AQUA La Voce S3 D/A Converter Owner’s Manual

AQUA La Voce S3 D/A Converter

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTICES

CAUTION
The triangle with the lightning flash symbol displayed on the unit advises the user of dangerous uninsulated voltage inside the product’s enclosure.
To reduce the risk of electric shock, do not remove the cover.
The triangle with the exclamation point symbol on the component suggests that the owner refer to important operating and maintenance instructions in the owner’s manual.

WARNING: Modifications and alterations not approved by the manufacturer may violate adherence to EC regulations and make the appliance no longer suitable for use. The manufacturer declines all responsibility for damage caused to persons or property due to the misuse or malfunction of device subject to unauthorized change.

CAUTION: In order to make changes that improve the already excellent quality of its products, Aqua-Acoustic Quality reserves the right to modify the information or the contents of this manual at any time and without notice.

WARRANTY STATEMENT

Aqua Acoustic Quality (Aqua) equipment is supported, and serviced through the worldwide network of distributors and dealers listed within a section of the website.
The authorized retailer provides the end customer with the dealer’s warranty, the terms of which vary according to the country’s rules, within European Union generally two (2) or more years.
Warranty service should normally be obtained from the importing distributor or retailer from whom you purchased the product. The authorized importing distributor or retailer accepts the responsibility for the warranty of products sold by that distributor or dealer.

In the unlikely event of service required beyond the capability of the importing distributor or retailer, the customer can contact the manufacturer directly and Aqua will provide the manufacturer’s warranty. The manufacturer’s warranty for a term of one (1) year from the date the unit was originally shipped from aqua, in order to protect our customers from illegitimate resellers.

This manufacturer’s warranty is subject to the following terms and conditions:
in case of a defect covered by this warranty, Aqua will provide without charge the materials and labor necessary to restore the product to its original specifications. In the alternative Aqua may at its sole option either replace the product with a new one of the same or equivalent model in the Aqua production, or refund the purchase price of the product.

The warranty does not apply:

• if the product has not been purchased from an authorized Aqua Dealer
• to damage caused by accident, abuse, misuse or misapplication
• if the product presents changes, modifications or repairs not expressly approved by the manufacturer
• if the Serial Number of the product is absent or altered
• if the product is shipped to Aqua without an adequate package
  If vacuum tubes are contained in the product, they are warranted for 90 days from the date of purchase of the original purchaser.
  NOS (New Old Stock) components are excluded from the warranty.

The warranty is provided to the original purchaser only, that must provide the original sales receipt containing product name and purchase date. If during the warranty period the product ownership is transferred, the warranty will terminate at the date of the ownership transfer.
The warranty does not cover shipping charges or tax/duty: shipments of the product to Aqua for repair, and shipments to the owner of the serviced product are at the owner’s expense

Aqua reserves the right to apply a service charge if the product returned for warranty repair is found to be operating correctly.
Recommended procedure to obtain the repair service (during warranty period and outside)
Contact Aqua, preferably via e-mail at support@aquahifi.com, and briefly describe the problem. In case it is necessary to send the product for repair, Aqua will provide you an RMA number (Return Merchandise Authorization) to return your unit.
This number is required to obtain the repair service: any unit received without an RMA number will be returned to the sender.
The RMA number can be issued only by Aqua staff, you will receive it via e-mail or other means indicated by you.
Please write the RMA number clearly visible on the outside of the package.

THIRD PARTY CONTENT AND TECHNOLOGIES
In its operation, the device uses or may use some services or technologies provided by third parties (e.g. streaming services, software applications/libraries and similar). These services, software applications or products are outside the control of aqua. Consequently, these services or products are not covered by the warranty. aqua disclaims any liability relating to them, in particular those related to service interruptions or malfunctions of the services/products provided by third parties.

GENERAL SAFETY INFORMATION

The following general safety precautions must be observed during all phases of operation of this equipment. Failure to comply with these precautions or with specific warnings elsewhere in this manual violates safety standards of design, manufacture, and intended use of the equipment. Aqua – Acoustic Quality assumes no liability for the customer’s failure to comply with these requirements.

