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iMac + what DAC to exceed my Rotel CD player?

Hi Everyone,

I haven't been here for a while, but this is a great place. I am not worthy of calling myself a true audiophile, but I put together a nice system thanks to many people here. The problem now is logistics - new bookshelves are dedicated to my wife's art history books (they are very nice), so I put all my CDs in binders. Dumb! What a pain. It is now a chore to listen to music. That isn't right.

I have been dreaming about a music server option for some time, but $ is an issue. I now have a new Intel iMac I can dedicate to being nothing but a music server, but I don't know enough about DACs. My question is this. What do I need to spend to get a DAC that I can use with this iMac that will meet or exceed the audio quality of my Rotel 1070 CD player? Is up to $500 an option? I realize this isn't the cream of the crop CD player, but I have been satisfied with it. My amp is an old Scott 222 that I absolutely love and I use Omega speakers I bought about 7 years ago.

Thanks in advance
karavite

Showing 1 response by rbstehno

rbstehno
1,509 posts
 
IMO, save your money and get a really good dac like the Wyred-4-sound dac1 or dac2. in the long run, you will actually be saving money. i did exactly what you are going, starting small then moving up. a nice cheaper dac is a cal sigma or alpha dac. i then moved up to an audio research, then a manley. after demoing many new dacs in my own system late last year (ayre usb, bel canto, stello, audio research,and a couple others, I bought the wyred 4 sound dac2 to pair up with my mac mini running pure music. i had a $3000 classe cd player which was rated very good, and my mini/dac2 combo is much better. i sold my cd player a year ago and never regretted it.
instead of buying a cheaper unit now, then selling it for a loss to buy something better, and doing this a couple of times, just get a great dac now and enjoy it.
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