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DAC recommendation

Doing a lot streaming with Spotify thru the parasound halo p5 DAC. I am noticing a difference in sound quality when listening to cds with my old rotel player and was thinking of upgrading to a stand alone DAC for better quality. My budget is about $1500 max used. Like wyred 4 sound but I’ve read some good things about schiit on some other threads. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, thx. 
klerxst
mr_m
1,900 posts
 
Ayre CODEX dac. $1200 to $1300 used.
gdnrbob
4,482 posts
 
+1 for Mr_m.
The Codex is a great buy for the money.
A close second is the Schiit Gungnir or Yggy. The latter is a bit more (closer to $2K used).
The nice thing is that both Ayre and Schiit offer upgrades as they become available.
B
tooblue
1,967 posts
 
Just received my Schiit Gumby two weeks ago to use in my headphone system and am very pleased, it replaced a long in tooth Theata dac and am glad I pulled the trigger on it. When things get settled in I plan to drag it down to the big rig and give it a work out.
jond's avatar
jond
5,953 posts
 
I don't think you need a new DAC. The difference you are hearing is Spotify streams MP3's and you're playing redbook CD's on your Rotel. A better comparison would be use the digital output of the Rotel to the Parasound's DAC and see how that sounds compared to the Rotel. If you want CD quality streaming check out Tidal.
ejr1953
921 posts
 
You don't see many of them come up for sale, but if you could snag a Mytek Brooklyn DAC (the original model), that might be something to consider.
It does MQA, is basically a "pre amp", has inputs for a turntable, excellent headphone amp and a very good ESS DAC chipset.
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