• DO NOT operate the product in an explosive atmosphere or in the presence of flammable gases or fumes. For continued protection against fire, replace the line fuse(s) only with fuse(s) of the same voltage and current rating and type. DO NOT use repaired fuses or short-circuited fuse holders.
• Keep away from live circuits. Operating personnel must not remove equipment covers or shields. Procedures involving the removal of covers or shields are for use by service-trained personnel only. Under certain conditions, dangerous voltages may exist even with the equipment switched off. To avoid dangerous electric shock, DO NOT perform procedures involving cover or shield removal unless you are qualified to do so.
• DO NOT operate damaged equipment. If the built-in safety protection features have been impaired through physical damage, excessive moisture, or any other reason, REMOVE POWER and do not use product until safe operation is verified by service-trained personnel. If necessary, return the product to Aqua – Acoustic Quality for service and repair to ensure that the safety features are maintained.
• DO NOT service or adjust alone. Do not attempt any internal service or adjustment unless a person capable of rendering first aid and resuscitation is present.
• DO NOT substitute parts or modify equipment. To avoid the occurrence of additional hazards, do not install substitute parts or perform any unauthorized modification to the product. Return the product to Aqua – Acoustic Quality for service or repair to ensure that the safety features are maintained.

Operation and Features

Make sure the supplied voltage is the one required by the device. Please ensure the quality of the connecting cables, paying particular attention the coaxial digital cable. Often, numerous tests have revealed the importance of this cable for obtaining the best sound quality. The transport unit which is responsible for the extraction of numeric data, is affected by jitter, which is non-temporal coherence. In more recent years, this issue has been taken seriously by some manufacturers, significantly improving the results in terms of sound quality. Aqua – Acoustic Quality counsels that this quality should be carefully assessed in order to achieve the desired result.

Key features

• R2R resistor ladder network D/A conversion

• High performance proprietary FPGA-based digital decoding without digital filter

• Jitter free digital interface AQlink (I2S protocol), uncompromising digital connection to La Diva cd transport

• Zero S/PDIF Jitter design, digital receiver stage PLL (phase locked loop) technology

• Discrete Regulator (MOSFET, J-FET, BJT) for analog and digital DAC’s power supply

• MODULAR DESIGN with upgradeable multi board platform

• 2 separate low noise transformers, one for the analog and one for the digital section

• Fully discrete analog stage

• Electronically-balanced XLR outputs

• Proprietary USB Firmware / driver :
  Apple MAC OS – Linux OS : USB asynchronous native support, no need to install drivers software

• Fully upgradeable high-speed USB Audio Class 2 module, PCM 44.1kHz to 384kHz PCM up to 24 bits, DSD64 / DSD128, operates with computers running OSX 10.7 and above, WINDOWS 10, 7, 8, XP with ASIO bit perfect

• Digital phase selector on front panel

• High-quality parts selected for sound quality:

  • 105° long life capacitors
  • low noise Metal Foil ultra-precision resistors
  • metallized film pulse capacitor
  • ultra-fast diodes

• Analog output: RCA single-ended – XLR balanced asymmetrical

• Aluminium anti-resonant cabinet with Nextel

• Designed and handmade in Italy

Specifications

Digital to analog conversion type| Proprietary Discrete DAC

Pure R2R ladder – FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) based without digital filter

---|---
Supported Native Sample Rates| AQlink / I2S serial bus – USB PC Audio : 44.1kHz to 384kHz PCM up to 24 bits

DSD64, DSD128

Supports DSD via DoP on all inputs

DAC architecture| Multibit sign magnitude R2R ladder (upgradable)
Asynchronous USB (High Speed)| USB Audio Class 2 with Type B connector
Oversampling factor| 1x
---|---
Analog Conversion method| Pure R2R ladder – FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) based digital decoding without digital  filter
Digital inputs| –  RJ45 AQlink (I2S serial bus) – 24 bit / 384 KHz

–  BNC coax (S/PDIF) 75 ohm – 24 bit / 192 KHz

–  USB port – 24bit / 384 kHz PCM – DSD64, DSD128

AQ-i modular input:

