Back to the DAC

@yyzsantabarbara 👍

@audphile1 OK, working up the scale: Briscati M3, with remote and updated MDx for $3800, Chord Hugo TT2 with Mscaller for around $6k or Briscati M1 for around $5K then upgrade to SE II for another $2500 - $3750 (don't know about the MDx upgrade on this one yet).

Knowing you have had a similar system to mine and are familiar with most of these products, which way would you go? 

M3 should be $3500. Good option to start with but without selling it there’s no upgrade. M1 is a kick ass DAC and it will satisfy you for a long while with good upgrade path. Chord stack will most likely be slightly more analytical than the Bricasti.

Either one of these options will make you happy but I would bargain down the M1 a bit and go that route.

Or…wait for M1S2 to show up and shoot for that. 

@audphile1 OK, thank you!

@audphile1 @tvad - ended up with a 2020 M1 with updated MDx around $4K.

Thank you both for all your help with this!

@tvad Yes, but I have an Aurender N200.

@tvad I am sending the DAC into the manufacturer for some tweaks.                  Do you think the display upgrade is worth doing? It's $500.

@tvad OK, very useful info, thanks!

I was wisely advised to purchase the DAC (as is) and try living with the Bricasti house sound first, which is great advice. But money & logistics played a big part in this for me, so I am going for the SE, M1 Series II and the TFT display all at once, go big, or don’t go at all! So, direct from the seller to Joe. I still have my R26 DAC, but with now a big re-arrange in my living room so as to better accommodate my stereo, I will be down in the crawlspace with little time for musical pleasure any ways. No huge rush then, but great to know, thanks again!

1st serial number is on back of M3 so no need to plug in. Firmware has to be powered to see version.

@navyachts congratulations!!!! I am confident you will be blown away.

Great choice!!!

Let us know when you get it from Bricasti and have your first listen. 

Thank you @audphile1, will do!

I see you are sorted. But in case others are reading, there are two European DACs worth thinking about, both north of $10k though:

1. the CAD 1543 mkII is an incredible R2R DAC with no streamer. In fact it is beautifully stripped down with a in-house designed internal power supply and mains cable, USB input only, RCA output only. Scott Berry, the engineer, sources the old Philips 1543 DAC chips and builds this pure no-compromise DAC by hand in Cambridge in England. It sounds incredible, the most analogue-sounding DAC I have heard.

2. Also the Vitus SD-025 is another DAC-only sublime sounding DAC, hand made in Denmark. Hans Ole Vitus used his high-end turntable to fine-tune and voice this DAC.

Audio Mirror Tubadour V is excellent.

Would highly recommend Rockna....not as well known, but outstanding.

@smallmouthrule yes, it is, but trying to move on from R2R and not so into tubes, thanks.

@duckworp at $20K for the CAD 1543 mkII and $33K for the Vitus SD-025 they oughta be good, outta my league I'm afraid!

@mrmanisundaram agreed, thanks.

Hi,

I would like to start this out by saying I am an importer for several different audio manufacturers and we do import DAC’s but really this is not why I am posting.

I’m seeing comments like “the best DAC” and really there is no best. There is personal preference. There is best matched to your system. There is best that you can afford. Also, if you have only owned five DAC’s, for example, then your opinion of best is based on 1/5.

I have personally A/B/A tested over 100 DAC’s. We will take our reference DAC and listen to three preferred songs. We will then switch over to the 2^nd DAC we are testing while giving it time to adjust and warm up. We will then listen to the same three songs and then go back to our reference DAC. No, it’s not a perfect test because when you’re moving equipment around, I personally believe it needs 24 hours to settle. If we really like the 2^nd DAC that were testing then we will leave it on for 24 hours and then go back to our reference DAC the next day. If the new DAC that were testing beats our reference, then that DAC becomes our reference.

I would look at DAC’s and say that they’re in different categories and decide what you need out of that particular DAC. Do you need a volume control/preamp? Do you need a built-in server streamer? These are all questions you should ask yourself before you make the purchase. What is the price point and what is your associated equipment?

Most importantly when you’re doing the testing are you doing it in a properly set up room? Have you dealt with the acoustics of the room because this is super important? For the record we don’t sell anything that has anything to do with acoustics. My reference room was set up professional and we had a person come in that works with recording studios and he set up my reference room acoustically. We are about to make a move to a new location and we needed to remove all the acoustic panels to do a home staging. It was an absolute reality check when all the acoustic treatments were removed. The room sounded horrible. Best case scenario, deal with the room acoustics first and then think about the DAC.

