The State of DACSES

[skullguise]

I've bought a few times from TMR, decent folks to deal with.  That price is about on par for a used T2, you may be able to negotiate with a person for slightly less....

But all that said, why get a T2 when the X1 is out there? 😄  (seriously, I moved from the T2 to X1 due to a nice deal on the X1; and it IS better....not sure SO much better for the price, but definitely better)

Edited October 3, 2021 by skullguise

[NekoAudio]

22 hours ago, shellylh said:

Has anyone use the Music Room before? Good price?

I've also purchased from The Music Room and had good experiences. One of my customers had to go through two exchanges with them once, but in the end everything worked out well.

Edited October 4, 2021 by NekoAudio

[shellylh]

20 hours ago, dsavitsk said:

Seems expensive for used. What's a "muted Brooklyn+"?

I don't know if you are joking... so "Mytek Brooklyn+"

[Beefy]

5 minutes ago, shellylh said:

I don't know if you are joking... so "Mytek Brooklyn+"

Doug might have been confused about the 'muted' part, I certainly was. Is that a reference to the sound signature?

[morphsci]

I think it was an autocorrect issue.

[Beefy]

6 minutes ago, morphsci said:

I think it was an autocorrect issue.

Of course *facepalm*

[dsavitsk]

3 hours ago, shellylh said:

I don't know if you are joking... so "Mytek Brooklyn+"

I thought maybe you had a broken one stuck on mute.

[Dusty Chalk]

2 hours ago, morphsci said:

I think it was an autocorrect issue.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TMoney]

I'm also starting to eyeball some of these new DACs. Both Denafrips and Holo Spring seem to have compelling R2R NOS options at or around 3k.

Edited October 5, 2021 by TMoney

[tkam]

Very happy with my Denafrips Venus II.

[skullguise]

Lumin just announced the P1 digital hub.  Looks like the T2 streamer/DAC, but with lots of inputs (including balanced and RCA analog), and a linear PS....also adds a fiber network input that the X1 has.

https://www.luminmusic.com/lumin-p1.html

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by skullguise

[gepardcv]

Any thoughts on Metrum?

[Spychedelic Whale]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:42 PM, tkam said:

Very happy with my Denafrips Venus II.

Have it here now comparing with Yggy A2, its very good indeed.

[padam]

A few months after I tried the Lumin X1 (maybe not in optimal circumstances), the Gold Note DS-10 + PSU-10 EVO gets a two thumbs-up from me.

I would love to know if there is anything better from the R2R camp for this price (or this level of sound quality for cheaper), but this unit sounds amazing with all my Stax headphones. Excellent versatility and build quality as well, changing settings that influence the sound could be interesting, but I didn't feel that was necessary.

I don't like paying for something that I don't use, which are the internal PSU and even the headphone amp (which is quite powerful and supposed to be very good as well). Not portable like the Lavry, not that happy about giving up crossfeed, and there was this blinking blue LED at the rear that was probably tied to some wifi setting or something which I had to cover. Otherwise highly recommended. (like all reviews say, but they generally say the same about pretty much everything...) Well done, Italy.

Edited January 28, 2022 by padam

[Torpedo]

At 3300€ plus the external PSU, which I don't know how much it costs, it better sounds amazing  

[padam]

3600€ for the DAC and the PSU at this place, the local dealer offers a bit of a discount on this, maybe with decent trade-in as well (DS-10 plus version costs a bit more, only differs regarding inputs).
The Lumin X1 cost is 13500€ and I didn't impress me in a similar manner, maybe I will revisit that one day.

If I look at vintage DACs I need to sort out USB, no streaming options, no preamp functionality, etc. etc.

Time is money and I'm not sure if it is worth trading in one for the other, if there is one that seems to give me what I want. But yes DACses nowadays seem all over the place as well as prices for audio gear. For instance, my sub-200€ SR-X Mk3 normal bias that is classified as "entry-level" takes full benefit of this DAC.

 

Update: found a minty one locally, negotiations are currently standing at 2370€ for the DS-10 DAC with the PSU-10 EVO.

A little tempting...

Edited January 29, 2022 by padam

[Spychedelic Whale]

I got to listen the "China Dac" Spring 3 KTE, this one has really black background and bucket loads of decay, and very good micro detail, it's impressive. Negative thing is, it can sound too soft and not very engaging. Yggy is the antithesis with its fun sound but at an lower technical capability.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Spychedelic Whale

[Aspirant Audiophile]

On 1/28/2022 at 7:09 PM, padam said:

3600€ for the DAC and the PSU at this place, the local dealer offers a bit of a discount on this, maybe with decent trade-in as well (DS-10 plus version costs a bit more, only differs regarding inputs).
The Lumin X1 cost is 13500€ and I didn't impress me in a similar manner, maybe I will revisit that one day.

If I look at vintage DACs I need to sort out USB, no streaming options, no preamp functionality, etc. etc.

Time is money and I'm not sure if it is worth trading in one for the other, if there is one that seems to give me what I want. But yes DACses nowadays seem all over the place as well as prices for audio gear. For instance, my sub-200€ SR-X Mk3 normal bias that is classified as "entry-level" takes full benefit of this DAC.

