The answer will depend on how common or uncommon your "common sense" is. Yes, I am being serious. "Sound judgement" is a defining element, literally.
My budget is limited by my common sense
Matching streamer/DAC combination to SQ of my system.
My question may be unanswerable in a meaningful way. I guess what I'm asking is: what would you (who are more experienced than I am) plan to do in my shoes?
I have a nice older amp--a Musical Fidelity A308, once the flagship of their line--and ATC SCM 40 v2 speakers. The weak links in my system are a relatively low-end DAC and the fact that I stream from a Mac. Generally, I don't have a partIcularly warm sound in a complex listening room.
So if I wanted to buy a streamer/dac unit, what price range would do my amp and speakers justice? What would represent overkill, or not enough improvement to be worth upgrading? For that matter, what specific units would anyone recommend? My budget is limited by my common sense, not my bank account.
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Don’t. Buy a separate streamer and DAC so as tech in either progresses you have the flexibility to upgrade one as needed. One combo you might look at is the Innuos Zen Mk3 streamer/server that you can also load all your CDs into so all your music comes from the same place and the seat of your chair, and the Musician Pegasus DAC that is an R2R design and may provide you with some natural warmth you seem to be lacking now. This combo would cost around $3500 but would be much more befitting of your other excellent components, and I’ve no doubt the improvements would be significant if not transformational. Hope this helps, and best of luck. |
Here’s a pretty thorough review in case it helps... https://soundnews.net/sources/dacs/musician-audio-pegasus-r2r-dac-review/ |
If you are comfortable streaming from your mac I wouldn't bother with charging it but you might change your DAC. What are you using now as some do a better job filtering from a computer. One I would recommend is the Benchmark DAC 3B if you don't need volume control but the one you have might be perfectly fine. To get a better understanding of what's going on in your room I would download REW (freeware) and get a Umik-1 for $100 and take measurements. Addressing room and speaker interaction and using EQ to fix problems or change the sound more to your liking is the way to go about it not changing DACs. |
Djones: I am using an audio engine D2, which is a combination DAC and Wi-Fi sender/receiver. It’s supposed to deal with computer noise and such, and it got very good reviews, at least in its price range, but I have very little frame of reference in which to compare it to anything else. I’m not dissatisfied per se, just looking at upgrade options for the future. It would be a drag to buy into the hype around upscale DACs and streamers, and then find the sound remains largely the same after spending a couple of thousand dollars. On the other hand, I don’t want to settle for less than my speakers and amp are capable of. |