IAN CANADA CARDS

Hi Melm,

I have assembled a Raspberry PI4B based Streamer/Dac composed of the following IAN CANADA boards:
1. PurePi II (Ultracapacitor Power Supply + LifePo049
2. Raspberry PI4B
3. ShieldPi Pro
4. Flagship Re-Clocker FifoPi Q7 II with the new FemtoMck XO clocks
5. ES9038Q2M Dual Mono II DAC Hat
6. MonitorPi Pro

After several tests I found the correct settings but I think further refinements are necessary. What I am listening to both with DSD files (played in direct mode up to 128), both with DXD files and with Flac Music both from files and in HiRes Qobuz seems to me to have obtained a high degree of acoustic quality. Certainly in my system there is an excellent analog chain (SME TT - SME Arm - Lyra Titan - Benz Micro LP etc.) which obviously sounds better but as far as digital is concerned I am extremely satisfied. Surely the next upgrade will be to insert a IAN CANADA UcConditioner MkII/Pro 3.3V to further improve the power supply of Re-Clocker and ES9038 DAC. What I learned the power supply is fundamental. And anyway thanks for your experience. Kind regards.

Alessandro

@alessandrocat 

This is what I have so far: iFi iPower2, PurePi II, RPi 3b (Volumio), FifoPi Q7II (Accusilicon clocks), HdmiPi Pro II, UcConditioner Pro 3.3V

I have now come to regard Iancanada as excellent in the digiital space, but unknown (to me) in the analog (or DAC) space so I have limited my buy to a streamer and I do have a fine Musetec DAC  So in goes the ethernet and out goes the I2S, an extremely efficient route. I may later add the far better clocks, and perhaps a receiver and monitor pro, needed to chose among inputs.  We'll see.

These boards are very fine in quality, but they are not cheap.  And the stack is ugly.  Nonetheless I’m achieving a performance level that I thought was far more expensive than I was willing to pay for.  Besides the excellent circuitry, it's the SOTA power supplies. 

@melm

Hi Melm,

I see that you have also assembled a nice digital system. I am now also convinced that Ian Canada products are excellent. You say they are expensive but in reality, considering the performance and build quality, they are priced right. Consider that if you bought a finished system of that performance it would cost at least 4 or 5 times more expensive. Yes, the pile certainly cannot be considered beautiful but for me it has its charm. Then you did it and this is a great satisfaction.

I will certainly continue to prefer vinyl which I find more complete and exciting.

See you soon and kind regards.

Alessandro