Non Analytical Sounding DAC Upgrade- Budget $1,500 or less

The Schitt is great bang for the buck. I also like the Hegel DAs. The HD12 can be found on the used market for under $1000 and offer a lot.

Just for fun I picked up a Topping D-30 as it was getting some nice comments online. It was about $120.00 on ebay.


I've seen it beat out a variety of much more expensive units! Smoother, more 3D and not bright. Quite a surprise! The last DAC it beat had a retail of over $4000.00...


It supports S/PDIF (AES1), TOSLINK and USB; up to 192KHz and 24bits.

BTW, I agree with the previous Mojo comment; definitely the best DAC under $500.

I have been through so many DACs and as good as some were, I was always aware that something was missing. Some DACs I've tried, North star, Musical Paradise, Aeris, Calyx,  EAR Dac4 (exceptional but expensive) Plus many others
But when it came down the the one that ruled all others it was :-
Dum roll roll please  ............ Tubadour III SE ... Music Music Music 

The SHD competes with the best DACs plus it has:

Dirac Live® Digital Room Correction
Processor: 32-bit floating-point 450 MHz Analog Devices SHARC DSP
DAC Chipset AKM AK4490EQ

Dirac Live plus the AK4490EQ DAC will be like removing coke bottle lenses from your eyes.

miniDSP SHD is my choise

@atmasphere 
Interesting. How were you using the D-30, streaming, CD's, Hi-res?

Streaming and CDs.

@atmasphere  I was just checking out the D-30 on eBay and the prices seem to vary a lot by seller.  Do you mind mentioning which seller you used? Thanks

Sure:ko.kpee.8yqoko

But he doesn't seem to have any for sale right now.

I have a Chord Qutest with a Teddy Pardo linear power supply.
The improvement is truly stunning and Ive described it elsewhere.

OF COURSE Chord wants us to believe that their cheap wall wart is optimized for the Qutest...ha!! They dont want the Qutest to steal business from the Hugo, TT or Dave!

Paid $1200 inc shipping for a used Qutest and paid $350 for a new Teddy Pardo LPS

Unless I need to drive an amp directly one day, I cant see changing this DAC anytime soon.

Thanks Ralph

You can get a  Topping D30 at apos audio for $120, Toppings new E30 for $10 more.

First, buy a used DAC on Audiogon. That alone will turn your $1500 budget into $2500 to $3000. Second, look for a highly regarded and positively reviewed piece that is one generation old. Prices fall a bit when an upgraded model comes out. But if the last generation was awesome, it didn’t get less awesome. I bought my DAC used for $1300, I believe. It’s a Bryson BDA-1 D/A converter. It was $3,000 new. Bryston has since launched BDA-2 and then BDA-3; the latter is about $3500 new. I love the DAC. It does everything the reviews said it would. Good luck!

I just purchased a Denafrips Ares 2 and am very impressed. I Love the sound, not harsh or "digital" at all, beautiful soundstage, detail, instruments and voices are just awesome,  and I can (and do) listen for hours.  At the same time I upgraded my digital and analog interconnects to BlueJeans cables, I believe that also made a nice and big difference. My previous DAC's were the ones in my Bluesound node 2 and a DacMagic 100, so yea I have nothing major to compare it to DAC wise. I still listen to vinyl and find this DAC sounds similar to vinyl, and at times even better. The lead time is very short now, and highly suggest you consider this DAC, probably exceptional value of the money.

My System:
Oracle Alexandria MKII with Ortolan MC 30 Super cartridge
Parasound Zphono (Using BlueJeans interconnects - however I am waiting for my Stager Pure Silver Solids with KLEI silver connectors to arrive for comparison)
Bluesound node 2 for streaming (All CD resolution files on hard drive, a few higher resolution and then mostly Tidal for streaming)
Denafrips Ares 2
Quad 44 Pre AMP ( with upgraded OP amps)
Quad 405 amp (with major dual PSU upgrade and some OP Amps)
B&W CM6 S2 bookshelf speakes via KimberKable TC8 speaker cables.

