Gabster TD1 Dac Features and Tips. Part 1
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- Опубліковано 30 січ 2025
- The Gabster TD1 combines vintage audio heritage with modern design, built around the TDA1541A DAC chip by Philips. It accepts direct I2S signals and can operate in normal, simultaneous, or balanced differential modes with a PCM I2S board, offering great flexibility. The design allows for easy integration of modifications, enabling you to tailor the DAC to your specific preferences. Featuring a 4-layer, gold-plated through-hole construction for optimal performance, it also pays careful attention to both analog and digital grounds. The advanced output stage includes an OPA861 no-feedback, no-decoupling capacitors output stage, providing pure, uncolored audio output.
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What is the Gabster TD1 Dac ? • Gabster TD1 Dac My Fav...
Where can I buy the Gabster TD1 Dac Kit? gabster.ca/Gab...
Where Can I buy IanCanada parts? iancanada.ca/
Also see links below for all the parts you need.
Where can I get support with IanCanada parts? See the manuals, Post on the forum below or contact Ian.
www.diyaudio.c...
Where Can I get support for the Gabster TD1 dac ? Checkout all the videos under the Gabster TD1 Dac Playlist, and Check out Gabster TD1 on gabster.ca/ specially the User Guide and troubleshooting pages
If you give up message Gaby
** Parts you will need to build The Gabster TD1 Dac **
Some parts are affiliated Links
Screws M2.5 x8 amzn.to/3METEnz
Nuts M2.5 x12 amzn.to/3zbz6Qo
6mm M2.5 standoffs x8 amzn.to/3Xx1V38
20mm M2.5 standoffs x4 amzn.to/3MDqAwy
15mm M2.5 standoffs x12 amzn.to/3MyZd73
Pin Header bar single 1x40 amzn.to/4fmP7TW
Pin Header Caps x12 amzn.to/4fmP7TW
UFL 10cm x4 s.click.aliexp...
UFL 8cm x4 s.click.aliexp...
Rca Connectors Gold plated Brass 1 pair s.click.aliexp...
Silver plated OFC Wires: s.click.aliexp...
** Tools and Supplies you may need **
My Favorite True RMS Tester amzn.to/4curW7C
Cheap but great magnifier amzn.to/3Aj7uZL
Great soldering and de-soldering kit for cheap amzn.to/4dzwJFw.
Screw Driver set amzn.to/3WRkcGI
** Parts to Build the IanCanada Streamer and Pcm converter **
PurePi iancanada.ca/p...
FifoQ7 iancanada.ca/p...
ShielPi pro iancanada.ca/p...
I2s to Pcm converter board: iancanada.ca/p...
Raspberry-Pi amzn.to/3WWcKue
or Input Receiver-Pi DDC iancanada.ca/p...
Amanero Board iancanada.ca/p...
Monitor Pi Pro iancanada.ca/p...
Spike Feet iancanada.ca/p...
** Software **
Roon/Ropieee
• Installing Ropieee and...
If you need to build a Roon music server here is a Video how to put one together • Roon Music Server buil...
For Moode, Volumio, JRiver, Picore, and many others see the respective online tutorials
** Power supplies Options **
Simple
3X IFI 5v : amzn.to/3zPsya1
1X IFI 15v : amzn.to/3ABmyly
Simple with UcConditioners
3X IFI 5v : amzn.to/3zPsya1
1X IFI 15v : amzn.to/3ABmyly
2X 5V UCConditioner iancanada.ca/p...
Linear Option
Dual Linear Pi iancanada.ca/p...
2X 5V UCConditioner iancanada.ca/p...
15V 25W Linear PSU s.click.aliexp...
Advanced Ultra Capacitor Option See Videos below and Danger warnings
15V UCpure: • Pure 15v Power. Mini ...
+5v ,0 -5v UcPure : • World's Best Power Sup...
Please note I am not Affiliated with Mouser, IanCanada or Roon
No wife approval for new toys (yet!) but here cheering you on regardless. Excellent work Gabby!
Still lots of time happy wife happy life
I have a TDA1541 dac in my 35 year old Philips cd650 cd player ,not as tranparent as my modern dacs but much more musical. (to my ears)
They are for sure
I already have the parts from your “Flagship DIY streamer” on order, then I saw your TD1 DAC and ordered a couple of boards as well and found a couple of TDA1541A chips. This will be my first project and I’m going against your advice of starting small! Will you be starting a separate thread somewhere for questions, or is the iancanada thread that you linked the place to go for questions? Nice job with your projects and your videos!