–  AES/EBU balanced 110 ohm – 24 bit / 192 KHz (cod. D111)

–  RCA coax (S/PDIF) 75 ohm – 24 bit / 192 KHz(cod. D113)

–  AT&T (ST Fiber) – 24 bit / 192 KHz(cod. D112)

–  Optical TOSLINK – 24 bit / 96 KHz (cod. D114)

Analogue Outputs| UNBAL 2 RCA Output 2.4 V RMS

BALANCED (asymmetrical output) 2 XLR Output : 4.8V RMS

Output Impedance| 100 Ω RCA – 600 Ω XLR
Load Impedance| 10 k Ω (min.) RCA – 600 Ω XLR

DAC Configuration
Digital to analog conversion board is modular.
The S3 version implements a R2R resistor ladder network D/A conversion-based. High performance proprietary FPGA-based digital decoding without digital filter More info at www.aquahifi.com

Front panel

On the front panel, you will find:

• power on/off switch
• rotary switch for selection of the digital input
• PHASE ( 0 / 180 ) switch
• LED power indicator

Back panel

On the rear panel, you will find:

• IEC connector of the power supply (220-240V or 100-120V).

• Digital inputs :

  • RJ45 AQlink (I2S serial bus) – 24 bit / 384 kHz
  • BNC coax (S/PDIF) 75 ohm – 24 bit / 192 kHz
  • USB port – 24 bit / 384 kHz – DSD128
    MODULAR INPUT upgradable, options:
    AES/EBU balanced 110 ohm – 24 bit / 192 kHz
    RCA coax (S/PDIF) 75 ohm – 24 bit / 192 kHz
    AT&T (ST Fiber) – 24 bit / 192 kHz
    Optical TOSLINK – 24 bit / 96 kHz

• The TX LED which indicates the timing of the digital signal S/PDIF / AES/EBU

• analog outputs :

  • RCA single-ended
  • XLR balanced

PIN ASSIGNMENT
The pin assignments of all of the XLR-type male analog outputs, the XLR-type female digital inputs are as follows:

Pin 1: Signal ground
Pin 2: Signal + (non-inverting)
Pin 3: Signal – (inverting)
Connector ground lug: chassis free

PC connection

ADVICE: Windows users must install the driver prior to connecting the USB cable to the PC (please refer to download section http://www.aquahifi.com/download.html ).
The USB cable that connects to a PC, must conform to the 2.0 specifications, and should be of adequate quality. Please avoid using cable more than 2m, to avoid invalidating the bus performance

True plug’n’play operation with Mac
Mac computers with OSX 10.6.4 and later have a native support for audio devices compliant with USB Audio Class 2.0. This means that the driver is already included in the operating system and the user needs not to install anything. Just connect the La Voce DAC to your Mac and it will be immediately recognized by the OS and ready to use. Macs with older OS need update.
To use aqua USB as output device for your Mac, you need to select it as default output device from the Audio Control Panel (Preferences -> Sound).
After selecting aqua USB, please check settings, you can select the sampling frequency fixed for La Voce DAC, regardless the native sampling frequency of all audio tracks.
For the best sonic results, you may want to use a player which follow the native frequency of the tracks, like Sonic Studio Amarra or Channel D Pure Music.

True plug’n’play operation with Linux
L’Ingresso USB high speed da Personal Comput
PC with Linux 1.0.24 and later have a native support for audio devices compliant with USB Audio Class 2.0 This means that the driver is already included in the operating system and the user needs not to install anything. Just connect the La Voce DAC to your PC with Linux and it will be immediately recognized by the OS and ready to use.

Windows XP, VISTA, 7, 8 O.S.
For the best sonic results, you may want to use a player which support ASIO*, like Foobar or JRiver Media Center
ASIO is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH

AQ TECHNOLOGIES S.r.l.
Registered Office : Via Luciano Manara, 17 – 20122 Milano Operation Office : Via Adobati, 23 – 24022 Alzano Lombardo (BG)
Italy
info@aquahifi.com
www.aquahifi.com

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