Lets talk About DACS

Cylontymany

Super Member
I am presently using my headphone jack on the back of my mac to my vintage receiver but I would like to maybe go the dac route to improve the sound. Are there some good budget dacs $100-300 range?
 
People seem to really like Schiit. I have no experience with them, but they get great reviews and they have four DACs ranging from $99 to $2299!
 
Look up the Multi-bit Dacs by Schitt, they found a new way to dac from the delta-sigs chips. also there is a sub forum here called DACS (4 sub forums down from this one) where your question plus more as talked about there on a daily basis. there are several threads on the Schitt dacs there you can read through and if you need more head over to Head-fi and there is a ton more material there, Plus a book by the founder Jason, good read
 
You could look at the Maverick Audio D2 which would offer you a tube output for 315 shipped with all upgrades. I recently picked one up and its pretty impressive. Especially for 300.
 
I have a Schiit Modi 2 Uber ($150)and a little NuForce $(179). Both work great for me. If you don't get the "Uber" upgrade with the Modi 2 it's $99, and still sounds great, at least to my ears. I had a little NuForce Udac3 ($99) that worked really well until it was stolen.
 
I am presently using my headphone jack on the back of my mac to my vintage receiver but I would like to maybe go the dac route to improve the sound. Are there some good budget dacs $100-300 range?


Get one of these. A wery good dac and then so many thing moore. Jack out in the rear

https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-DEQ2496-BEHRINGER-ULTRACURVE-PRO/dp/B000CCN152
 
I just use my itunes library for my music-The Maverick Audio D2 looks nice! Any thought any more suggestions?
 
I just use my itunes library for my music-The Maverick Audio D2 looks nice! Any thought any more suggestions?

That Maverick D2 does look great - don't think you can go wrong with that

I recently got a NuPrime Audio uDSD from Sonic Unity and I really like the sound of it. I run it through a separate tube pre-amp to sweeten things up a bit.

24-bit/384kHz, native DSD 256, very well made, excellent specs, small, no external power supply (powered by the USB), reasonably priced, works with Windows and Mac OS, etc.

$179... plus, they are offering a $50 rebate if you send them a used DAC in any condition

https://sonicunity.com/collections/dac/products/udsd

NuPrime.jpg
 
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Thanxs-I will check this out too! I just want a DAC I can just plug in and dont look back staying below $300 The maverick Audio D2 still sounds nice but I dont really want to get into all the "Upgrade Thing" Please dont get me started-I will research it out to death and I am tired of doing that anymore...
 
Heck I'm the cheap one, I use a Aune T-1 with a 6922 tube, works fine for me and only 150 bucks, its 3 years old now.
 
I use an Objective ODAC for feeding my PC into my SX-950. It's at the same price point as the Shiit Modi. You wouldn't go wrong with either.
 
Are you hearing background noise of any kind? If you are not, then you dont need an external DAC. Try and listen to one hooked up to see if you can tell the difference.
 
Sweet! Let me know how you like it... I'm absolutely loving mine so far. The balanced outputs are a huge plus in my book as well...
Dig your screen name!

So the Korg sounds amazing, but I'm having some trouble. I'm streaming audio through it from a laptop playing mp3's with Media Monkey (I know the Korg is capable of a lot more, but this is how I plan on using it for the most part), and occasionally the audio will suddenly and all at once become very distorted with louds pops and skips that sound a lot like a torn speaker cone. When this happens the song also seems to slow down slightly, playing at maybe 3/4 the proper speed. Each time it's happened I've simply unplug the USB cable from the laptop and plug it back in and everything goes back to normal, but what could be causing this?

I installed all the necessary drivers as I was planning on sticking with Media Monkey as my primary playback software, but I did install the Audiogate software.
 
Try a different USB cable and/or port for starters.
I have a new USB cable coming in tomorrow, and I have some meatier RCA cables I'm going to hook up as well. I'm wondering if Media Monkey is the problem. The crazy thing is that once the distortion has started, it continues regardless of the source. Last night it did it again, and I switched between MM, Audiogate, and Youtube with the same result. Doesn't stop until I break the USB connection and replug.

I'll try a different port tonight.
 
So I uninstalled the drivers as well as the Audiogate software. I also uninstalled the drivers for another DAC I forgot I had installed when my buddy brought his Focusrite DAC over to show me how good an external DAC sounds. No issues yet as of the uninstall. Going to keep running it for a while and see. I'm hoping there was just some conflict among the different DAC drivers causing the trouble.

Also I have no plans to use the Korg to do any upconversion at this time, even knowing that is the primary function of this particular model. I just wanted my massive mp3 collection to sound a little better. The trouble with vinyl is you have to buy vinyl - I already have a ridiculous digital music collection, and I figured that if I could spend a little money and make that sing, I won't have to bust my balls tracking down everything I want to listen to on vinyl. I do have quite a bit of lossless as well, so I'm happy the Korg has the flexibility to show that off, too, as the want arises.
 
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