For the iancanada stuff you can post on the Diyaudio thread
For the Gabster Td1 you can post on any of the Gabster TD1 videos here preferably the first one maybe start by making sure your streamer is running well first watch for polarity and voltage so you don’t fry things before you enjoy them once things are running Add the Gabster TD1 and compare the sound start with a single board there will be detailed videos and instructions
Have fun
Thanks for the response. My Denafrips Pontus II 12th reclocks the signal (which is a shame since my DDC that feeds it via I2S it has better clocks in it) so I probably won’t notice any difference with the streamer, but curious as to how my system will sound when I add your DAC to it! I was thinking about getting a Terminator/Terminator Plus but decided with wait and build this system first. Looking forward to the project!
This DAC represents great value for money, especially when you know its been tweaked by a real music lover with great reference gear. im going to get one with parts i think. may i ask if the usb to i2s Amanero boards work with this DAC , i suspect it will?,
Lol no it doesn't. It's inefficient, uses old ass parts and takes up more space than it needs. It's a cool learning product but no, it is not a well priced good value product.
Honestly you could print and populate an R2R ladder dac for way less than this and get fine results.
Costs under $20 bucks for a good dac BOM these days. And if you want top tier bom you can get a pcm1794a for $20. Not sure why one would build a dac that's based on a old Philips chip from the cd player Era when we have so many better choices available these days.
@@gtvwill Well you could spend $7000 on a Denafrips and theres your cool learning product, come speak to me when the lessons over
Hi Gabster, I would also like to build a Td1. I would get a CD player with a TDA1541A - S1 for 170$. The chip seems to be an original from 1989. Is it advisable to build one of these?
Best regards from Germany
If your Cd player is working well you can swap the Tda1541A chip with a socket so you can still use it in the future
It is hard to find a S1 chip under $500 but if you can go for it there a lot of costs as you need a IanCanada streamer so budget for a good 1000$ but it will be hard to beatv
@@Gabster1 Thank you very much for your information. Maybe I'll order one from your homepage. Best regards
Gabby...I use a USB cable from my PC to dac. Can I do that with the TD1?
You can with the ddc streamer from Ian that uses a ddc/ /fifoQ7 Amanero something like this project but with amanero board and no hdmi board.
The Amanero may work on its own but I need to test it see what type of sound you get I will when I get a chance
But anything with the FifoQ7 will work amazingly well
Will you design a dual Mono version?
You can use 2 together
I'm on the fence to buy a kit because there are so many fake chips out there. Anyone have a known good source for the chip?
Look for a dead cd player with a tda1541A
Hello I,am from Germany. I like to order one pcb for my tda1541 s1 but how ?
Thanks Bart
Gabster.ca link is also in the description
Hehe.. This DAC looks good. I love it when a product has a nice optical layout. Symmetry, straight defined traces, are the eyecatchers for me.
By the way, my own Raspi-Streamer with the DAC Hat is momentarily out of order. The streamer is OK, but one of my active monitors suffered a burnt-out Transformator. And I have no idea where on earth I can get a 2x22Volt + 2x 15,7Volt Transformator. (230Vinput). Damned. Just as I enjoyed my miniature Streamer System so much, a component died...
You can get a custom made transformer
Few places do it
If you do put a fuse in each line it could be your board shorting and damaged the transformer
@@Gabster1 LOL! ASHES over my head! It wasn´t the board... It was me! I changed 2 Filter-caps, and due to my clumsiness, I shortened the board with solder! I didn´t expect this, but, there is always a first lol. I am 60 years old now and have never shortened a board my entire life...Not in such a stupid way! 🤣🤣
Your end game DAC? Nice work!
Thanks 🙏
Why don't you try a piggy banking the TDA chip? It's socketed just solder another chip on top of it, I would give it a millimetre air gap and put some copper tape on the bottom chip.
I've done it with op amps and it does make a big difference, and you can buy parallel DACs with multiple parallel DAC chips what are supposed to be a lot better. You could try parallowing three bit tricky but possible, I would put a capacitor of 0.1uF on VCC between plus and ground across the top of the chip tho.
You can run 2 cards in parallel same idea
Like some cd players run 2 chips non balanced
The chips don’t stack well without the 14 capacitors
@@Gabster1 what you saying? if the piggyback you get feedback?? well that's partly why using the capacitor and the foil shielding I suggested should smooth things out. I would have thought it's a lot better doing it that way than using two boards!
How many thousands of dollars to make this work?!
Less then 1.5
@@Gabster1 O.K. then Thank You !
is it me or does it look like gabster has lipstick on !!!
no, could be the lighting
Sorry, but you can't get Gabster's lips from a tube