what dac for airport express and spotify open??

[admin_exported]

as above, budget £200 max, i dont mind buying 2nd hand. i may be stuck with spotify open as i'm having trouble upgrading (shouldn't have it at all really as i'm in ireland[:#]), given that i wont be getting high bitrates unless i find a way of upgrading, i wonder is an external dac even worth getting? or perhaps that's more of a reason to get one?

i can get a new v dac for e180, any thoughts on them?

ta..

 

[Anonymous]

Max I use the Beresford Caiman and Spotify premium and the results are very good indeed. It's under budget and a very fine DAC. I use it via USB for computer and use my Marantz Cd player's digital Coaxial out into the Caiman as well. I guess if you got one you could always see if the Off board DAC was more enjoyable by trying the same.

D

 

[Anonymous]

cheers dave, yea i was thinking about seeing if whatever dac i get is better than the one in my cd6003, and i will experiment.

i'm mainly looking for whatever may be best suited to improving the apparent low bitrate stuff spotify open offers, to be honest the airport express does a decent job, i could happily live with it for a while.

but, i've done alot of googling and the general consensus seems to be that an external dac is better. hence this thread, i'll defo shortlist the caiman

, have you (or anyone) heard a v dac?

 

[Anonymous]

done a bit of experimenting today, i put my reference dire straits greatest hits cd in my laptop, and played it on windows media player through the airport express to my amp via airfoil, and it sounded very good, much closer (very close in fact), to how it sounds from my cdp than i would have thought..

so the dac in the airport express can't be that bad. i think i'll put my search for an external dac on hold until i see what spotify premium sounds like. might save myself some dough

 

[Sorreltiger]

As you can see from my profile, I am using a V-Dac with an Airport Express and Spotify Premium. It made a huge difference to my system and I would happily recommend it.

 

[John Duncan]

Better to spend 120 quid on Premium...

 

[Anonymous]

i'll have it next week, courtesy of a helpful fellow forumite

, then i'll see what's what...

 

[Anonymous]

well i found a vdac going for e150 and said why not, and my next question is....

do dacs need to burn in?

i hope so

 

[6th.replicant]

maxflinn:
well i found a vdac going for e150 and said why not, and my next question is....

do dacs need to burn in?

i hope so

Aye, my rDAC needed 100 hours before it stopped sounding as if my speakers' woofers were made of flubber and the tweeters were taped-over with bulletproof, kevlar-weave Duck Tape.

(I left my iTunes -> Airport' -> DAC playing constantly overnight, and when I was out - no need to use amp.)

 

[Anonymous]

cheers 6th, i was hoping someone would say that, i'm not usually one to believe that "burn in" changes much, however i'll wait and see

one other thing i noticed is that i need my amp turned up a notch more than usual to achieve the same volume level, i'm not sure why that is?

it's not a major problem anyway if the dac doesn't prove to be any better than the aex, i'm sure it will enhance my humax's sound or maybe my bdp (he types unconvincingly

)..

 

[datay]

Max, google "dac burn in" for useful info on this (Stan Beresford posting on another forum in answer to the same question). Seems the DAC just needs an input, and to be connected to an amp for "load" when burning in - the amp doesn't need to be on, so speakers won't be either (no, I don't fully understand it but the info's all there).

If you got the DAC off ebay, is it new or used? If used, you can ask the previous owner how long it was in use for.

The need to turn up the amp may be because of slightly lower gain (i.e. volume) from the DAC output. Nothing to worry about (Cyrus amps have a setting to offset the input sensitivty because of different input gains).

Hope this helps - sounds like you got a good buy, the vDAC is pretty highly-rated for the money at full price.

 

[Anonymous]

thanks datay, yea i've already googled that and many seem to think burn in is required

, i bought it new for e150 so yea i guess it was a good price..

but there may be another problem, it seems that i cannot have both a digital coaxial cable and an optical connected at the same time

, i had the coax connected to my bdp and the optical to the aex, and neither works when both are connected afaics.

there is an input toggle switch that has two settings, usb or coax, but both the coax and optical are coupled under the "coax" setting

, if this means i have to turn off the dac and remove one in order for the other to work then that's not very user friendly, i hope that isn't the case?

