Small, great sounding DAC & Amp combo / one box ?

[westerniser]

Hello all,

Does anyone have any experience of small, neat amp and dac systems to play digital files from my Mac? Speakers are mini Harbeth P3esr.

I have identified the following:

Rega Dac with Brio-r - Small, neat, good value. Heard the dac but not the amp.

Audiolab M-Dac with 8200 power amp - I can hide the power amp, so only the M-Dac is visible and operable. Wouldn't it be great if they made a power amp the size on the M-Dac, or all in one box!

Naim UnitiQute - Neat overall package. Perhaps not much power?

Does anyone have any experience here? I'm looking to start demoing, although may have to buy used and take the risk.

Any other examples of mini separates, or one box contenders? Budget is, ideally around £1200, but can go up to around £2k.

Thanks

 

[shooter]

Worth keeping an eye on this thread for an insite to the M Dac:

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/m-dac-vs-naim-uniti-vs-ta-receiver-the-start

 

[ESP2009]

Worth keeping an eye on this thread for an insite to the M Dac:

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/m-dac-vs-naim-uniti-vs-ta-receiver-the-start

Thanks for the referral Shooter!

But don't get too carried away with reading my ramblings.

 

[tino]

Small form factor amps (or half size separate) with digital inputs:

Wadia 151 Power DAC

Leema Elements Amplifier + DAC module

Bel Canto C5i

Wyred4Sound mINT

Cyrus 6xpd/8xpd

 

[WishTree]

Peachtree. You can pcik up the one that makes more sense for you.

I personally would chose their pre mathhed to a more muscular Power Amp but the Nova or other integrated could be all in one box solution.

They look great and sound pretty good for the money.

I personally would be away from Class D amplification and mostly small boxes come from the logic that Class D amplification can be fit into small form factors.

I have experienced Rotel RB 1562 and none of the reviews I read say with full confidence that a Class D amplificaion is at part with regular Class A/B amplification that are used else where.

BTW, I still own the M-DAC and it is brilliant. You can add up any Power amp (though given a choice I prefer the M-DAC as only a DAC but not as pre) or a Marantz Pearl Lite amplifier (brilliant - works great with many. For fun we tried the B&W 804D with Lite and it showed no stress!)

 

[spockfish]

My advice would be to listen to the Brio R. While the Rega DAC is very good, the combination is even better. The synergy between Rega components makes it very good value for money.