Burn me at the stake! A simple, low-end DAC solution...

[Funkoid]

First time poster, so go gentle. I've had a quick search and can't find anyone with my specific requirements other than cheap!

I still listen to CD and vinyl in my main room but I stream around the house with Sonos. I have a requirement for some form of line in source/DAC which goes straight into my Hi-Fi so I can listen to flac sources from the PC in my main room.

I'm not after something hugely amazing as my ears are no longer great and this is simply for listening to live records. I know most of the recordings are better listened to on headphones, but with my hearing I avoid this as much as possible! So yes... cheap DAC to line-in, would be a massive bonus if it had a headphone out too but totally not a requirement.

 

[kevinkr]

Lots of potential choices on eBay, do not know what your budget might be. I recently scored a little xmos based dac made by Leaf Audio for just $66, I would recommend it, but it no longer seems to be available, one could hope that perhaps it is not available due to the Chinese New Year.. (It sounds a lot better than it should for the money and replaced a $100 dac I gave to a friend because even modded I found it unlistenable.) I use this with my laptop which I use as a secondary media server for parties, etc.

Note that I did remove a couple of smd ceramic caps directly on the outputs which did help the sound quality significantly.

 

[Funkoid]

I've just had a quick look now and am amazed at how cheap some of them are going for!

So far I'm considering....

ELE EL-D01 MINI HIFI USB PCM2704 DAC BOARD CARD + ELNA Capacitor New | eBay

MUSE X5 PCM2704 GOLD USB DAC DIGITAL ANALOGUE CONVERTER HEADPHONE AMP | eBay

MUSE HiFi PCM2704 USB to S/PDIF Converter DAC Sound Card Black Silver | eBay

............ budget wise, I wouldn't mind having one at home and one for my desk in work, where I wear headphones way more often. I don't particularly use expensive headphones either. Say a max of £25-30. For that price though will I be seeing a difference than just using the headphone jack on my laptop?

Edit - just realized I may have double posted sorry

 

[SomekPoland]

Hi, for me cheap(and fine too) DAC is this project, only add interface(like tekdevice ex.)
TDA1543 NOS DAC
I built it not much time ago and i think it is great.

 

[srinath]

Yes

Hi, for me cheap(and fine too) DAC is this project, only add interface(like tekdevice ex.)
TDA1543 NOS DAC
I built it not much time ago and i think it is great.

I got this one, at $39 shipped to US cant be beat.
Its a good 6 db below cd player level, so a tube buffer with some gain can be put in after it too.
Cool.
Srinath.

 

[SomekPoland]

I built it by my self for about 13$(had TDA though). I don't have any problem with lower output, but I'm thinking about J-FET buffer.

 

[logicform]

Logicform NV1 DAC does just that.