Best budget DAC

I want to thank everyone who responded to my question(s). It was all very helpful. I have a lot to digest and consider.

The response by wrm0325 was particularly helpful. If I could respond to you directly about a computer system, I would be very grateful.

Thanks again. You guys are so informative and helpful, and the reason I love this site so much.

Edincleve, perhaps you could mention why you are choosing to not employ the built in DAC of the P5.  Did you try it and not like it?  

I'd be cautious of the Emotiva products.  The DAC of their I had was not very good sounding in some applications.  Also their house sound tends to be somewhat bright, not organic.   The Schitt stuff is very well regarded for the money.

+1 runnin, I have been wondering the same. Another poster asked the same and we haven’t heard back on this. I doubt any of the DACs mentioned would be better than the that in the P5. Different maybe. Would require an additional cable. Which one?

Actually I have tried the built-in DAC of the Parasound P5 by connecting the digital output (coax) of the NAD  C516BEE cd player to it.  I found the P5 DAC to be slightly better sounding than the NAD DAC.

I think the P5 DAC is decent, but it is a DAC built into a good $1000 preamp. How much of that $1000 do you think is dedicated to the DAC. Since the sound of the preamp, and the quality in general, is pretty good, it's hard too believe that Parasound would expend much of their parts dollars to the DAC. I may be wrong, but that's my feeling.

I love the preamp, but that's why I thought I might be able to improve my system, without spending a lot of money, with a better DAC.

At this point though, I will probably wait until Elac/Andrew Jones introduces their new 3-way Uni-Fi speakers. They use an aluminum 5" woofer with a concentric mid/tweeter. Anyone hearing them at CES, liked or raved about them. The bookshelf will sell for $500/pair. I'm hoping that the weaknesses of the Elac B5 (high end roll-off and resolution of individual instruments) will be overcome by the UB5.

edincleve, the point is that the P5 DAC will still be at par if not better than most $300 outboard DACs. The Burr-Brown PCM1798 is a decent one and Parasound is known for building quality products designed to last for a very very long time.

I sold my P5 and instead bought a Cambridge Audio Azur 851D DAC which originally sold for $1600 but was marked down to $995. So far I can tell you that, at least in my system, it's not that much better than the P5. Of course, YMMV.