@freediver While combo units have some advantages and can certainly sound very good, the point your missing is that DACs and amps are both critical and very personal choices. What are the odds that both the DAC and the amp in a combo unit are optimal for the OP’s particular tastes? Near zero. If possible better to pick both the amp and DAC that offer the specific sound characteristics they’re looking for. The Woo you recommended has a Sabre DAC — what if the OP prefers the sound of an R2R NOS DAC? At the OP’s budget good separates are well within reach and offer customization and future flexibility combo units just can’t. If the OP was limited to $1000 then yeah, a combo unit would probably be his best bet, but not at $3k.
Showing 3 responses by soix
Here’s an idea of what you could do with separates within your budget. You could even add a DDC to take advantage of the superior i2S connection on the DAC and get a significant performance boost — that’s what I did but you could always add the DDC later. I highly doubt a similarly-priced combo unit could match this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08QMDM631/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.denafrips.com/product-page/denafrips-pontus-15th-r2r-dac https://www.denafrips.com/product-page/denafrips-iris-12th
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