First Post! Cheapish DAC

[Drewskie]

Ok total noob question here but someone quick tell me what cryo means or involves i assume it has something to do with cold lol. (please don't stone me)

 

 

Ok aside from that I gotta say this Valab DAC sounds pretty sweet. My budget limit is $200 and I can't stop looking at this thing. So bottom line... is this a DAC that a majority can get behind and out of those of you that own one can say its the best bet for $200

 

[Drewskie]

By the way another question about burning in. Is there a certain protocol on burning in a DAC? If I were to just start blasting music... can i play music at a good level 24/7 that kind of thing... Ok more basic, what do those who have bought one and the other experts suggest as a break in procedure?

 

[webby]

I would've thought you could just stick something on repeat with the volume down/off just so the signal is going through. Do that every time you're not actually listening to it.

 

[digger945]

Rand:

"Well, I finally got the Valab and listened to it for awhile. It's not like my current DAC but in it's stock form it's REALLY good. I did the upgrade that Steve recommened and WOW it's REALLY REALLY good. Further, I then Cryo'd it. At ~$370 not bad. My dad will be VERY happy with his new Computer Audio setup for sure. I'm sad to see it go....

 

**HIGHLY RECOMMENDED**"

Rand

 

It's nice to see that you like the sound of the Valab, and hats off to Steve for the recommendation and the modding tips. This is what community is all about.

 

Now if we could just get Steve to organise a group buy discount for the offramp 3s.....8~P

 

[WOOTENReba30]

If you are willing to buy a house, you would have to receive the credit loans. Moreover, my father all the time utilizes a commercial loan, which is really useful.

 

[Richard Dale]

 

I've recently bought an HRT Music Streamer II+, It has asynchronous USB and handles 24/96 input. In the UK you can get the cheaper version the HRT Music Streamer II for 129 pounds including postage.

 

 

 

I have been comparing my HRT II+ with my Marantz CD-7 CD player which has two TD1541 gold crowns in it (the best TD 1541s ever made), and the little HRT has come off quite well. If anything the HRT does some things better than the Marantz. So assuming the cheaper HRT is in the same league as the one I've got, I would reckon it should be a strong contender in the best cheap DAC stakes.

 

 

 

PS: I actually feel like going out and buying a VALAB to play with after reading the comments in this thread..

 

 

[cyba]

A new (?) possibility. Needs researching..

http://www.intl.onkyo.com/products/accessories/ri-dock/nd-s1/index.html

 

Add

No. Forget.

 

[cyba]

"I'm wary of Taiwanese goods and normally wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole, but this DAC is an exception to that rule. "

Hmm. Your perogative, for sure, and I'm glad you've found one exception.

However, IMO, Machinehead's right,

"Taiwan is the new Japan, and the products they produce CAN be superb. They certainly have the manufacturing and engineering skills to produce products of equal quality to any country in the world."

As an aside, you may want to check, e.g. the mobo and graphics card in your PC and the graphics card, should it have one, in your Mac.

I assume we're trying to keep an open mind re. DACs, especially, value for $$$. Taiwan and China - well, Hong Kong (Wai Wai Valve Co) - may offer very good solutions.

 

Otherwise, we'd all be buying an AudioNote DAC 5?

 

[Nak]

It's my first post here and I'm a bit clueless when it comes to buying a DAC. I understand what it is and the some of the benefits, but the amount of options and opinions I've taken in over the last week or so is dizzying!

 

I hope bumping this old thread isn't too offensive, but it's really put a spanner in my works.

 

I'm on a very small budget and thought I had narrowed it down to HRT Music Streamer 2, V-Dac, or Valab NOS and I was leaning towards the Valab. It seemed like something that could grow along with me, but doubt was put in my mind because it didn't have asynchronous usb, something I'm not sure I fully understand. Then I stumble across computeraudiophile and options from m-audio, edirol and e-mu are now on the table.

 

To try and give this post some sort of direction, I'm just looking for a nice little DAC that will give me a better source than my Auzentech prelude internal card and of course within my humble budget. The Valab being around my maximum, £150/$200ish.

 

Upper end of the budget:

E-mu 0404

edirol ua-25

Valab Nos DAC

HRT Music Streamer II

MF V-Dac

 

Lower end:

M-audio Transit

edirol ua-1ex

nuforce udac

 

If it at all helps, most of my listening will be done through my headphone amp and akg 702s.

 

I'm not hoping you guys will make a decision for me, but any advice on what I should be looking for to help narrow it down would be brilliant!

 

 

 

[Labarum]

The Beresford 7520 is in budget at £140 + VAT

 

Third item on this page.

 

http://www.beresford.me/others/products2.html

 

and should be a serious contender.

 

The Caiman is even better, but may be out of budget.

 

[Nak]

Thanks for the tip. I had thought that Beresford was quite a bit out of budget. It seems that the only way to get it is from the manufacturer on eBay(none on the site) and it's £162 all in. It doesn't sound like a huge jump from budget, but £150 is already is already a stretch and I'm going to struggle to justify it over the ones on budget or under.

 

I don't suppose it helps that I've done all of this completely backwards. Buying expensive headphones, then an amp and then a source. Live and learn!

