DIY DAC suitable for passive transformer linestage (TVC)?

[Saurav]

Hi,

I bought an NEC 6Xe drive off of eBay, so now I need to build a DAC for it. I was looking at the Scott Nixon kit, but it's 1.6V output voltage and 1.5K output impedance, which makes me wonder if it's a good match with my passive linestage. My amp is a 2A3 SET (100K input impedance) driving 96dB speakers, and I'm usually operating in the highest 2-3 clicks of my linestage with my current CD player. Dropping the source voltage would probably not work very well, and I'm not sure how much of an issue the high output impedance will be.

Questions:

* Has anyone used this DAC with a passive linestage, transformer or otherwise? (To be more precise, mine are autoformers)

* Should I build that DAC and add a buffer stage to it? If that's a good idea, does anyone have designs or ideas for what would make a good buffer stage?

* Does anyone know of other relatively simple DAC kits or designs (I think I can handle a scratch-build from a schematic, as long as there are no SMDs) that would work well with a passive linestage? I'd like to try a non-OS DAC, just because I'm curious about them.

Thanks in advance,

Saurav

[randytsuch]

Hi,
I am probably going to try a nixon dac, when he responds to my email (he must be busy, takes him a while to respond). I just got the NEC, and have a SB based TVC.

Will probably see how scott's dackit does with that setup. If it doesn't sound good, might try to add a fet buffer stage to it, to give it some drive.

There is also the ack dack, but it is more money than the nixon kit, but also more complete. You can find a review of the ack dack at digital on Audio asylum. I plan to build my own PS anyway, so I don't care if the dackit doesn't come with a PS.

BTW, I am going on vacation for 2 weeks, so if you ask a question, don't hold your breath waiting.

Randy

[Saurav]

Wow, an almost identical front end to what I'm contemplating. Maybe I'll just wait to hear your results, while I work on my amp