Looking for a Solidly good inexpensive DAC

Jeffkad
...and good luck to you as well.

Had I greater paitience and the desire to install a revolving door for equipment at my home, I could have tried several units... and many listed herein on this particular thread.

I have a bit of a philosophical issue there however... and some disdain for sending and receiving gear repeatedly with no intent to purchase at that point in time... 'just browsing...'

... and maybe errantly, I felt not too many makers were up for sending along their DACs to me for an in fact, well, heads up shoot out. Maybe they would have... I dunno.

consequently, some reading, asking here, and stabbing at those which I perceive mostly meet my needs, seemed the best way for me to go.

I'm not thrilled by the cost increases I've encountered now, or will soon, but the performance (given info online) does seem comensurate with the entry fee (s) for each DAC I'm gonna check out.

I feel ultimately my needs will be met in the end... my tastes are the factors padding the price hikes... mostly.

I settled on both this DA 10 and one other due to their industry reputations, past and present... support, and service tangibility. I'm becoming quite leary of products which are driven by singular entities, lately. Depending on the item being produced of course, ie., static devices such as cabling, power sups, tubes, pucks, cones, platforms, etc, all are one off, work or don't work products... I've no issues who makes them or if they remain in business or not. They'll not be requiring serviceing or ongoing attentionn from their makers. Usually.

For those efforts which may require servicing at some future date, amps, preamps, DACs, TT's, etc., I enjoy the assurance the maker has been and is most likely to be around for that event down the road.

Curiously however, in this "cottage industry at it's finest", one never knows. to me, track records, tangible interaction, and performance formulate much of my buying trends presently. I've said previously in fact, exactly that. Thereafter, only price tags are the decider, or limiter.

UPDATE… FINALE?

I’ve decided to settle on or with, the e One DAC 3.

This was indeed a really close call, and a very tuff decision for me too. Only two DACs were listened too… The DAC3 & the DA10. All the same devices and so forth were used on each. The one exception is the DA 10 comes with ONLY XLR analog outputs. A minor change within the unit needs be made for use in SE mode… Lavry Eng. Made that arrangement for me as a matter of course and at no extra charge. Adapters also were required for SE operation and at added cost. Both of the DACs were tried in SE configuration. No side by side A/B trials were done due to timing and shipping issues… but the comparisons were one right after the other and the same software was used for each comparison.

Not every thing I’ve bought and added to my system justifies it’s price to performance quotient. Some add only marginally, other’s simply are different. The e One uses finesse, and relies on transparency to get your attention. The Lavry DA 10 uses flair, and a colorful presentation to affect the listener.

Undeniably better in some areas, and not so in other ones, the e One DAC3 gained the job over the DA 10 due to it’s remote control use as a preamp, it’s greater bottom end performance and it’s slightly better imaging placement. The sound scapes of both were impressive. These thoughts were consistent using each DAC as a source only..

… and yes, there’s the added features of a USB interface, and both XLR & RCA outs on the Bel Canto unit, but I didn’t see that as a major deal maker or breaker.

Technically speaking, the DA 10 handles word lengths of 16 to 24 bit… and sampling frequencies from 32KHz to 192 Khz., has a headphone jack, polarity inversion, mono listening modes, and a manual volume control.

The e One DAC 3 does 16 to 24 bit word lengths, and 32Khz to 96 Khz, handling only PCM INFO, via the SPDIF inputs. USB handles 16 bits from 32Khz to 48Khz onl doesn’t allow for polarity inversion, mono listening mode, nor does it have a headphone jack. It also has both types of analog outputs, XLR & RCA.

Using the added features of the DAC3, things became unfair. AS a preamp, the DAC3 showed it’s audiofoolishness characteristics undeniably. Spot on placement of images, ambient retrieval, enhanced bass slam and resolution, and depth of stage info… all were a bit better than the DA 10’s rendering of them…. And well they should be, looking at the price differential!

Used solely as a DAC, the e One DAC 3 prevailed by degrees only, over the DA 10, save the bottom end performance increase which was incontestably superior.

