What made you want to use an external DAC?

The external dac came about as I tried different devices. I was looking for something to replace the XM radio that sounded terrible in the home system. The Logitech squeezebox classic seemed to be a fantastic solution. It could play streaming services and centralized music files. Logitech media server was installed on the pc for central file support.

It wasn't too long after that I was learning about the better internal dac in the squeezebox touch. So there it was along with an upgraded power supply and a duet remote. It did in fact sound better than the old classic and worked fine over wi-fi or ethernet. The entire library was converted to quality flac files at this point. The top of the line Logitech product was the transporter and I was curious of just how good this could get. Unfortunately there was talk about discontinuing the hardware line(they did:(). This thing was expensive and I didn't want something that would potentially be unsupported.

After more reading there was a potential answer to the next level. A used netbook was ordered with an intel atom processor, ssd and no fan. It runs a very stripped down windows 7, foobar, and squeezelite. A new usb dac arrived around the same time at a good discount. There was some improvements noted yet something didn't seem to fit. A different dac arrived a year later when the budget was better and the homework was done. It was used at 3x the price of the first dac. This is what was settled on and I'm still picking up new details in songs four years later. An android app remote and a windows tablet remote on wi-fi is the icing.
 
Just reading about DACs 2years ago or so(pretty sure it was on this forum actually!). It piqued my interest and made me want to try it out. I was pretty dissatisfied with the sound coming from my PC, so I was eager to maybe getting good sound from streaming.

Well I got myself an external DAC and in short, it has rekindled me with digital files :) now I am super pleased with the sound I get and love playing digital files.

This DAC I have sounds excellent to these well-trained ears(musician for 20 years now and experience in studio recording and mixing, and live mixing as well) :) Very fluid and clear sound, yet on the warmer side as far as other digital equipment I've heard is concerned.
 
. . . because my CEC transport at the time didn’t have one. It was as simple as that. Never went full high end on DACs, as the technology was ever-changing, and the depreciation curve on DACs was sick. But broke into the $3-4,000 bracket at one point. Still have that one and it still sounds great.

I still use them on the back ends of more modest digital streamers that lack a strong analog stage. A better one like a Transporter can usually get by without one. But I am always tempted.
 
My first foray into external DAC's mostly came about as result of putting together my headphone / nearfield system.

I mean I had used a Fiio D3 with some Sony wireless headphones before that.
But that was simply as a "means to an end" in that I just needed to convert the digital signal from our TV to an analog signal the headphones could use.

Anyhow,back to the HP/NF rig,in the process of putting that rig together I used a NAD 106 preamp as I wanted something that could drive 600Ω AKG's.
See I was feeding that preamp from my PC's SB Zx analog outs,and I was hearing a good deal of PC noise with the AKG's.
Now in the past I did'nt hear that at all listening to my Sony MDR-7506's via the SB Zx's ACM (audio control module).
And I had tried the AKG's with the SB Zx ACM as well before,and while it sounded OK,it needed to be cranked to near max to get a decent listening level.
So enter the NAD 106 preamp and the realization the noise was actually there,
But with the SB Zx ACM it was just buried there waaayyy deep in the background,too deep to really notice.

So I need some isolation from the PC's noise.

I figured WTH I'll try another one of those cheap Fiio DAC's via the SB Zx's optical outs instead of the analog (RCA) outs...

And d@mned if it did'nt sound MUCH better connected that way,and all that PC noise was gone.

Thus began much studying up on the subject,and as an experiment I scored a deal on an older Schitt Modi optical.
And that sounded even better than the Fiio D3,so I had proven to myself the whole DAC thing was an area worthy of exploration.

So then I got a Parasound D/AC-1000 and WOW did that sound good,at that point I felt this was more than I expected,so I'm happy for now.

Then the OptiModi got moved over to the BR system (where it still sounds d@mn good) and the HP/NF system uses the D/AC-1000.

A while later I found a good deal on another D/AC-1000 so seeing I liked the first one soooo much I grabbed that 2nd one for my big rack enclosure system.

I'm strictly a redbook guy right now,so for me these are all I really need.
IMO the PCM-63 is about as good as it gets for redbook.
And those D/AC-1000 can be upgraded to handle 24/96k res. files,if I ever deem it necessary.
And if I need to listen to higher res material I always have the Yamaha CD-S300-rk in that rack enclosure rig.

So yeah,it's definitely not snake oil if you ask me.

FWIW

Bret P.
 
I've used external DACs since the early days of digital - had one of the original Arcam Black Box units mated with an Arcam Delta 70 player (which as built like a tank and outlasted later supposedly high end players). My rule was always that unless I could hear a difference on blind testing , and a positive one, I never bought a component.

I still use a Classe DAC1 in an older system and a Hegel in my main system.
 
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