Yesterday, 02:35 PM
(Yesterday, 06:55 AM)radiant_radish Wrote: The seller stated that he just swapped the DAC chips - I guess it's a bit of a lottery with these chips. I've had a TeraDAC HAT based on the 8xTDA1387 for over a year now and it's been fine (though not as good as the Proto). I'm still on the fence about buying a replacement because of this - if only I was handy with a soldering iron!!
Thank you! Swapping DAC chips requires equipment that is not cheap as they are flow-soldered onto the carrier board. Plus it is a skill. The gentleman who sells the kits here, he is super helpful and keen to help but yes, it is ultimately about having the right tools and ROI on those tools. I do OK soldering job but flow-replace TDA1387 onto a board, will be a difficult task for me as you need to be able to id which 1387 failed. Even buying premade x8 modules on the AliExpress one needs to test them before installing onto ProtoDAC. There are instructions on how to build a rig to test these modules when they come from China but you need to build that rig.
Even unsoldering module from the ProtoDAC PCB is not trivial, it can be done but does require skill, no doubt.
ProtoDAC sounds very analog to my ears (I know, I know "analog", "musical" ... folks will call my blufff on these statements but), that is why I have built two of them, my son enjoys his immensely in his system. Mine failed after about 6 months of daily use. Now I need to purchase and build another kit to replace this failed one.