In terms of pure blatant musical appeal, the Lavry gets my vote. I’m solid on that point. The DA 10’s midrange is lovely. Vocalists are simply rendered with great immediacy and that goose bumpy action gets to getting on very often. It comes close too on many other areas and that closeness complicated and exacerbated my final choice. Your’s may be different however. Keys for me were found in the better bass impact, and the remote preamp facilities of the DAC 3. Period.

One could say I drafted by ‘needs’ and a strong argument could well be had there.

If the Lavry DA 10 only had a remote volume control, I would likely have kept it and not thought of interviewing other DACs and saved myself a good amount of money too. The people at Lavry Engineering, though more pointed to the professional recording industry, are quite accessible, immensely forthcoming and very friendly. It didn’t matter if I was just gathering research, or had questions regarding operation and integration, each call was handled within a pleasant friendly, and professional atmosphere. Not once did I get put to voice mail. My emails were all replied to near immediately as well.

If my system were purely solid state, the DA 10 might still be here… BUT I’ve an all tubes system… for the moment… So both it and I could stand up to the higher resolution & diminished euphonic quality (as the result IMHO) yet still remain well satisfied. By comparison as well, the DAC3 is leaner discernibly, yet quite entertaining and involving. Detail, resolution , and musical cues abound, though the presentation does not come off untoward. I detected no added brittleness, etch, grain, or brightness in spite of the clearer window to the music to be had from the DAC 3. It was simply not as full sounding as was the DA 10.

Only the poorest recorded CDs came off as still very poor… with either DAC, but the edge there goes to the DA 10, but they are tolerable on the DAC3 too… so your CD collection won’t be truncated by the purchase of either DAC. Those better CDs are just gonna get more playing time.

If greater resolution, flexibility, and bottom end performance are the needs, and you got the extra $$$ do check out the DAC 3.

If adequate bass, musical involvement, and $$$ is a real concern, make a point of checking out the Lavry DA 10 DAC. It too has a volume control so depending upon how your system is configured it might be just the ticket! My configuration has the gear in one room, and the loudspeakers and myself in another… so remote operation was a big plus for me… add to that I do like bass info to have impact and presence.

To categorize each using a more familiar allegory, I’d have to say, the e One is A Dodge Viper…. Speedy, remarkably fast, and a real head turner. The DA 10 is a 500 series BMW…. it doesn’t have quite the sheer brute force and speed of the e One, but it’s agile handling and fleet pace gets you there with a plusher ride. Neither will make you miss the scenery along the way.

If you don't need USB in:

I purchased a MSB "Full Nelson" Link-DAC III from sound4sale dot com for $500. The Full Nelson has an upgraded analog section, the upsampling board and MSB Net connections (also accepts AES/EBU digital in).

This box was a Stereophile Class A component in the day, for what that's worth.

I'm not affiliated with MSB or sound4sale, but I am a customer...

I'm quite impressed with the quality. Source device is a Roku SoundBridge M1000 via coaxial digital. The S/PDIF coax goes into a GW Labs DSP reclocker (upsampling turned off). I am feeding the Link-DAC via AES/EBU digital from the DSP. The Link-DAC does upsampling internally via an option card. Analog outs from the Link-DAC go to a Musical Fidelity X10^3 tube buffer, into the preamp.

Source files are coming from a wired ethernet connection to a Firefly server, as 320k MP3 or on-the-fly transcoded FLAC -> WAV. You can guess which sounds better. :-) I'm amazed at the quality of even 128k internet radio streams (Radio Paradise, SOMA FM). Very smooth, very open sound at low to moderate volume levels.

Other source components are a Musical Fidelity A308 CD (I'm using the internal DAC on the MF CD). Amp is a McIntosh MA6100, recently refurbed by Audio Classics Ltd. in NY.

Speakers vary, but in the current "background music" role for this rig, I'm using a set of Paradigm Atom v.3s. I also have Studio 100 v.3s and a set of Studio 20 v.3s. Wife acceptance factor for the Studio 100s in the family room is low, so they generally live in the basement in another system.

Anyway, nice access to a classic DAC, "brand new" for a quarter of the original price.

Cheers,

-don

Thanks Jim for the terrific review! You should be a reviewer for one of the on line magazines.

Gmood1

Thanks much... there was far more to say about each, but there's the gist of it... and so much for budgets.

Still there are yet more worth checking out for sure... for now however my systems performance is again improved upon.