Rega dac to what or better usb to spdif

[carlymart]

Hi I am looking for advice for a dac upgrade 

I have a rega dac and I am running jriver though a pc with Dirac live but it’s the original rega dac with a poor usb input so I use a usb to spdif adaptor 

and I want to simplify things and just run usb to the dac 

Looking at up too £500 for a dac with good input or a good spdif at £200 as it’s a cheep one I am using at the moment 

what would you recommend 

 

[ericuco]

In that price range, start with Schiit, iFi and Topping. 

[photonman]

Does your Rega and PC have optical input and output, respectively.  I have found optical out of a PC to a DAC beats USB out of a PC.  It was pretty obvious and I never would have believed it so give that a try first.

[carlymart]

Will give the optical a go 

[carlymart]

Just tried the optical out and to say it was rubbish is kind haha 

may just buy a better usb to spdif 

[davide256]

 You are not going to beat a Chord Mojo at your price point. Its better than the Schiit multibit Gungnir and iFi Micro iDSD I've had in the past. But don't expect great things from a generic PC, regardless of what you spend on a DAC...

[Norton]

15 hours ago, davide256 said:

You are not going to beat a Chord Mojo at your price point.

I’d second that recommendation.  
You might also want to experiment with the free version of Fidelizer as a PC audio optimiser.  I thought it made an improvement, but I have no experience using with Dirac.

[carlymart]

Thanks for the recommendation my only concern about the chord mojo is the fact it has a better and I have read a few reports that if the battery goes down you cannot used the dac 

 

[davide256]

2 hours ago, carlymart said:

Thanks for the recommendation my only concern about the chord mojo is the fact it has a better and I have read a few reports that if the battery goes down you cannot used the dac 

 

You can buy a replacement battery, replacing 1 requires removing 8 small hex screws, lifting off the back and gently prying the computer type power lead

off the DAC MOBO, then reversing to put in the new battery. Or you can do as I do for main system use, leave the battery disconnected, close it back up and

use an external  5v supply through the micro USB charging port, an iFi supply works just fine. The one quirk is that the Mojo does have a power saver feature,

leave it idle for too long and the DAC turns off. Its tiding me by until I see enough reviews to sort out between buying a Qutest or a Pontus   for $1700

[carlymart]

Well in the end I have bought a RME ADI2 fs looking forward to trying it