Budget DACs for digital crossover output?

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Kev06

Kev06

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Joined 2006
#1
For a pair of 3-way active crossovers, one option I'm considering is a nanoDIGI 2x8 digital crossover teamed with third party SPDIF DACs on the output. But three or four stereo DACs could get very costly unless I used budget ones, and if the quality or price of those didn't work out then I'd be better off with a pair of miniDSP 2x4, due to their built in DACs.

There are loads of really cheap SPDIF DACs about (e.g. amazon UK), and many get decent reviews. But mostly from the general public, and I've no idea what their sound quality is like. At a sightly higher price there are brands I know, like the Fiio D3, which I'd have a bit more confidence in.

Can anyone recommend any budget but high quality SPDIF DACs likely to be available in the UK?

Cheers
Kev
 
#2
I have those budget SPDIF DACs and also expensive DACs like Benchmark and Chord. I can say they sound somewhat different, but I honestly cannot say which is better. They are cheap, so you can just buy one and see if you like it or not, or if you can tell the sound quality or not. It won't hurt that much @$20-$30, and it may save you a ton.
 
#3
Doug Kim said:
I have those budget SPDIF DACs and also expensive DACs like Benchmark and Chord. I can say they sound somewhat different, but I honestly cannot say which is better. They are cheap, so you can just buy one and see if you like it or not, or if you can tell the sound quality or not. It won't hurt that much @$20-$30, and it may save you a ton.
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Many thanks for that info, very encouraging - could well be worth a try then 🙂

Its a good idea to get just one, and I do have a decent HiFi Dac to compare it against. Think perhaps I'll go for some brand that I at least recognise and test it.

Cheers
Kev
 
#4
Creative Xfi Elite Pro 116 thd+n Creative Z 116 thd+n. Creative ZXR 123thd+. All pci/e cards.
And yes you should be "in the box" using JRiver to do all processing and as a preamp as well. There is no stopping this trend of "Audiophile PC"
 
#5
Yes, Jriver + sound card is certainly one of the other options I'm considering, I'm a huge fan of Jriver. Though I would only ever use an external sound card, which limits the choices slightly.

However, building a dedicated crossover into the active speaker system has some attraction too. So before deciding, I wanted to investigate likely cost and quality of doing that digitally.

Cheers
Kev
 
#8
Kev06 said:
Yes, Jriver + sound card is certainly one of the other options I'm considering, I'm a huge fan of Jriver. Though I would only ever use an external sound card, which limits the choices slightly.

However, building a dedicated crossover into the active speaker system has some attraction too. So before deciding, I wanted to investigate likely cost and quality of doing that digitally.

Cheers
Kev
Click to expand...
I used to feel the same way, but with those figures power supply noise and associated jitter are simply gone. Jitter will show up as noise and @ 116 and above? Fugedaboudit.
 
#16
Never upgrade your OS before knowing if your devices around are compatible !

The Asus 5.1/7.1 talked above is certainly one of the best sound card but not sure it's proof for W10 !

Try Linux Mint... it becomes easier than Windows ! :scratch1:
 
#17
My motherboard has windows 10 compatible drivers they just never worked for the sound card? It may have died at the same time as the upgrade coincidentally? After many, many, many hours I've given up on it.
A linux distro is a possibility for experiments in the future.
 
#18
Yes I know, I wanted to upgrade an old XP pro Celeron with good enough muscles for W7... just because I had a licence at hands !

Ah it worked, but for the embeded old video controler ! ... try to work noawdays with a 600x400 resolution 😉 ! That's funny, I could add W7 but when I upgraded it for W10 for the fun to see.... W10 said a fundamental component (nx) was not there to allow the upgrade (hardware not compatible) !

You want to fight the global warning and not change every 4 years of personal PC still good enough : go for Linux ! Save your planet and the world ! (and stop to mess with bad audio USB driver too with W PC for your prefered DAC 🙂 !
 
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#19
This is discussed in another thread here, but my solution(s) are as follows: alas, you might have to buy some new PC. 🙁

Both of these options require a Windows PC and I am using JRiver Media Center (JRMC) for the player and DSP solution. I am feeding 2x 3-way speakers so six channels.

Option 1 (probably the most inexpensive): IF your PC has HDMI-out and if you have a HTR that accepts HDMI and does 5.1 or 7.1 outputs, then you have all the "DACs" that you need 🙂 I bought a (used) Sherwood-Newcastle R-772 for ~ $150.00. Brand new (closeout) you can get similar units for not much more (in USA at least). Many PC's have HDMI out, I use a Pipo X9 which is < $200 new.

Option 2 (more expensive, I chose this for having XLR in/out): Use an external DAC multi-channel such as: MiniDSP's USB Streamer (allows 8-channel ADAT signal output), actual dac is a Behringer ADA8200. These two items cost about $300. I already had enough channels of XLR amps (also Behringer).

I am sure there are many other possible solutions. I like MiniDSP (the company) but I don't think their solutions are any cheaper than the above.

Sent from my NV570P using Tapatalk
 
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