 

[Tipper]

I took this budget Dac route a while back. I’m relatively new to computer sourced audio but an old hand at Hi Fi and modding. There are a couple of things you might want to bear in mind.

 

A major consideration is how you’re going to supply the data to the Dac. I you’re using SPDIF then it’s coming through your sound card and not all cards support bit perfect audio. There is also the matter of cables to consider and these can push the price up.

 

Reviews from modders; I often get the impression from such reviews that it’s the fact that a particular Dac can be easily modded rather than it’s out of the box performance that gives rise to the enthusiasm.

 

The budget NOS Dacs tend to be noisy, 88 to 90 db S/N.

NOS has a particular sound. You really need to find out if you like that sound before you buy. I didn’t like it, seemed to lack a bit of grunt for want of a better description.

As mentioned above, most budget NOS Dacs are made by small companies in the Far East. While this shouldn’t be a problem in itself, if you’ve read a few reviews of these products and looked at a few decent pics of the internals it seemed to me that the quality of construction and apparently the quality of some of the components leaves a bit to be desired.

If there is a problem with such a Dac, you could be without it for some time if you have to send it back.

Most need an outboard power supply to give their best. That pushes the price up.

If you do want a NOS Dac and are prepared to get the welding kit out why not build one. There are a few kits based around the TDA1543 chip. That’s the route I took originally but as I mentioned, I didn’t like the NOS sound.

The Beresford range.

I’ve listened to the 7520 now and it’s not a bad sounding Dac.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the board quality and all those lights, switches, headphone amp and connection options cost money. I’ve also read that what Beresford does is use a board and design from another Dac and basically add a few mods and repackage it. If it’s true then you may find that the original guise of this Dac can be bought cheaper elsewhere. I haven’t bothered to look having decided from reading other forum posts on Beresford Dacs and his business strategy that I didn’t want anything to do with his products.

V-Dac.

My mate has one and I’ve tried it out in my system. Nice bit of kit for the money I thought. Sounded good even without a separate power supply, has modding potential (there is a very good thread about modding this Dac on another forum) and the build quality seemed good.

 

I bought the HRT Music Streamer 11 in preference to all of the above.

Asynchronous streaming seems to give very good results. Many of the esoteric brands are heading this way.

HRT’s method of providing a make and break bridge across the digital to analogue section of the Dac to drop USB noise also seems to work very well, it’s very quiet.

The build quality of the board looks excellent.

It will handle 24 bit 96 KHz

The HRT using asio4all and foobar outperformed my £700 CD player in most areas.

I’ve tried a few USB cables now and in my system at least the Beldon Pro cable at under £5 works fine.

I haven’t tried the Kimber cable recommended elsewhere on these forums yet.

The only down side I can find with it is it doesn’t look very impressive.

Finally while I’m not American I would rather support an innovative new company who has the balls to compete head on in a market dominated by products from the Far East. Not an issue for a lot of people I dare say.

Both America and the UK make some excellent class leading Hi Fi and whenever possible I try to spend my money in a manner that supports our encomnomies rather than someone elses.

 

Oh, a final point. Lots of talk on other forums about "burn in".

Everything I have learnt as an Engineer tells me this is nonsense. A rule of thumb; if it sounds like shite out of the box it's probably becuase it's shite. If it sounds better 200 hours later it's probably because your ears have got to like the sound of shite

 

[Nak]

Thanks ever so much for the lengthy and informative reply. I had a quick search and it seems my motherboard can put out "bit perfect" through SPDIF and so can my soundcard. This is something that I hadn't looked into before. About modding options, it does sway me a bit, but as I've little to no experience I think I should put that aside for now and really focus on it's "out of the box" sound and functionality. I do plan on getting some soldering equipment and seeing how I get on with simple things, make a basic cable, recable some headphones etc, before I move on to building or modding a dac.

 

I already have a few headphone amps, so something with an amp isn't going to be the best bang for buck in my case, at least that's how I'm looking at it. After reading your much appreciated post, I've come full circle, as my original two options were the V-Dac and Music Streamer 2.

 

[Nak]

After a bit more digging, I'm starting to wonder if I will get a huge jump in sound quality from the DACs in my current budget.

 

Will something in the v-dac or hrt range give a a very noticeable increase or should I really be looking at something more "fancy", or be happy with the prelude?

 

[Audio_ELF]

I think if it was my money, I would look at either a £60 Aune DAC off eBay, or try to stretch my budget to the £400 mark something like the new Arcam R-DAC (which sounds promising).

 

Eloise

 

[Nak]

Thanks for the input. I had looked at the Aune but I wasn't wanting to sink any of my relatively small budget into stuff I didn't need, like a headphone amp. After reading a bit more of what Tipper has said about the Music Streamer I'm thinking about just taking a shot on it and if I'm not happy, take a bit of a loss and sell it on.

 

 

 

[Nak]

I'm considering what you said about the Arcam rdac. It does have everything I want and nothing that I don't. Just costs a lot more than I was originally planning. It's £300 without the wireless option, I just need to read some info and opinions before I save the pennies for it.