Contemplating a new DAC in the <$600 range

[ph0rk]

...to either replace or chain off of my 0404 usb.

Music: Rock and Electronic, not much jazz or folk or acoustic, the occasional classical listen.

Amps: aside from the 0404 are a Rockhopper M^3, a Gilmore Lite

Headphones are: HD650, K601, DT250, K271.

Long, wordy version:

I'd need it to either have toslink or coax inputs, or if usb only be able to fully replace the I/O functionality of an 0404 usb - I make use of the analog in and occasionally the second digitial input (it will mix the usb and spdif inputs). This unfortunately rules out the duet, as it won't play nice with everything else. Keeping the 0404 is fine by me, though.

I had an eye on the amp-less pico, but it looks like it will be USB only (I will be happy to be wrong here), so won't really work - an spdif version would hang off the 0404 perfectly.

My budget gets me close to used the DAC1 and DA10 area, but I haven't heard either (or any other dacs in years - if MOTU gear counts). I have nothing against DIY options (assuming I can find a builder), and I am a sucker for lots of I/O.

I've been eyeballing the DAC1 in the FS forum, but I've read that some consider it too bright. I have no reference and (afaik) no easy way to hear anything, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm not really sure who to trust or take seriously on the other site, so I thought I'd ask here, instead.

[ilikebananafudge]

I have a Parasound, which I like a lot, but I don't have anything to compare it to. When I was in a situation similar to yours I got pointed to Parasound by a fellow Head-Caser, and it seems their DACs are well respected by a bunch of people around here. Also, they can usually be found a bit under your price range.

[Icarium]

Ha ha were you the one that got the 1500 ? It was a decent price for sure esp in that condition!

[ilikebananafudge]

I got mine way back in August, actually it was 50 dollars more than the one that went recently, which I was still pleased with. Here's the thread: http://www.head-case.org/forums/home-source-components/4278-source-dilhemma.html that I started, but I got recommended the Parasound via PM.

[xand1x]

You may be interested in a Parasound DAC-2000! A bit pricey but you be the judge

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1234165668&/Parasound-Dac-2000-Ultra-

[Sherwood]

At that price point I like what Ori does with his Oritek Zhaolu. You might run into the problem I did, though, and not be able to pull a Spdif signal out of the 0404. Apparently it only outputs digital from an ASIO stream, so unless you use foobar you're out of luck.

Of course, what you really want is an Apogee duet, but I don't know if you have a Mac or not, which is a requirement.

[ph0rk]

I use a mac, but the duet's I/O is just a bit less than I want - I'd want either an spdif in or two (stereo) analog ins.

The duet also won't work in bootcamp, which isn't critical but is annoying enough for me to look elsewhere. So maybe it is.

[Sherwood]

It seems to have stereo ins:

I can see why you'd be hesitant about bootcamp, but the only audio application I can imagine running in Windows over OS X would be gaming, and unless you're really serious about it couldn't you just use onboard audio?

I'm not selling duets or anything, but it seems like a good fit for your needs, minus those few niggles.

[Fungi]

If you need those I/O options and will for a while, a good sound interface like a Juli@ or M-Audio thing might be a good investment. Then you could pull digital out from there.

[ph0rk]

Oh, I somehow missed that the mic inputs were separate from the instrument ins. hmm.

You are right, it is gaming, and it isn't all of the time.

The 0404 has a pair of main outs, so I can have speakers connected at the same time as headphone gear, so an spdif dac would more or less be a painless drop in upgrade. I guess taps/splitters would mostly solve that problem, though.

At present, the only I/O unused on my 0404 is the spdif out

[Sherwood]

Well considering you're on mac and use the 0404, I really encourage you to investigate the spdif out ahead of time. I literally cannot coerce mine to work, and E-Mu support has been far less than helpful. It's possible that I have a bum unit, and possible that I am an idiot, but I've read of a number of users having this problem. Unless you're feeding it over ASIO, the digital out doesn't appear to be activated.

[grawk]

Your mac has spdif IO already, so they didn't include that on the duet.

You can have the headphone and speaker outs active independently, tho they use the same DACs, so you cna't assign different channels to them.

[jp11801]

another plus is the ADC in the duet nice for needle drops or digitizing analog tapes as well

[ph0rk]

The spdif out works in osx, but it seems the 0404 treats the spdif outs as channels 3 and 4. So, you have to route audio specifically to outputs 3 and 4. Crud.

[Sherwood]

Alright, ph0rk, I figured out how to get useful, hassle-free spdif out of the 0404. Thanks for the channel 3 and 4 hint -- it was they key I needed.

Since I had a thread about this over at HF, I'll just reproduce the results here:

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First off, it can't be done without an external program. The one necessary is called soundflower.

Once soundflower is installed it has a little flower icon on top of your screen, next to your wireless bar, clock, etc. click on the flower to bring up options.

1) Mouse over Soundflower (2ch)

2) Mouse over "Channel 1"

3) Set Channel 1 to "E-MU 0404 | USB [3]"

4) Set "Channel 2" to "E-MU 0404 | USB [4]"

5) Set your sound output in "Audio MIDI setup" (found under Applications/Utilities) to "Soundflower (2ch)"

6) Enjoy

Thanks for all the help, Enoyin and ph0rk!

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