Upgrade DAC or Buy New

"5 Y/O dac technology is ancient"

Yeah, but I know of some manufacturers that are still using the 'ancient' Burr Brown 1704 DAC in their new equipment. It is used in the Muse (4 of them in dual differential balanced mode). Steve Nugent at Empirical Audio uses them in his $6K Spoiler DAC.

Nickt: Thanks; I'll keep that in mind.

Stereo: I'm already using a preamp in the form of a Tact 2.2 XP. The Tact has an internal DAC that can be used to feed power amps directly, or I can feed an outboard DAC using its digital outputs. I'm also using the Tacts built in digital crossover, so I have to use the Tact volume control. I suppose I can connect a preamp in the chain before the main speaker power amps, but I would have to set the volume of the preamp at some fixed level since I am using the Tacts volume control. I would prefer not to do that however, and use a DAC that has a high enough output level.

Larryi: Yeah, I think that it what I'm realizing. I find it interesting that my 10 year old DAC (using the discontinued Burr Brown 1704 chips) sounds better to me than the much newer DAC (using AKM chips) built into the Tact unit.

Larryi,

Interesting; I just found out that Esoteric also uses them in their $14k X-01 CD Player. As I also mentioned earlier, Empirical uses them in their Spoiler DAC; this is a quote from their site: "PCM1704U-K D/A chips - some of the best-sounding D/A chips ever produced".

Interesting... It makes me think about keeping the DAC I have, but I would need an active preamp after the DAC, since the output voltage is too low. Do you know if a simple active line stage is sold for this purpose? I only need a single input and single output (probably with the ability to adjust output gain).

Glory,

Now I'm 95% digital through a Sonos system, 5% through CD. No LP in my future; too fiddly and inconvenient for me.

Thanks for the info, Stereo. The funny thing is I'm awaiting delivery of Audio Mirror's SET 45 amps which are supposed to arrive tomorrow. I couldn't replace the Tact with another preamp, as I'm using the Tact for digital room correction and crossovers. All I can do is add an analog preamp like the T-61 after Tact and before the amps like this: CD Transport -> Tact -> Outboard DAC -> Active Preamp -> Amps.

I'm also looking more closely at the possibility of upgrading my outboard DAC for a higher voltage level which would eliminate the need for an active preamp. I've been noticing that there are several high end DAC manufactures that think the Burr Brown 1704 (which I have in my DAC) was the most musical DAC made (it first came out in 1998) and are still using it in their products. I do really like the sound of my DAC, but it does not currently provide enough output voltage, which was the original reason for this thread.

"It may be the best $500.00 I've ever spent on a player or any component."

Isn't it great in the world of megabuck electronics when you find a sleeper?!?

"Your gonna love those Audio Mirror amps!"

I certainly hope so! I really wanted to try the SET route, but needed something that had more than just a few watts. How do like the class D stuff? I had thought about it, but decided to stick with tubes for now.