My MHDT Orchid was recently modded by Grannyring (Bill) and all I can say is wow. The sound is cleaner and clearer without sounding glaring. The soundstage is larger and more holographic. Right now I’m listening to Jessica Williams Live at Yoshi’s and she’s right in front of me playing her piano.

I previously owned the PS Audio Direct Stream, Metrum Onyx and the T&A Dac 8 and there is no comparison. The modded Orchid is more natural and 3D sounding and costs less than $2k with the upgrades. Highly recommended!

I've been running an MHDT Orchid for about six months now.  My only modification is that I'm using a 6DJ8 in place of the 5670/We296 family. I have a western electric,  a teal and a GE 5 star and the Amperex 6DJ8 is better. It does require an adapter for the socket. 

I love the sound of this dac. I listen to it for hours and hours. 

I also have the MHDT Orchid. It's a very musical dac. and cheap (:

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but as a owner of the Orchid I would really like all owners of the Orchid to join my fb group https://www.facebook.com/groups/orchiddac/.
The purpose of the group is to collect any information that can improve the SQ of the Orchid.If you have suggestion for a great tube, new capacitor, power cable. come join,

Re Deer Creek's post above that the dac in the MiniDSP is competitive with many mentioned here, can you comment on how user friendly the MiniDSP is to use for a non computer type.  I want to try Dirac on problematic room, and streamer to replace my cpu would be nice. But i took a look at the manual and was a bit overwhelmed....

I'm wondering if the Covid restriction on international shipping has had any effect on deliveries from companies like Audio Mirror, MHDT Labs, et al.
What was your wait time?

Thanks everyone for the ideas and suggestions. I thought it would be good to update everyone on what I decided to do.

After lots of DAC research and considering where I want to take my system over the next year I went in a slightly different direction. Instead of spending my entire budget on a DAC, I split it up and will use part of it to explore the benefits of adding tube preamp and/or power amp. So, instead of a $1,500 DAC I purchased the Schiit Modi Multibit for $250 and will use the rest to add a tube preamp to the system.

I've had the Modi for a couple weeks now and am very impressed with it. There is a bigger soundstage (deeper and wider) and detail retrieval is better than the Beresford. It's a good match to my turntable and I'm looking forward to seeing what a quality tube preamp adds. Right now I'm leaning toward the Mapletree Line 2CRM preamp and will use my NAD as the power amp. If anyone has experience with a Mapletree/NAD combo I'd be interested to hear about it. I posted a thread over on Amplifier forum if anyone wants to chime in.

Thanks again!

I was using a Jotunheim multibit and liked it. I replaced it with a Gunguir Multibit to see if I could hear some difference. Damn, I cannot believe how good the Gumby is. It needs a few days of run in before it sounds right. But after settling in  it makes recordings I never paid attention three dimensional and startling beautiful. The sound of this thing is just mesmerizing. 

I use Gumby in a system with a Pass Xa25, Jotunheim line source, Kef LS 50's, REL T-5 sub,  Qobuz files from a Mac, and an assortment of Anticable power cords, interconnects, and speaker wires. This DAC truly is the best source I have ever owned. Give Gumby an audition but let it run for a few days and make sure you have good interconnects and power cords with it.  I can't believe how good this thing is.  

I’ve been a Musical Paradise pimp for years and on a whim picked up a Denafrips Ares 2 to try out the whole R2R thing. Holy cow I did not expect the curtains to fall and the music was front and Center compared to the AKM4499 and fully tricked out  MP-D2 MK3. The Ares 2 was like a breath of fresh air and I found myself listening to all my favourites again and even worse, I restarted my Tidal subscription again since Digital finally was keeping up with my vinyl rig! I have since upgraded to the Pontus 2 and it’s a big improvement over the Ares 2 in musicality and the bass is so much better and you can actually feel the room where the music was recorded. I know you’ve already made a purchase but I thought I’d chime in and share my experience.