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DAC's from the past, are any of them really worth much today?

I was thinking of buying a new DAC, the choices are many, but some of the lowest price DAC’s are to be had from yesteryear. For example, i took home an Esoteric D05 yesterday and while I have not been able to hook it up to my Esoteric player, due to no suitable connector cable, I was wondering if any of the better DAC’s from years back are really worth having? The example I have in for audition, while close to SOTA back about 13+ years ago, has no USB connection! To that, it has had years of usage, and appears pristine although I am unsure as to what can fail in a DAC? Obviously no warranty, yet a price point that is somewhat attractive, particularly for the build quality.

 

The biggest issue seems to be no USB connection to the upstream gear, but also perhaps the difference in price between a DAC like this, and a more modern DAC with better DAC chips/USB etc.,would simply make this one not a great deal. Thoughts?

daveyf

Showing 2 responses by cleeds

cleeds
6,228 posts
 
tvrgeek

... first generation CD players were not that bad.  Yes differences, but come on now ...

I thought they all sounded different and were all awful.

I remember how excited I was the first CD players debuted and how disappointed my first listening experiences were. The Sony CDP-101 was just dreadful and the Phillips competitor (which was 14 bit!) was even worse. The best at the time as I recall was a Kyocera player, but that's damning with faint praise.

Thankfully, digital playback has advanced enormously.

cleeds
6,228 posts
 
tvrgeek

... Almost all of my music is old enough to have been mastered on tape, so there is no such thing as highly detailed ...

Either there's something wrong with your system or you've been listening to the wrong material. Or both. Some of the most extraordinary recordings ever made originated on analog tape.

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