I've been on the hunt for a good USB DAC for some time. I lucked into an Edirol UA-25 at the local swap-n-shop ($75). I was very pleased with how it performed... much better than i hoped for when i got it.
Smaller than a VHS cassette, in a nice aluminium box. Bus powered, it runs fine off my old iBook G4. Has a whack of features, stereio I/O, mic pres, phantom power, soft limiter, headphone, preamp with level, more...
I've only used it for 44k out.
Haven't looked inside yet. I expect a solid external supply should improve it.
dave
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Smaller than a VHS cassette, in a nice aluminium box. Bus powered, it runs fine off my old iBook G4. Has a whack of features, stereio I/O, mic pres, phantom power, soft limiter, headphone, preamp with level, more...
I've only used it for 44k out.
Haven't looked inside yet. I expect a solid external supply should improve it.
dave
I have a dddac, very happy with it. For a noob though, some of the soldering can be tricky. Also it's only 16bit/48khz.
I would suggest you look at the Twisted Pear Opus kit, the advantage being its all assembled, meaning you only really have to wire it up in a chassis with connectors and so on. It looks like terrific value too.
I would suggest you look at the Twisted Pear Opus kit, the advantage being its all assembled, meaning you only really have to wire it up in a chassis with connectors and so on. It looks like terrific value too.
Another Vote for the DDDAC
The DDDAC gets my vote. I started with the usb Kit.
However it is not what the origional poster is looking for. I think mine is pretty small, But it is not portable really. Box 1 220mm*100mm*55mm, box 2 160mm*100mm*55mm
In its smallest form, just the USB module. You could get a portable version running. But the beauty of the DDDAC is when you use the stacked DAC modules. Thats where you get the realy good quality.
You do get volume control, if you listen to the pcm2707 chip. However although it sounds good, its not a patch on the 1543 for tone IMHO.
The 1543 on the usb module sounds better, but you would need a peramp for the headphones. Perhaps a cmoy and dac in one case?
The DDDAC gets my vote. I started with the usb Kit.
However it is not what the origional poster is looking for. I think mine is pretty small, But it is not portable really. Box 1 220mm*100mm*55mm, box 2 160mm*100mm*55mm
In its smallest form, just the USB module. You could get a portable version running. But the beauty of the DDDAC is when you use the stacked DAC modules. Thats where you get the realy good quality.
You do get volume control, if you listen to the pcm2707 chip. However although it sounds good, its not a patch on the 1543 for tone IMHO.
The 1543 on the usb module sounds better, but you would need a peramp for the headphones. Perhaps a cmoy and dac in one case?
AdamThorne said:
If you can use the input stuff as well as the output stuff, i'd say definitly. If you are only using the output stuff, i'm wondering if the UA-1ex is just that part extracted from the UA-25.
I do plan eventually to get around to trying it for testing -- at 96k it only goes one way according to the manual so that will need some playing. Might have to ship the excitation signal out thru the DAC built-in to my PowerBook (i have an old Frankenstien Pismo PowerBook for measuring duties)
Fine for recording LPs thou. And a chance to play with 24/96.
dave
BTW. I saw this unit for as little as a bit over $200 when i searched on the net... wait a bit and it will drop under.
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