2. digital
  3. 1421880823

What's the greatest bargain in DAC's these days?

Hi, Gang,
I am currently running my Music Hall CD 25.2 CD player as a transport through my Musical Fidelity M1 DAC. I also have the Musical Fidelity V-Link 192 for playing hi-res files from the USB port on my laptop.
DAC's are such a fast-moving market segment that I started to wonder whether there was a "stupid good" DAC, even better than the MF M1 DAC, that could be had for well under $1000.
I started a thread in the Amps/Preamps forum called "What's The Greatest Bargain in SET These Days" that yielded tons of great info. I hope this thread does, as well!
rebbi

Showing 2 responses by ait

ait
480 posts
 
I built a Buffalo IIIse into my 26 tube preamp, using the 26 tube fed by Lundahl LL1676 transformers as its output stage, and added a Sonore asynchronous USB board in there as well. Salas Reflektor-D regulators supply power for the DAC and USB board, fed from a choke input LCLC power supply. So now I can plug S/PDIF, USB, and six conventional sources all into the same box and switch between them. The combination of the Buffalo IIIse with 1920's tube technology is very nice, indeed!

If you already have a tube preamp with some room in the chassis and some DIY skills, adding the Buffalo IIIse board for $279.00 (with TP regulators included) is a great bargain! Excellent sound as well.

The Preamp that became a DAC
ait
480 posts
 
Dgarretson,

The Sonore board was designed with the Buffalo DAC in mind. It accepts both PCM and native DSD, completely isolates the USB side from the clean side, has its own oversampling filter (optional to use) which they claim is superior to that on the ES9018 chip (I'm still evaluating that), and can be run synchronously with the Buffalo board if so desired.

Here's a link:

http://www.rendu.sonore.us/USB.html

It requires ~300mA to run and can be used with either a 5V supply fed into its own on-board regulator, or with a 3.6V supply bypassing its on-board regulator. I'm using a Salas Reflektor-D regulator set at 3.6V for mine. Sound is very, very nice...I especially like DSD so far.
More to discover