What DAC?

[Crickers]

Probably (certainly) done to death and I apologise in advance

Just bought a A19 on eBay (awesome Amp!) and looking to get the most out of my digital music collection after neglecting hifi for far too long and just spendng life listening to Spotify. I would like to get a decent DAC. Obvious offenders are the Mojo, and maybe I could stretch up budget to the M-Dac but I'd say it would have to smash the Mojo if I did. Connections are important, and I do like the idea of having a 'proper' home DAC rather than the diddy (and hot running) Mojo sitting on top on my Amp. If the Mojo is as good as everyone says it is though I'd be hard to see passed it. Help!! Any others I need to think of?

(edited for some criminal grammatical errors)

 

[insider9]

If you're listening to Spotify than the Yamaha WXC-50 is excellent. Pre-amp, dac, streamer and USB Flac player. Very good value for money at £299 with ESS Sabre dac built in and if you can get it somehow second hand even better. I'm not sure that a stand alone dac is the way to go unless you're going to connect many digital devices.

Of course if you want to go that direction both Mojo and Mdac are very good. Demo would be adviseable in any case.

 

[Crickers]

Spotify yes, but going bounding down the MBP/FLAC route now me thinks. Would probably be connecting Apple TV/PS4 etc if I have the connections available...

 

[insider9]

Yamaha does FLAC, DSD and many other formats and has Airplay also. One digital input only though so if you need to connect many devices you're better off going Mdac route. Mojo would probably not be advisable.

 

[muljao]

Arcam irdac ii springs to mind

 

[gasolin]

What sources, cdplayer,pc or both?

Do you want bluetooth?

 

[Crickers]

Im guessing mainly FLAC through the MacBook. probably want to shove Apple TV and PS4 in there somewhere if possible.

Bluetooth would be awesome but not essential.

 

[muljao]

Sounds more and more like the irdac, 2 opticals for Apple and ps4, usb for computer, Bluetooth, a headphone amp and preamp should it ever be required. They are going for under 400 at moment

 

[gasolin]

Budget?

 

[luckylion100]

and get this.

https://www.oppodigital.co.uk/Sonica_DAC.html

Just unboxed the HA-1 Pre-dac/headphone amp and it's quite literally amazing. I think the Sonica could be an absolute steal.

 

[gasolin]

sorry double post

 

[Crickers]

gasolin - I'd ideally spend up to 400 but I'm loathe to buy something at that price if spending a little more gets me a lot more....

I hate these bloody gadget buying decisions. XD

 

[slice]

This company is well regarded, though I don't have one of their dacs, you could research reviews

http://schiit.eu.com/dacs

 

[luckylion100]

This company is well regarded, though I don't have one of their dacs, you could research reviews

http://schiit.eu.com/dacs

Ive only heard good things about schiit products. ;-)

 

[DIB]

The Beresford Caiman SEG is excellent and comes in under £300

http://www.homehifi.co.uk/S/tc-7535.htm

.

 

[DocG]

Probably (certainly) done to death and I apologise in advance

Just bought a A19 on eBay (awesome Amp!) and looking to get the most out of my digital music collection after neglecting hifi for far too long and just spendng life listening to Spotify. I would like to get a decent DAC. Obvious offenders are the Mojo, and maybe I could stretch up budget to the M-Dac but I'd say it would have to smash the Mojo if I did. Connections are important, and I do like the idea of having a 'proper' home DAC rather than the diddy (and hot running) Mojo sitting on top on my Amp. If the Mojo is as good as everyone says it is though I'd be hard to see passed it. Help!! Any others I need to think of?

(edited for some criminal grammatical errors)

What DAC do you use at the moment?

 

[gasolin]

This company is well regarded, though I don't have one of their dacs, you could research reviews

http://schiit.eu.com/dacs

Ive only heard good things about schiit products. ;-)

They get HOT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlADcpbxbg

 

[luckylion100]

because this site won't allow me to 'quote' on my first reply after logging in...

