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DACs that do well without a preamp

I am looking for a DAC to feed my DNA-1 gold power amp directly, streaming Qobuz or Tidal from a Bluesound Vault. Budget is $1-2K; would consider used, if worthwhile. Current contenders are Benchmark 3 HGC, Brooklyn DAC+, Gustard x26 pro, Holo Spring 3, Musetec 004 and Pontus ii. Looking for clean, detailed, uncolored sound that "lifts the veil". What are the qualities I should look for to drive an amp well, without a pre?
128x128cheeg
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audphile1's avatar
audphile1
4,892 posts
 

You’re not going to get a dac at that price that has a good volume control.
I had a Benchmark DAC 3 HGC and lived with its volume control for few weeks when I was in process of switching preamps. In my mind, that’s the only use case, to get you by. It was music to my ears when a preamp was re-introduced. Nothing at this price will give you performance comparable to a dedicated preamp. Brooklyn DAC+ or any of your other choices (except denafrips with fixed out) will just sound slightly different than the benchmark but the concept of low quality volume control will remain. 
In your case I’d actually take the $1000-$2000 and get a good preamp (i.e. Rogue RP-1 or RP-5) and keep using the BlueSound as a streamer with its built in DAC. 

zerofox
61 posts
 

I tried this with a Wadia 321 also, but had bad results. I think I got a bad one, because it just was not right. It was just missing depth, size, punch. I returned it.

Then I went to a Schiit Freya+ preamp (no DAC). It was decent, but I ended up selling it.

Currently I have a mid 90’s Wadia 15 DAC that is going directly to my Pass XA60.5s. Call me crazy, but I prefer the Wadia 15s DAC to the Bryston BDA-1 DAC that it replaced. I should say that I only listen to 16/44, so Qobuz and Tidal won't work here. I am very pleased with the results, but I think long term I will return to a preamp in the chain. Probably Audio Research.

The Wadia 321 really did look the part. Very nice looking piece of equipment. Yes it does have a large footprint as mentioned above. Think a large pizza box. I still scratch my head on why this didn’t work out.

jjss49's avatar
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 

pontus (all denafrips) have fixed outputs, i believe all holo dacs are fixed analog out as well (i am sure i will be corrected if i am wrong on this)

under 2 grand, i would consider

ayre codex (volume knob, but no remote)

soekris 1541 or 2541 (uses apple remote to control volume), excellent sounding unit

stay away from chi fi dacs with volume controls, they are poorly implemented and will strip bits at low volume, making the music sound more mechanical (true also for musetec) - same for rme adi2 (this unit has many many useful features but a quality volume control is not one of them)

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