Last but not least. I was a firm believer that the preamp was the most important piece of equipment because it controlled the output voltage to your front end and to your amplifiers, which in turn controlled the speakers. However recently I started thinking that the DAC is more important because without the information that the DAC provides then it doesn’t matter how good the preamp is if the information isn’t there.

That’s my two cents so please don’t shoot the messenger. It’s just opinions.

Bob. Worldwide Wholesales.

@worldwidewholesales great insight, but I think for the general audio enthusiast and most general homeowners, it’s difficult to test hundreds of DAC, let alone 5, before purchasing.

It also seems that most DACs now come with a pre-amp function and optional network hook-ups.

Room treatments are super important as well, but many of us don’t have dedicated listening spaces so there has to be a balance between good acoustics and room functionality. I put up a bunch of panels in my room and I don’t think it sounds much better and they look like crap, so I think I’m going to take them all down now. Not looking forward to fixing/painting all those darns holes in my brand-new dry wall either!

And DAC prevalence over a pre-amp, that’s quite a revelation, thanks Bob.

In relation to a dac, if you are using usb, then you will never get the best sound quality from the dac. The best interfaces to a dac are Ethernet and i2s and some of the best dacs don’t even include usb. I have a highly rated dac that I used Ethernet for the past few years, which was much better than using the usb interface. I just bought a new streamer to allow me to use i2s and still keep my Roon server running in a different room. I2s was a nice bump of sq over using Ethernet.

@rbstehno My Aurender N200 is optimize for USB out, so I need select a DAC with solid USB implementation. My Wyred 4 Sound 2v2 SE DAC was the same. You have to match the equipment's compatibility.

What DAC is it you use?

@rbstehno that’s a blanket statement and those are usually incorrect. 

I agree that that source is the most important. However, when it comes to DACs I also feel it is the least important.  That is because for my money the laws of diminishing returns apply to DACs more than most components. 

I have a great local FM station and I have 3 tuners in 2 systems. The sonics are very good on all of them with 2 of them being modded vintage units.  The difference between those 2 and my Magnum Dynalab MD108T, which cost about $8k, is very large. It is not diminishing returns for my source tuners.

I only got 20+ hours on my new low cost Yggi+ OG DAC and the thing sounds great. I would need to go up very high in the cost scale to do better. Say $20k for a Playback Designs. I had a $15k DAC for a year and the OG is better. Point is that there can be great savings on the DAC. All the DACs discussed on this thread are more than capable performers. 

USB supposed to be the best input on the Yggi+. Ethernet is usually my least preferred on the DACs I have owned, especially when using something like a Sonore Optical Rendu streamer beats that easily.

I have used those DAC savings on my amps, and I found that there was a very big difference in performance. 

BTW - if one is interested in treatments without the treatments take a look at Mitch Barnetts offering for Convolution filters. Not sure if Aurrender supports it. Roon and JRiver support it.

Digital Room Calibration Services, Convolver, Headphone Filtersets (accuratesound.ca)

@yyzsantabarbara Once I take my acoustic panels down (and fix the walls) I was thinking about using the YouTube guy on Pursuit of Perfection who offer a Dirac service, but I'd much rather keep it closer to home. Maybe I'll check it out sometime, thanks.

Blanket statement? I’ll bet only 2% of these posters are able to test an Ethernet interface or an i2s interface. 
My Aurender is optimized for usb! If I had a $ for everytime I’ve heard that, I’d be rich. Years ago, I bought the top of the line Auralic over the Aurender and Lumin. And guess what, it was optimized for usb with femto clocks and that was feeding the best wyred 4 sound dac with the best aq diamond usb cable. I also had the gimmicks/tweaks like reclockers/etc that were optimized for usb.

I got rid of all that crap, got 1 of the best dacs available, used Ethernet, and the sound was much better, much much better.

Then a couple months ago bought the streamer with only an i2s and coax output so I can use i2s, another big improvement.

There is a reason the best dacs don’t have usb or have i2s and Ethernet interfaces.

Mitch is from Vancouver area, and he remotely did genius level work on my room in California. We needed to fix my Thiel CS3.7 first. I could hear 1 issue, but he identified so many others.

I tried to do the DSP myself after starting to read his book. I was smart enough to realize how dumb I am in that realm. Luckily, he started offering the remote service. I no longer use his filters in my office. I have ugly acoustic panels and I moved things around. I also have different speakers in the room so a new set of measurements would have been needed.

Accurate Sound Reproduction Using DSP: Barnett, Mitch: 9781520977904: Amazon.com: Books

The headphone folks are also big fans for Mitch.

I am curious as to how my Livingroom system would sound with Mitches fitters. I am going to try it out once I have taken care of other matters.