So in short you're saying they're a steaming pile of schiit?! ;-)

 

[shadders]

because this site won't allow me to 'quote' on my first reply after logging in...

So in short you're saying they're a steaming pile of schiit?! ;-)

Hi,

If you are hitting the spam filter, then it may be that the quote includes a link - http. So, remove the link and you can then post.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

[Gazzip]

Slightly left field, and a bit above your budget, but have you considered a MiniDSP Dirac?

https://www.minidsp.com/dirac-series/ddrc-22da

Bag yourself a DAC with integrated Digital Sound Processing. Just a thought. I have one and it is currently my favourite toy... The $799 (£660) includes the measuring microphone, but you would need to budget for import duties from HK... It even works as a preamp for digital sources!

I think that paulkebab uses a similar thing from Behringer which is a bit cheaper...

 

[muljao]

not to affend anybody, you can always get recommendations above you're budget (400) so do reveal you real limit,budget ;-)

Good point. 400 is loads to spend on a dac

 

[muljao]

I was quick to mention the irdac ii because it being Arcam, approx same price as the mojo you mentioned and the fact that the a19 is quite a good amp that maybe you wouldn't want to go cheap. The difference between DACs at price ranges is often argued, many saying cheap DACs are as good.

With this in mind I use an SMSL M3 DAC that has usb, optical, coax input. It also has headphone out. 70 pounds on Amazon, I can't fault it

 

[luckylion100]

Slightly left field, and a bit above your budget, but have you considered a MiniDSP Dirac?

https://www.minidsp.com/dirac-series/ddrc-22da

Bag yourself a DAC with integrated Digital Sound Processing. Just a thought. I have one and it is currently my favourite toy... The $799 (£660) includes the measuring microphone, but you would need to budget for import duties from HK... It even works as a preamp for digital sources!

I think that paulkebab uses a similar thing from Behringer which is a bit cheaper...

You're not using this as a DAC as it's feeding a Dac? In DAC form how does it fare? I'm still confused by your component chain as mentioned on another thread but hey I'm a dimwit that can't get his own pre-amp to mute! ;-)

 

[Gazzip]

Slightly left field, and a bit above your budget, but have you considered a MiniDSP Dirac?

https://www.minidsp.com/dirac-series/ddrc-22da

Bag yourself a DAC with integrated Digital Sound Processing. Just a thought. I have one and it is currently my favourite toy... The $799 (£660) includes the measuring microphone, but you would need to budget for import duties from HK... It even works as a preamp for digital sources!

I think that paulkebab uses a similar thing from Behringer which is a bit cheaper...

You're not using this as a DAC as it's feeding a Dac? In DAC form how does it fare? I'm still confused by your component chain as mentioned on another thread but hey I'm a dimwit that can't get his own pre-amp to mute! ;-)

They do a version with a DAC in it. Digital source in (transport or streamer/network player) and analogue source out...

 

[paulkebab]

the iRDAC is the obvious complementary piece of kit, and very good it is too. But I found as I fine tuned my system it was sounding slightly too warm more often than not. Did a bake-off with the MDAC and bingo, swapped it out and I'm a very happy chap. It just brought back into the fore some of the detail that needed to be restored to the sounstage. Synergy is what makes all this happen so have a listen to whatever you can, they are both very good DACs with inputs galore.

Re the DSP the Behringer I bought works (in a very basic sense) as a modern-day graphic equaliser, it will do a heck of a lot more than that for relatively low outlay. A good read-up on the web is definitely needed to understand what it can do. I don't use it that much really, but when I want it to do its stuff it delivers. To possibly answer another query I use it pre-DAC in the digital domain, I read up that the internal DAC it has isn't the best but it wasn't my intention to use it anyway. I did consider the Antimode but got the impression it would be better for balancing subs in a complete system. Happy to be proved wrong on that and equally happy I plumped for the Behringer.