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dac recommendations for turntable listener?

hi everyone, kindly asking for your dac suggestions. im almost 100% a turntable listener, but recently picked up a DirectStream Dac for those times I cant find the vinyl, its too expensive, or it simply doesn't exist. im looking for suggestions as im not happy with the DirectStream dac, its just not to my liking. its too sharp up top, too thin in the lower midrange, other than that everything else is pretty great. id like to get, if possible, a dac that sounds more like my turntable. I feel like I would get mostly there if the midrange was fuller, and the top end was softer. 

my current system is marantz tt15 , dynavector 20x2, icon audio ps3 mk ii, primaluna prologue premium, and elysian 4 speakers. 

the current dacs I was looking to switch to were lab 12 dac, primaluna evo 100 dac, lampizators entry model, or Merason DAC 1. does anyone have experience with these and can recommend them? 

thanks a lot! 

Anthony 

palutena

Showing 1 response by deep_333

deep_333
1,827 posts
 

@palutena, what you needed from day 1 was a dac or streamer with a parametric eq (PEQ) feature.

Fo example, the Wiim pro plus is a 200 dollar streamer with a 10 band PEQ feature. Use it to bump up the mids, lower the highs, etc all with very wide Qs, adjust to taste, create your vinyl sound. From there, run it to your denafrips.

It will become the best sounding ’vinyl’ you ever heard with no pops, crackles, no running back and forth between turntable and couch like a ceaseless laborer, etc.

Otherwise, the squirrels in your head will keep bouncing too much everytime the recordings change (I used to be a vinyl guy too).

Good luck.

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