if you want something smaller, i have one of those "MUSES" PCM2704 DACs that was kind of okay other than the stupidly oversized housing

smaller wouldnt be necessary, but where do i find thid cmoy/ra1 amp and how would i go about installing it?

cmoy is an open source extremely simple opamp based portable amp

and a grado ra1 is essentially the same with a diff gain strucutre

youll only need one if youre using headphones with a lower sensitivity though, or if you really just want a volume knob

https://www.ebay.com/itm/JRC4556-Battery-version-RA1-Dual-Channel-MINI-headphone-amplifier-finished-board/132173131332

tho that one doesnt have any protection circuitry so youll want to unplug stuff before turning on/off

at least with sensitive transducers

if you wanted a proper one you could grab one of these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/WZ-RA-DIY-Assembled-headphone-board-power-AMP-base-on-RA1-with-27-Potentiometer/32351207546.html

but then youd need a ground

so either a proper power supply or a virtual ground is needed

delving too far for what you seem to want tho

also, if youre interested i could try connecting to the Zishan Z1 via i2s since im pretty sure it has support

might fix the whole delay issue

would probably be nice to get into this sort of stuff eventually

and if u could fix audio delay that would really help

tbh, dont mess with chifi source gear too much unless its just a clone of some western design

too many variables

ill order an i2s USB interface and see how it goes

youll have to hardwire your z1 tho, unless you want to do some mad modding and stick some breakout pins somewhere or something

holy fuck nevermind theyre expensive as fucc

i aint paying $10 for one of these fuckers

half the price of the z1 <:alismirk:230784726615588865>

10 aud

so like 8 usd

you can give it a go if you want but im probably not

if you know how to solder it shouldnt be hard to do

have done it just need to find soldering iron

but would that stuff u sent earlier be better than the z1?

nah

uses the same dac chip anyway

i haven't AB'd either tho

if i can figure out how to output to two DACs at once i can try

but if i were to hardwire the z1 would i need to be especially competent?

not really

it already has the i2s holes

just get some thin ish wire like cat5e or something and use good solder

and a small tip

do u have link for i2s

sure

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCB2706-USB-to-I2S-DAC-Decoder-for-WIN-XP-WIN-7-WIN-8-WIN-10-MAC/182380445398