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Need a DAC recommendation

It has been my experience that there isn't a great deal of information out there regarding the performance of all the new DACs coming out--especially for more affordable ones.

I need a new DAC and I'd like to spend less than 600 used or new, the cheaper the better. USB would be nice, but I'm probably going to use digital coax mostly from my computer. I only listen to FLAC and I always try to obtain the highest bitrates possible, so the DAC has to be able to accept at least 24/96 (192 or higher would be even nicer, as would upsampling, but I'll take what I can get for the price). On my other system, I have a V-DAC with the V-Link usb/spdif converter and its not bad. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. BTW--Anyone try the VDAC II?
rossbernstein

Showing 1 response by stereo5

stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,524 posts
 
Check out the Emotiva XDA-1 DAC. It has 2 coax inputs, an AES input 2 optical inputs and 1 usb input. The analog output stage uses all discrete audiophile parts (no opamps) and it sounds really great using an hp laptop running J Rivers Media Center 16 in WASPI output. All files are ripped to FLAC.

The unit is a steal at a reduced price of 299.00! The only drawback is it doesn't do 24/96 on usb. I am waiting for a Musical Fidelity v-link to convert the usb to coax so I can try out some High res downloads.

Bob
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