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Best budget DAC

Hi all,

I'm considering a DAC for my system and I have to keep the expenditure very reasonable (under $300).

DACS considered: Audioengine D1, Audioquest Dragonfly, Cambridge Audio DACMagic XS & Azur DacMagic 100, Musical Fidelity - V90-DAC,  Schiit Modi,

Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated, especially if you have actually heard or compared the DACs above, or others.

Also, if I do get a DAC, is there any advantage to ripping a CD and then playing the FLAC/WAV file through the DAC? Keep in mind that the DAC chip in my CD Player is listed as a "24/192 Cirrus Logic Delta/Sigma", but no specific chip number.

I haven't seen any comparisons of CD's to ripping and playing the file through an outboard DAC, so if you have seen such a comparison, your link to it would be greatly appreciated.

These are the components in my system:
Speakers - Elac B6
Subwoofer - Elac S10
CD Player - NAD C 516BEE CD Player
Preamplifier - Parasound Halo P5
Power Amplifier - Rotel RB-1080

 Thanks. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

128x128edincleve

Showing 1 response by adam18

adam18
670 posts
 
I agree with arafiq.  The DAC built into the Parasound P5 seems pretty impressive, and I don't understand why the OP would want an outboard DAC for $ 300.  You'd probably need to spend a significantly higher sum than $ 300 (plus the expense of another IC cable) to improve on what's already in the P5.

From the Parasound website description of the P5 ..... 
"Burr-Brown PCM1798 DAC with USB, Optical and Coax inputs
Coax and optical accept all sampling rates up to 192 kHz, 24-bit
USB accepts up to 96 kHz, 24-bit
Incoming jitter on all three digital inputs is significally attenuated with an effective clock recovery system"
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