@yyzsantabarbara lol, ya, I did the same thing, purchased the mic from Amazon and downloaded the free program. 3 minutes into I packed the mic back up and sent it back to Amazon, yes, I felt dumb! (Van BC, that’s where I originate from as well)

@rbstehno ok, have at ’er, wish I had a DAC as good as yours!

@tvad +1

I used Bricasti M3 network card connected with high quality Ethernet cables for a while until I tried Aurender N200 via USB into the M3. Blew away using the network card. 
Internally, the M3 network card is connected to the board using I2S if I am not mistaken. In general, I2S was developed for internal connections and that is partly the reason why there’s no industry standard for thr pin configuration which in some units makes it a crapshoot selection a transport for it. Whether or not it’s the best connection is debatable. Fo me the USB out of N200 into M3 was in another league. 
 

So…when making blanket statements about what connection is best sounding you only show your lack of consideration and understanding of what the best connection on a given component is, out or in, for a particular listener, and why that is the case. Equipment compatibility and synergy is key. Especially for I2S that has more pin confirmations than California has raisins. Good luck to you. 

@audphile1 amen!

I’m a real nubie regarding the nuances of separates vs integrated units. I have McIntosh MA8900 integrated amp with DA2 upgrade, a Naim Uniti Core CD ripper streamer, and Luxman D 07X SACD player, along with Von Schweikert Endeavour speakers. All cables/interconnects are high end. 
How do I know if the MA8900 DA2 is (very) good?  Do I use the DAC within the Luxman?  Would a specialty DAC be a good investment with my current set up? R do basic components need upgrading?

THX 

TShark Dallas TX

@hysteve When I installed my Jay Audio transport, even poorly mastered/recorded CDs took on life whereby I am keeping them (I have 15,900 CDs). Where I thought there was distortion is now just bad miking or has poor quality digital transfers. The average CD sounds great and the outstanding recordings are phenomenal (and that’s with my highly modified Emotiva DAC only previously described). This may also have to do with my phenomenal speakers (Von Schweikert VR9 SE MK2, upgraded). I read some other posts extolling the new LAiV Harmony DAC. This could be a real bargain just as my transport is.  

I wouldn't suggest to the OP a lesser quality transport but I'm keeping a Shanling ET3 for my 2nd system/living room.  It's good for the price and I've compared many transports.  

@tshark I think your question deserves its own thread. 

I’ll take some time tomorrow to figure out how to do that (post new thread). Thx for the encouragement. I’m looking for an answer that’s not another persons favorite component. I cant fault responders except say it doesn’t always appear to be pertinent to what was asked. 
 

I’ll try to be specific to my need. Thx. 

My Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty streaming DAC is a superb DAC, as well as a superb streamer.   Happy listening. 

@worldwidewholesales

Great post with great advice-and it is commendable you didn’t give any specific manufacturer’s names. There is a good chance I will never in my life listen to 10% of the components you have,

I am curious if you could share what your current 3 demo songs are for your comparisons?

I wish more folks would realize and admit this is a journey of preferences.

It’s not a cage match of bests.

@tvad exactly. Which brings me to....

I do not recommend the Weiss, dry and hard compared to the others.

Dry and hard? I guess to my ears all the other DAC’s are too fat and slow?

As to cabling, I am using lower cost digital cabling from my transport (step above Blue Jeans which is very neutral and a steal at $35) similar to the Westminster Labs lower end digital cable.

Might be a contributing factor to a less than perfect audition?

I would most highly recommend one of the upper-end Ayre Acoustics DACs.  I find that the Ayre Acoustics DACs have a beautifully natural, super high resolution,  organic, smooth, extremely dynamic, detailed and transparent signature sound.  I have the Ayre QX-5 Twenty DAC with the built-in streamer, but I believe these can be had without the streamer.  After auditioning several other reference DACs, all costing more than the Qx-5 Twenty, I chose the Ayre.  After auditioning the QX-5 Twenty DAC, I felt that it offered everything I needed in a reference quality sounding DAC, and that there was no need to send more for anything else.  Happy listening.       

@kennymacc Ayre makes great stuff, glad you found your game!

@mclinnguy +1

@tshark did ya get it figured out?

@audphile1 +2

@fleschler - hysteve? CD player? Did I miss something?

One thing I just wanted to throw out there. I really think my Gustard R26 is the choke point in the system. I had a $200 Onkyo CD player that sounded on par with the R26 (running coaxial direct into the pre-amp) and when I hooked up the Aurender N200 (through the R26) I didn't really here much of a sound improvement. So, I am really hoping the now, Bricasti M1 Series II will elevate things. I also just saw a Bricasti M12 come up on USAM for not much more that I'm going to put into the M1...darn!

OK, I guess that's good then.