Moving on from Parasound P5 Dac or Preamp


I have a parasound P5 driving my new Nad 298, which replaced a hypex nc400 amp that died.

this drives a pair of aperion vs grande towers and an SVS sub.

I chose the P5 as it had a good home theatre bypass a knob to adjust the sub output and a dac / phono stage.

lately I’m starting to think I want a better Dac.

currently it’s fed by a node 2i.

Any suggestions for preamp or Dacs?

I was looking at a benchmark la4 preamp and rme dac 

Suggestions welcome.

looking to spend no more than 5k all in.

Also on a separate note I have a hegel bugle2 phonostage which is really great but I can’t seem to get rid of rf Humm despite being well grounded, is this common?

 

 

 

 

 

lummock

Showing 2 responses by tweak1

Over a decade ago I had the P5. It is NOT a balanced design, although as I recall, the XLRs are separate from the main boards. I eventually got the P6, a significant upgrade, but that went down the road too. For the last 4+ years my Audio Alchemy DDP-1 pre/dac has served me very well. Ive made wholesale changes to the rest of my system, the DDP-1 passes them all through. Great value if you can find one; the outboard PS is a must

hth