EBAY DAC, Suggestion pls

[tony Ma]

Hi there,

Can some one suggest me which DAC I should get?

1. VALAB NOS DAC (http://cgi.ebay.com/Valab-TDA1543-NO...item3f091bec90)

2. Gigawork DAC (http://cgi.ebay.com/24-192-DAC-DA-CO...item1c186409b8)

3. KIKITRONIK DAC (http://cgi.ebay.com/Hi-End-CD-DAC-TD...item3ef96028d7)

Pls let me know

tks

[Bill Fuss]

If anyone answers you'll get all kinds of opinions, you've picked 3 completely different DACs. One is NOS, one is 8X oversampling, both using ancient dac chips, and the other is an upsampling Dac with the latest Crystal 24/192 chip.

I have 2 of the upsampling Dacs, for what it's worth. No one can decide for you so just jump in.

[john dozier]

There are beeter DACS on the bay. I bought the one with 4 Wolfson 8140s from Raindrop Hue. It is excellent both in quality of constructio and sound. regards John Dozier

[abraxalito]

I have the third of those but I've replaced the SAA7220 with my own digital filter. The first one uses the TDA1543 which isn't such a good DAC to begin with, it suffers low-level linearity problems. Whether you'll notice this will depend on the kind of music you listen to. If like me your diet is mainly classical, you'll likely perceive this as a loss of ambient acoustic. Most popular music doesn't have real ambience so if that's your poison you'll be fine and this one will probably sound best on voices due to low sibilance.

Can't comment on the (2nd) one with Cirrus parts as haven't played with them.

<edit> Forgot to mention - no.3 has what I consider to be a design fault in that it doesn't sync to the incoming clock, rather uses a local XTAL oscillator. Dunno if this fault is audible as I've taken the SAA7220 out of mine and I'm feeding it from a QA550 wav player.

[MrSlim]

Check out the thread about the ak4393 board in the digital sources forum. There is an ak4396 based version of the board that looks to be great bang for the buck and very tweakable. I'm itching to get one myself except for the fact that I already have too many DACs

[abraxalito]

Originally Posted by MrSlim

... I already have too many DACs

Impossible! Who told you that? Mrs Slim?

[MrSlim]

Well, my darling wife just commented on the number of "gadgets" I buy, and that the house is starting to look like a junk shop(you know how they exaggerate ) I think she's angling for the Nook color that has not seen enough use lately

[abraxalito]

Suggest you say 'OK let me build a real junk shop out the back then'. Win-win

<edit> Jim Williams is a hero here judging by all the kind comments after his death. Refer your charming wife to his various collections...