DAC under $200

DACs seem to be very system, person and room dependent on how much they are liked. One person's harsh is another person's detailed and warm can be lifeless in another setting.

That said, subscribe here and sell it in the bartertown section. It is a popular DAC that is loved by many on here.

I dread selling on the site who's name we do not speak but on here is actually fun.
 
get a Raspberry pi3 Model B with the Pi-DAC+ card. Has a Burr Brown chip in it and sound's superb. Total to build it is under 100GBP. Install Raspian lite from SDCard them get mOOde Audio Player or similar and connect to your LAN / Removable Drives, etc and the line out to an input on your amp and you're good to go, runs headless once setup.

I like this solution for streaming from removable drives, etc. but is there support in this configuration for Tidal?
 
For the Rasberry Pi users, tell me how you change your metadata & tag info, and how you transfer music quickly over to it ?

More frustration than its worth IMO. Still reason to keep a good cheap laptop around ( I found a older Macbook Pro that runs High Sierra for $150 on CL), add Audirvana, and get a good solid USB dac to go with it (Chord for ie).
 
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For the Rasberry Pi users, tell me how you change your metadata & tag info, and how you transfer music quickly over to it ?

The RPi is most commonly used as a headless renderer; rendering streams sent to it. Therefore, you would expect to use a media manager on some other computer to sort out tagging.

Transferring files depends on whether you are using storage local to the Pi, or accessing a NAS. If your RPi is just a renderer, it's not storing files at all.
 
I've just ordered a Pi-Fi DAC for £14.59. It's got a BB PCM5122 DAC on it

Arrived. Installed on RPi. Instantly recognised by Volumio as a HiFiBerry DAC+. Sounds competent enough for my ears.

Cheap (£5.60) USB PCM2704 DAC/SPDIF also arrived. That seems okay, too... Plays on the PC, and (with suitable settings) on the RPi Volumio.
 
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Massdrop has the Topping D50 DAC at the OP's price point. That's one I'd like to check out. Especially, with "dual Sabre ES9038Q2M DAC chips".
 
I like this solution for streaming from removable drives, etc. but is there support in this configuration for Tidal?

what does run headless refer to? i'm sorry i'm showing my noob status when it comes to rasp pi. i just want to make sure i understand the technology before i purchase.
 
what does run headless refer to? i'm sorry i'm showing my noob status when it comes to rasp pi. i just want to make sure i understand the technology before i purchase.
Can't speak to the actual definition, but basically it runs automatically without having to execute it inside the OS. If you get a pi and load something like volumio it just fires up the appilcation when you turn on the pi. It is the only thing running on it.

I use a pi with a hifi berry dac and volumio into my integrated and it works great. I loaded all my music onto a usb flash drive plugged into the pi. I control every from my smart phone, surface tablet, or pc.
 
what does run headless refer to?

Without a locally-connected display, keyboard or mouse. All UI is provided remotely through a network connection. And does not need a user to be logged in; it runs automatically on power-up.

Is it possible to run the pi into a separate DAC?

Yes; either directly from the Pi to a USB DAC, or using a 'hat' to generate an SPDIF stream. See my post above:

Cheap (£5.60) USB PCM2704 DAC/SPDIF also arrived
 
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Thanks cpt! I'm sure the Rasp Pi DAC Cards wont compete with a complete product such as a DAC from PS Audio or the like but has anyone compared a Pi-DAC+ or HiFiBerry DAC to something like the Topping D30, Schiit, or similar?

Also, any attractive box ideas for the Pi and PI-DAC ?
 
Thanks cpt! I'm sure the Rasp Pi DAC Cards wont compete with a complete product such as a DAC from PS Audio or the like but has anyone compared a Pi-DAC+ or HiFiBerry DAC to something like the Topping D30, Schiit, or similar?

Also, any attractive box ideas for the Pi and PI-DAC ?

I've run a couple of usb Dacs off the pi; an Audioengine d1 and nuforce Udac3. The hifi berry pro+ sounds just as good. I've also used a digi+ hat into a beresford caiman II dac which I thought was a bit better than the hifiberry dac but not mind blowingly. I've also had a Dacmagic that was pretty good but I think the hifiberry dac+ holds its own.

None of the Dacs I've had have been OMG this is soooo much better than xyz. I've have quite a few; meridian, Cambridge, teac, fiio, plus the ones I've already mentioned above.

One cool feature of the hifiberry and others like it is hardware volume control that can drive an amp directly. Also with volumio you can access the dac's internal dsp filters there five I think...I can't tell the difference between them but others might.
 
Right on! I think i'll try the dac+

now to find an attractive case for it ...
One correction, I actually have the dac+ pro that has its own clocks built into it. I used the hifiberry case but there are some universal ones on Amazon that are supposed to work as well. The hifiberry case is nice though. Also, you might want to stay away from metal cases as they supposedly block the wifi signal to the pi which would hobble remote access to the pi from phones, pc's, etc.
 
I have a Topping D30 I use on my office/desktop setup, and a Raspberry PI 3 with HifiBerry Digi+ output card feeding a Maverick D1+ tubedac through digital coaxial controlled by Rune or Volumio streaming from a Windows server to my main stereo.

I am really happy with the sound of both. The Topping wins on looks and fit and finish because my Pi is just in a black plastic case, but you might find a nicer case if you look. The Topping quality is quite good.

The other drawback with the PI is that initially I had lots of loud snap, crackle and pop digital artifacting in loud song passages with the Maverick DAC. Maverick support was no help. After a lot of trouble shooting and effort I realized I could make it go away by reducing the volume on the software (Volumio or Rune) to about 93%. Now I never have digital pops and cracks but I understand I am no longer bit perfect with the volume reduced. It took a lot of aggravation to figure this out. I think the problem lies with the Maverick DAC being sensitive to input digital signals so I don't want to taint the PI unfairly. I can't speak to how it works with the HifiDAC add-on as a DAC. Otherwise I really like the Pi.

I also have a ChromeAudio for the bedroom setup and the drawback with it is it will not play Gapless natively. You have to use a particular app (HifiPlayer?) to decode the signal on your controller device before the signal goes to the ChromeAudio to get Gapless, which again makes it not bitperfect (at least that's what I understand). I have Gapless this way and the result sounds OK but it is must my bedroom setup not critical listening.
 
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