which dac to go for

[admin_exported]

which is the best dac to go for, the beresford caiman with the gator or the arcam rdac or should save up and go for the rega dac. i have the fiio e7 and e9 combo which has given me the taste of what a good dac can sound like and this combo only cost me £130. now i want more, alot more. i use headphones alot, the shure srh840 and i will use the fiio e9 as my headphone amp.....is the rega going to be overkill

thanks all

stephen

 

[Cypher]

I have the Arcam Rdac and it's working beautifully. Sounds so much better than my Marantz CD player.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi stephenmacks

Not sure if this helps (as I am a bit late in answering)... But having owned both the Beresford Caiman (with Onkyo ND-S1) and the Fiio E7 + E9 combo...I personaly slightly preferred the later of the 2.

Fiio E9 is great headphone amp IMHO...Great value for money.

Can't say that I have heard the stand alone Rega Dac...But the E9 + E7 compares favourable to my old Rega Saturn CDP.

Cheers w2s

 

[Anonymous]

I'm about to order an Audio-GD NFB-2 which should be a stellar performer considering its price.

Don't know if you can find a place where you can listen to it, but you can always try to contact the company and see if they can send you one so you can test it.

The beresford caiman should also be a nice DAC.

Watch out for Arcam rDAC as many states that it has a very, very warm sound and may sound bloated if paired with warm equipment.

Don't know about the Rega DAC, though.

 

[Cypher]

You could also try ;

HRT music streamer II (don't be fooled by the low price, it sounds awesome)

Hegel HD2

 

[True Blue]

depends really on whether or not you want/ need the headphone amp side of things. I currently own a Unmodded Caiman to drive my headphones on the main PC and have a REGA Dac on the main system.

The Rega is miles ahead of the Caiman on SQ IMO