038Q2M dac that sounded in some ways better than Benchmark DAC-3, but not in all ways. A pro audio designer friend said I should commercialize my ES9038Q2M design and sell it. I said no way. Said I wouldn't do that unless the dac was better than DAC-3 in every way. Took me a couple more years to figure it out. By then however, I already knew it was possible to make much better dacs without using dac chips. Discrete resistor dacs (or similar discrete) can sound better than dac chips, once you know how to do it. That's how the really good dacs are made, the ones that cost over $10,000 at retail and are not snake oil. Of course, its possible to diy one for much less. Maybe its possible for around the cost of a pecanpi+ streamer.
This? https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/orchard-audio’s-new-pecanpi®-dac-and-streamer-feature-akm’s-latest-flagship-chips.42734/
EDIT: The most expensive commercial dac I ever bought was a Benchmark DAC-3. Cost me $2,200.00. When Topping D90 came along a few years later for about $700, I bought one of those. The Topping was better than the Benchmark, although the D90 with the original AK4499 chip had some audible flaws. By then I had already designed an ES9038Q2M dac that sounded in some ways better than Benchmark DAC-3, but not in all ways. A pro audio designer friend said I should commercialize my ES9038Q2M design and sell it. I said no way. Said I wouldn't do that unless the dac was better than DAC-3 in every way. Took me a couple more years to figure it out. By then however, I already knew it was possible to make much better dacs without using dac chips. Discrete resistor dacs (or similar discrete) can sound better than dac chips, once you know how to do it. That's how the really good dacs are made, the ones that cost over $10,000 at retail and are not snake oil. Of course, its possible to diy one for much less. Maybe its possible for around the cost of a pecanpi+ streamer.
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It is a bit confusing with AKM. Their latest AK4499EX is a R2R DAC, it does however need to be used alongside the AK4191 which is a delta-sigma modulator only. "Switched Resistor" or "Resistor Ladder" or "Resistor to Resitor" or "R2R" is all the ways to describe the same thing.
This is not correct.
The PecanPi line uses Burr Brown -- dual PCM1794A chips
The PecanPi+ line uses AKM -- AK4499EX and AK4191 chips
See here:
https://orchardaudio.com/pecanpi-vs-pecanpi-plus/
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Sure, but they are a lot more similar than say Delta Sigma, multibit, and others that in my mind I lump them together.
Not really. R2R does not stand for "resistor to resistor." It refers to a particular resistive ladder network topology made with two values of resistors. If one of the resistor values is R, then other value must be two times that, 2R (except for unequal rung topology, which has a different R and 2R mathematical relationship). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistor_ladder
AK4191/AK4499 do not use an R2R network. Together they comprise an oversampling sigma-delta multibit dac. The reason its divided into two chips, according to what AKM told John Westlake, is to mitigate the bad effects of "substrate coupled noise."
Also, seems to be a lot of focus on whether I got the right dac part number in the right model pecanpi dac. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be any plausible dispute about all the other things I said, which by the way are all true. So why do we need three different people focusing on one little typo and ignoring the elephant in the room.
AK4191/AK4499 do not use an R2R network. Together they comprise an oversampling sigma-delta multibit dac. The reason its divided into two chips, according to what AKM told John Westlake, is to mitigate the bad effects of "substrate coupled noise."
Also, seems to be a lot of focus on whether I got the right dac part number in the right model pecanpi dac. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be any plausible dispute about all the other things I said, which by the way are all true. So why do we need three different people focusing on one little typo and ignoring the elephant in the room.
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Conflating them in your own mind is one thing but on this thread you're misleading potential customers and DIYers by lumping together quite disparate concepts.
R2R can work fine without any oversampling or noise-shaping being fed plain vanilla PCM but switched resistors can't, being as they're only practical for lower numbers of bits in the DAC. Switched resistors therefore belong with Delta Sigma, heavy oversampling and noise shaping.