 

[Anonymous]

connection issues aside, i actually think this thing is sounding alot better (i've had two bottles of miller), can this really be? im a burn in sceptic

, what's going on here? will i soon be best buddies with alienrik

and be spending all my dough on power kords

, and what about all that hocus pocus about hdmi cables being the same

 

[daveh75]

maxflinn:connection issues aside, i actually think this thing is sounding alot better (i've had two bottles of miller), can this really be? im a burn in sceptic

, what's going on here? will i soon be best buddies with alienrik and be spending all my dough on power kords

, and what about all that hocus pocus about hdmi cables being the same

I wouldn't worry max, 'burn in' of electronics is cobblers.,,It's probably the beer, or your just becoming accustomed to the sound

What are you feeding the DAC out of interest, just Spotify Open? Have you tried ripping CDs to ALAC (lossless) and playing them?

I haven't heard the VDAC, but fed lossless from the AEX, i'd be surprised if it doesen't better your CDP, based on my experience of DACs

The other thing to consider is the quality of the recordings you're listening to... A DAC isn't a cure for poor recordings, if they're poorly recorded in the first place, it won't matter what bitrate/codec they're ripped in they'll still be poor recordings.

 

[Anonymous]

i've tried playing a cd on my pc sent to the dac via aex and initially it didn't seem to sound as good as my cdp, even though doing so last night withouit the dac it sounded great, not better though

i havn't ripped anything or played anything lossless yet, i've just been using spotify really, same bitrate as before, but i have to say i listened to a few artists that i'd been playing over the last few days (katie melua, whitney, dido etc) and they did sound very good indeed.

perhaps i am getting used to the different sound. perhaps the vdac will show it's worth more when premium is up and running. things are looking up anyway

 

[Anonymous]

Sorreltiger:As you can see from my profile, I am using a V-Dac with an Airport Express and Spotify Premium. It made a huge difference to my system and I would happily recommend it.sorreltiger, do you (or anyone else) know if it's possible to have an optical cable connected to the v dac (airport express) and a digital coax (cdp) at the same time while being able to use either?

i can only seem to get either to work when they are soley connected, is there something i'm missing here? ta...

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is. However, you have to turn off the source that isn't being used.

Haven't done it for a while so will check later to-night.

 

[Sorreltiger]

Hi Max

I have looked into this, although I only use optical myself. Grottyash is quite correct in saying that the V-Dac will automatically sense the input sending the signal. This means that only one should be 'active' or switched on in order for this to work!

BTW, I find the sound on Spotify Premium slightly warmer than my CD, but very pleasing indeed.

 

[Anonymous]

thanks sorreltiger, grottyash

..

i probably need to disconnect my pc from the airport express when i want to use the coax input too, perhaps that's why the v dac wont recognise the coax input when the optical is connected to the aex?

 

[Anonymous]

Give me 5 minutes to check.

 

[Anonymous]

Worked perfectly for me.

Started with itunes (wireless to AE, using iphone as remote), stopped the song, turned on the TV, switched to the coax immediately, switched off the TV then started the song again, the V-dac switched to optical straightaway. Tried it a few times - no problems.

I think the important thing is to stop whatever you're playing on itunes then turn on the TV, and turn off the TV before continuing with itunes.

TV was on standby, by the way, and my AE is new and has the latest firmware updates.

 

[Anonymous]

Grottyash:
Worked perfectly for me.

Started with itunes (wireless to AE, using iphone as remote), stopped the song, turned on the TV, switched to the coax immediately, switched off the TV then started the song again, the V-dac switched to optical straightaway. Tried it a few times - no problems.

I think the important thing is to stop whatever you're playing on itunes then turn on the TV, and turn off the TV before continuing with itunes.

TV was on standby, by the way, and my AE is new and has the latest firmware updates.
thanks a mill grottyash

. ill try that out later on this evening...