Best budget DAC

+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.

I agree with edincleve, and remember that the built in DAC likely doesn’t require its own power supply, analog output stage, and housing that the $300 stand alone DAC does. What percentage of cost of a stand alone DAC in dedicated to the D to A conversion? I believe that to get a stand alone DAC that would be more than ‘slightly’ better than that found in the NAD player (which has a DAC that likely equals many $300 ones) would cost about as much as the P5 does. 

I might suggest that you listen to your NAD via the P5 for some time and try to determine what you would like to improve in the sound. You might then be able to better find an external DAC that improves in the right sonic directions.  From everything I have read I believe you have an excellent full functionPre/DAC combo for your $$$. You can improve your digital front end, however you likely will need to save/spend more dollars. 

I might add that it my general opinion, given as a response in other threads, that I prefer an external DAC to having one built into a pre or integrated. I value the positives of upgrade flexibility, and isolation of devices over that of shelf space or simplicity. That doesn’t make me right/wrong, just my opinion.