Best DAC kit for price available ???

[JinMTVT]

I already own a very very nice Rakk Dac
( that was recommend to me by you guys here! )
with passive output and their quality PS kit.
I use this one in my personal room
combined with my stereo system ( powered by a Bryston 4BST ) or my diy Headphone amplifier
( from our friend member Sjostrom in Sverige )


I am currently buying stuff and designing my new HT room, and i will need alot of electronics to do so.

Right now i am looking for DAC kits that would give the best bang for the bucks, something of similar quality to the Original RAKK kit or better ...
The thing is that i will probably need 6 to 8 of them,
so the price needs to be right.

What other choices to we have (other than the original RAKK or the new RAKK Dac ..wich runs for some 500$/each with an output stage and PSU )
is there any kit available from a member here ?

i do not like hold-back stuff like non OS kits, or minimilazing kit ... the RAKK got all of the digital stuff on it and it just kicks *** ... ( never heard any non-os DAC sound as good neway .. )

thanks for your time

[quicklizard]

Hi, I don't know what this DAC kit sounds like but it is cheaper than the RAKK DAC especially if you assemble the whole kit yourself.

https://www.audiodiylab.com/shop/pro...products_id=43

[analog_sa]

No match for Rakk Dac. As the web site proudly proclaims:

"Very simple design for begging DIYer"

[ezkcdude]

Originally posted by JinMTVT
I already own a very very nice Rakk Dac
( that was recommend to me by you guys here! )
with passive output and their quality PS kit.
I use this one in my personal room
combined with my stereo system ( powered by a Bryston 4BST ) or my diy Headphone amplifier
( from our friend member Sjostrom in Sverige )


I am currently buying stuff and designing my new HT room, and i will need alot of electronics to do so.

Right now i am looking for DAC kits that would give the best bang for the bucks, something of similar quality to the Original RAKK kit or better ...
The thing is that i will probably need 6 to 8 of them,
so the price needs to be right.

What other choices to we have (other than the original RAKK or the new RAKK Dac ..wich runs for some 500$/each with an output stage and PSU )
is there any kit available from a member here ?

i do not like hold-back stuff like non OS kits, or minimilazing kit ... the RAKK got all of the digital stuff on it and it just kicks *** ... ( never heard any non-os DAC sound as good neway .. )

thanks for your time

You can try my ezdac pcb. I have one board left at the moment.

[paba]

Hi

here is a good list of DACs you could start reading to help your choice...

www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=199941

good luck
paba

[Extreme_Boky]

Originally posted by paba
Hi

here is a good list of DACs you could start reading to help your choice...

www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=199941

good luck
paba

Thanks paba!!

[danny_66]

The Opus DAC! It's a modular kit, you can add different modules like S/PDIF input, USB input, ...

It's a new developed DAC around the Wolfson WM8740:
http://www.twistedpearaudio.com/opus/opus.aspx
Mr White's "Opus", designing a simple balanced DAC

[Ruach]

You can try Pedja's TDA1541A PCB.

[JinMTVT]

sorry but i don't see why i/we would consider anything other than the pcm1794 or CS4398 as they both are
"flagship dacs" as stated on cirrus page
it's not like it costs 200$ for the chip itself
( usually less expensive than older rare NOS stuff nah?)
the point of getting a diy or kit dac is to get the best possible results with less $$$ than buying a 5000$
gold plated front plate commercial box

that beeing said,
from the very very nice list of "granodemostasa" over at headhifi, it really goes back to KandK audio for cost
VS quality .... gee

i thought that some people would have released something similar to the RAKK DAC, but in self assembled and less expensive ...


If i'd be to use RAKK DACs again,
would there be a way to make less expensive high quality output stage ?

and maybe a common power supply for all the dac boards? ( or is that a bad idea due to some crosstalk or whatever i do not know here.. )


i personally got the passive output with lundall tranfos,
i can say that it sounds just like it wasn't there
( hole point )

thanks all for ur time again

[David Davenport]

Originally posted by JinMTVT


If i'd be to use RAKK DACs again,
would there be a way to make less expensive high quality output stage ?

and maybe a common power supply for all the dac boards? ( or is that a bad idea due to some crosstalk or whatever i do not know here.. )

You trade off cost for quality in the output stage. It would be possible to make an output stage similar to the RAKK dac Passive Output using less expensive transformers, however the quality would suffer.

It would be possible to create a common power supply for all of the boards. The biggest saving would be in the single versus multiple power transformers. I can’t say for sure but I speculate that the total capacitance would be the same in both cases so there would be no savings there. The individual rectifiers and regulators are not a big deal so you could use multiple of those to insure no crosstalk. So the design would be individual supplies sharing a single power transformer.

Dave