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For those who run a DAC or DACs- what do you own?

SpeakerLabFan said:
I'm under-using the GF Tube Dac for the digital sources in the bedroom system, but the headphone amp gets daily use - it very nice!
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Same here, I almost exclusively use it as an excellent headphone amp; when I go slumming and play CDs instead of vinyl The DAC in the GF unit also allows for much better-sounding CDs than out of the player's RCA jacks -better imaging and definition.
 
I am using a Musical Fidelity X-DAC V3 and a X-10 V3 tube buffer. I use it for 2 channel from my Pioneer BDP 05fd. Sounds great!:D
 
Adcom GCD 600 picked up at a great price shortly after HD came out. Nice analog sound makes listening to CD's a pleasure.
 
I own a North Star Design Model 192 DAC, which looks like this:

model192inside.jpg


Before that I owned a PS Audio DAC, I think the SL2, and briefly a Musical Fidelity X-DAC. I have to say, to my ears and in my system, the differences were very, very small.
 
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I run a Bel Canto DAC3 with digital volume control, processing my Logitech Squeezebox. I really like the combination, but have considered going with a straight up DAC and nice preamp instead. Have also considered getting a Logitech Transporter...
 
I am saving my pennies for the DAC Magic. I am getting rid of my CD player and putting all my CDs on a server. Then USB out to the DAC. The server is headless and I control it with my laptop over the house wireless router.
 
Audio Alchemy DTI 2.0/ Power Station 3 via I2S to an Audio Alchemy DDE 1.2 HDCD/ Power Station 3 combo....

Using them for the HTPC and the U-Verse box, but also have a TOSLINK from the Sony SCD-CE775 and a coaxial from the Cal Labs Icon into them....using the de-jitter box along with the DAC allows me to have one TOSLINK and one coax directly into the Digital Decoding Engine and another of each into the Digital Transmission Interface...computer definitely goes through the de-jitter box as well as the Sony....

I've had these since just before Audio Alchemy went tits up, I guess about a decade now, and they've always worked well...I did modify the PS3's with Schottky diodes and Black Gate capacitors, and put WBT RCA jacks on the DDE...

Are they as good as the goodies I bring home from my part time job?

Nope, but they're pretty good for what they are....

I also will occasionally replace the DDE with a highly tweaked ART DI/O just for a change in sound....

I just recently brought these things out from hibernation to use with my "new" HTPC and while they had been well used in the many years since I first bought them, they had not been used in at least a couple of years...it took the better part of a week for them to really settle in and show what they really sound like....when I first inserted them in the system I wondered what I saw in them all those years ago...but, after about 5 or 6 days, they really opened up and started to sing...much, much nicer after having a signal run through them for over 100 hours...it reminds me that Theta used to note in their instruction manuals that it took at least 48 hours after turning off their units for them to properly stabilize and therefore didn't recommend turning them off...I've never really found any digital gear that didn't respond similarly, from my AA stuff to even such lofty gear as the Dodson and Bryston DAC's when I have brought such beasts home to play with...

Now, the HTPC, (which is made from an old Dell Dimension that has a 40gb drive and to which I added a 160gb drive and using an older still Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card that allows a digital output through it's 1/8" multi jack, and running XP Pro) has over three days of continuous play ability, all WAVs, no compression for me, and I still have over three times as much space still left on the machine, has become my favorite source....I use Media Monkey as the playback program as it has much better sound than iToons, and rip to disk either via EAC or iToons....I still have about 5 or 6 times as many CD's to rip, but it sure is easy to use this to select music....especially if I don't know what I want to listen to...I just put it on random and walk away....or, stream old time radio programs while I sit at the dining room table on this laptop....

I was spurred on to adapt this computer to HTPC duties when my Pioneer PDR-05 CD stand alone CD burner died....and, I hadn't burned even 50 discs with that piece-O-crap in all the years I've had it...I needed something that would allow me to record analog to digital, so the analog inputs and outputs of the Santa Cruz are in the tape loop, in place of the PDR-05, and with Audacity I can once again transfer my analog to digital....

After all, it IS a brave, new world...right?

.
 
djnagle said:
I am saving my pennies for the DAC Magic. I am getting rid of my CD player and putting all my CDs on a server. Then USB out to the DAC. The server is headless and I control it with my laptop over the house wireless router.
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You may want to rethink using the USB on the Dac Magic:

The DacMagic does exhibit very strong attenuation of jitter from all input signals due to our Anagram ATF upsampling and reclocking algorithm. However, as you have touched on, the USB interface itself inherently carries a much higher level of jitter than S/PDIF/TosLink, as the audio data have to be inserted into a TDM stream according to a 12MHz clock nonsynchronous with the audio. Also, with USB audio 1.0, you are limited to 16-bit/44.1kHz or /48kHz transfer only.

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/cambridge_audio_azur_dacmagic_da_converter/index3.html

Probing the DacMagic's USB data input with a utility program, the Cambridge identified itself to the host computer as "C-Media USB Headphone Set," and confirmed that the only sample rates supported were 44.1 and 48kHz, and that the maximum bit depth it could handle was 16. If I sent 24-bit data to the DacMagic from the Mac mini I use as my music server, these data were truncated to 16 bits.

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/cambridge_audio_azur_dacmagic_da_converter/index2.html

By the way I am running a Dac Magic in my system and am loving it. :yes:

Cheers

Lar
 
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whoaru99 said:
Analog Devices AD-1955 evaluation board powered by two gel batteries. It's a raw (uncased) circuit board sitting on the table with wires connected and cables plugged in. :)
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I like your style.

I'm running a Hong Kong/e-bay sourced CS4397 DAC, slightly modified, sitting in a gutted Harmon Kardon CDP chassis that I can't find the top cover for. Using an Onkyo DX2500 CDP for digital. Minimum bux, maximum ugly, love listening to it.

BTW I'm working on a twin DAC w/a tube output stage on the other side of the chassis. Too much fun, man.
 
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