 

Update: found a minty one locally, negotiations are currently standing at 2370€ for the DS-10 DAC with the PSU-10 EVO.

A little tempting...

I demo'd Holo May and Spring KTEs with a two-box streamer made by my country's Holo distributor. I did not get to do proper A/B testing, but I heard almost none or no difference compared my Node and RME DAC. With the May, definitely a difference, but nowhere near the price difference--I left the demo feeling much much more confident about my setup as-is.

 

Disclosures: I have almost zero experience, zero engineering or audio knowledge, and my opinions should not be taken without salt. My setup (Node, RME, balanced Mogami interconnects, a powerstrip with Faraday cage enclosures, and a Carbon) may or may not induce cackles--they are welcome if they are wrapping for advice. And...I use ALL the tinkering features the RME provides, and I get a sound that is pretty close to what I imagine is my hearing ceiling. I use a Soren Brix-build Carbon. 

 

I was looking at the Chord Dave and TT2 as well...until I stumbled upon the thread here about Chord Dave...

 

[nopants]

I think there are some DSD people here, including @kevin gilmore but Andrea Mori just announced his new DSD-only design that accepts external oscillators:

https://www.thewellaudio.com/twsdac-dsd/

Only drawback is that you gotta use his FIFO to interface with his products, which adds a pretty hefty chunk to the buy-in.

 

Not really meant to be a shill post, but I put his AD1862 DAC together and it checked off a lot of boxes for me in terms of flexibility in tweaking both the digital and analog parts. I'm pretty happy with the sound- I was gonna post it earlier but kind of slipped my mind.

[jpelg]

^What is your output stage?

(not that I know very much about that sort of stuff, other than it's my experience that the output stage impacts sonics quite a bit)

[nopants]

It's an no-feedback I/V stage, which was his main thing for these vintage R2R implementations:

Drifts a bit but nothing major once you zero it, 20-ish mV 

[Spork]

Jumping in here - I'm using a Grace/massdrop m9xx, and TBH I'm happy enough with it. (It's just used as a DAC, I don't have any dynamic HP's these days)
I have some upgrades to my other gear incoming - a SRM-006ta from Birgir (modded) and some '007 mk2s.
I'm listening to digital files from PS via USB.

Am I missing out on much with my current DAC? I've been through this thread and most the recommendations are more than I want to spend at the moment.
Is there something that would be much better (and maybe have balanced output) for < $600 USD?

[Dusty Chalk]

On 6/22/2023 at 3:45 AM, Spork said:

Jumping in here - I'm using a Grace/massdrop m9xx, and TBH I'm happy enough with it. (It's just used as a DAC, I don't have any dynamic HP's these days)
I have some upgrades to my other gear incoming - a SRM-006ta from Birgir (modded) and some '007 mk2s.
I'm listening to digital files from PS via USB.

Am I missing out on much with my current DAC? I've been through this thread and most the recommendations are more than I want to spend at the moment.
Is there something that would be much better (and maybe have balanced output) for < $600 USD?

Sounds like you have G.A.S. for the sake of G.A.S.  Grace is a good company, feel free to stick with that...unless you feel like you're actually missing something.  And in that case, you may want to make sure there's impedance matching between components.

Other than the Schiit line of gear, I don't know what DACses are popular any more.  (I don't have one, myself, though, so it might just be that they have a memorable name.)

[Contrastique]

Hi all, have been out of the game for a while but slowly lurking again. I still use a Macbook pro (late 2008) as a source to play local files on a separate drive and stream Tidal. But it’s really too old to function properly. Looking for a headless mac mini running Roon server. 

I still have the macbook attached to an older Apogee Duet, the FW version, and slowly looking to upgrade to, preferably a proper USB dac. Saw a Stello DAC DA200 II for around €500,00 though not sure if that would be a significant step up. 
 

I use a Solen / Ensemble B-50 amp with tube front and SE end. Might upgrade to more powerful tube amp in the future. And have this all hooked up to a pair of little Maggies, which I acquired recently and is the cause of the audio fire lightning up again 😍

Anyway, a usb-dac for a mac mini; what would you recommend? What’s interesting these days? I’ve been away for so long! Budget around 1000-1500 second hand. Would that get me more than let’s say a new Duet?

Edit: If I were to stray away from the USB-dac route, which would be better quality wise I suppose, which streamer, roon-ready, with a built-in dac on par with the Duet would you recommend? Or a streamer with the option to bypass the dac later on.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Contrastique

[Pars]

Nice to see you back again Indra (hope I remembered that right). Sorry, can't help you much on DACs as I still only use a CD player, with another as transport for it. People tell me that SPDIF still sounds better than USB, but with your envisioned setup, USB would be much easier unless you wanted to get an interface.

The Schitt Yggy seems to be well thought of, but not sure what those run these days. They do seem to come up used fairly often.

Someone should pop by shortly with better ideas. Take care!

Edited November 20, 2023 by Pars