New DAC.

[Jason]

OK, I'm finally going to purchase a dac. Right now leading contender is the Paradisea. I'm 90% sure this is the one I want to try, unless someone has a suggestion of something else.

I thought about a used TADAC, but I've read some mixed reviews of it where as the MHDT piece seems to get consistent good marks in its price range.

Thoughts?

[arthurs]

Most any peice you can find mixed reviews on, what's your budget and what type of sound are you looking for?

[brh986]

Not totally sure exactly what you are looking for, but the US Onix dealers were just notified yesterday that we will now be offering the ONIX DAC25 Upsampling DAC Decoder. (Coming Soon)

This is hot off the presses, and we dealers don't even have pricing as of yet.

Features:
1. Use 24bit/192KHz high precision DAC chip
2. Use asynchronous sampling chip to raising frequency at 192KHz with lower jitter
3. High precision clock system, it has Reclock function and reduce error code efficiently
4. USB input connect to the PC and realize the hi-fi sound through PC
5. Digital input plus pulse transformer as a good separation
6. Analog balance output
7. Headphone amplifier monitor

Specifications:
1. Dynamic range: (24bit) > 120dB
2. Signal noise rate: > 112dB(RCA); > 125dB(XLR)
3. THD+N: < 0.001%(20Hz-20KHz)
4. Output amplitude: 2VRMS

Main materials:
1. PCM2704 as USB sound card chip
2. PCM1792 24bit/192KHz DAC chip
3. SRC4192 upsamping chip
4. 3pcs OPA2134 op-amps
5. CS8416 digital receiver chip
6. R style transformer

[Fatcat]

OOOOOOH, nice!

[Jason]

Derek,

Saw that yesterday, we'll have to see prices.



Art,

Budget is $600ish. Open to new/used. As far as sound, dunno....never had an external dac before. Hyper detail is not my speakers strong suit. Plan on using optical out from macbook to the dac>Rogue Perseus pre>SS McIntosh. Also am looking for replacement amplification (waiting for the right pair of used Dodd's mono's to come along), but am in no rush there.

[brh986]

Yip, I too am awaiting the pricing.... Anxiously :jiggy:

[lngbruno]

If you want to stretch your budget to around $1000 and use USB connection, you may want to check out db audiolabs. http://dbaudiolabs.com/

IIRC, Danny Richie used it a the 2009 RMAF. You could check with him too. He is a straight shooter and he will give you is impressions about how it compared to other units he has rolled through his system.

If that is out of your price range, then look at a used Benchmark or the Paradisea you mentioned.

Lou

[bunnyma357]

No personal experience with it, but I've read a lot of good things about the Cambridge DAC Magic

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=CADACMAGI%20BLK

It would be one that I'd be considering in that price range.

Jim C

[Mike_TX]

Cool.
Awaiting more info and pricing.
Any pics of back?

Mike

[brh986]

Cool.
Awaiting more info and pricing.
Any pics of back?

Mike

Yip :D

[woofersus]

Cool.
Awaiting more info and pricing.
Any pics of back?

Mike

Here you go:

[dvenardos]

Happy owner of the Channel Islands VDA-2, you will find lots of reviews on it.
Also, Virtue will be coming out with a stand alone DAC and DAC/Preamp.

[Mike_TX]

Here you go:

[ATTACH]1125[/ATTACH]

Thanks.

Mike

[Fatcat]

I'd be curious to know what the pricing turns out to be as well.

Best......Carlo.

P.S. Any interior pictures available?

[Jason]

Happy owner of the Channel Islands VDA-2, you will find lots of reviews on it.
Also, Virtue will be coming out with a stand alone DAC and DAC/Preamp.

For some reason I thought you were selling this....or maybe it was someone else.

Realistically, I bet the differences between dacs in this price range are small. I probably don't have the resolving power to distinguish larger differences at this point. I also need some power management that would up the resolving power a notch or two. Right now I'm just plugging into the wall.

The biggest things I feel are weak right now:

-would like more 'air.' There's a tweeter upgrade available for my speakers so that might help, or I could add supertweeters.
-need more panel surface area for more punchy mids. Only thing I can do there is add another pair of Eminent Tech's and run them stacked.
-would like to get a touch more of a 'tubey' sound, hence the interest in a tubed dac.