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DAC Selection

I listen to vinyl mostly, but with my recent speakers upgrade I found digital sounding quite good and have been thinking to invest in a better DAC. I use tube gear - tube preamp, SET mono blocks, etc. I am using big full range 3-way speakers, highly efficient, very dynamic, going almost flat down to 20Hz. Most of the gear I use is either DIY or highly upgraded commercial products with exotic parts. The DIY products are all built by me, either from kits or from well-known simple and good sounding schematics. Listen to all kind of music but mostly jazz and blues. 

Looking to get the best DAC I can for my system. My budget is $6K. I can try building one myself, buy a kit, or get a commercial product. Besides building one myself, three DACs have caught my eye:

  • PS Audio DirectStream DAC
  • Schiit Audio Yggdrasil 
  • Audio Note Kits DAC 5.1

I have listened to several DACs and found the Analogue Devices chips to sound more musical in my system than the newer Sabre chips. But that could be due to the DAC implementation rather than the chip itself... Never heard an FPGA DAC like the one from PS Audio. The Audio Note Kit looks great in terms of design, components, and quality, but I would never know how it sounds until I build it, so can’t really audition and return if I don’t like it like I can do with the other products on my list. 

Another idea going through my head is to try building one myself - get the cleanest regulated power, the best digital section I can find, and a high-quality analog section with the best components available. And I might end up with a very high-end DAC. But again, you invest a lot of money, not knowing what the end result would be.

Some days I wish I could not solder. With all the choices we have, it is already so difficult to make decisions, and when you add DIY in the picture you make the decision making process a lot worse. And when you open a commercial product that costs $5,000 and find parts for $450, that makes you think really hard if you spent your hard-earned money the best possible way. But let’s not go there… I am happy to spend $6K for a PS Audio DirectStream DAC if I am convinced that’s my best option. And I will certainly audition that 


Any comments, suggestions, recommendations? 


nenon
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,378 posts
 
As a member of a thriving audio club with over 80 members who have spent many hours listening to a wide variety of systems from budget to SOTA, about a dozen members have moved over the last year or two to the Yggdrasil or Gungnir multibit. They punch far above their price points, are well made/supported and come from a company that is no nonsense in it's focus on putting their money into better design & parts, not marketing & BS. The only other dacs I've heard that really makes me want to grab my wallet are the Aqua dacs at much higher prices. Cheers,
Spencer 
nenon OP
28 posts
 
Thank you for all the good suggestions.
Good to see owners of the DirectStream DAC providing positive feedback. My impressions after reading a lot about this DAC online was that it was not such an exceptional product when originally released but it got better and better with every FPGA software upgrade. Those free upgrades make it a good long term investment. Good model.
@mahler123 The Mytek Manhattan looks interesting, but their return policy does not seem very generous. I will audition it if I can. Need to do some more reading on the Bryston.
@sbank Interesting feedback about the Yggdrasil. I would really like to have the Yggdrasil and DirectStream in my system at the same time, and have them for a couple of weeks, so the burn-in process can take place before I compare them. That might be difficult with backlogs and different return policies, but I might be able to manage it. Those Aqua dacs look really nice but out of my budget.
I wonder if anyone here can provide some feedback about the Audio Note Kits DAC 5.1. Everything in this DAC looks really good and fits my taste - excellent power section, AD1865NK chips, tube analog section, good components, etc. But none of that tells me how it sounds :). 

charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
Hello nenon,
The made in England SW1X Audio Designs DACs may interest you given your background and musical genre taste. It’s similar to the well regarded Audio Note DACs but with "perhaps" better part quality at a similar price point. It uses multibit chips (if that matters to you). Audiogon member wig has one and says it is genuinely sublime. I believe that any of the DACs you listed would probably satisfy you. Another possible contender is the highly touted Denafrips Terminator (comprehensive review by 6 Moons) and reviewed on Audiogon by member david_ten.
Best of luck
Charles
melm
1,074 posts
 
You sound adventurous* enough to consider one of the direct-order Asian DACs which seem to provide a lot of value.

Unless you're intent upon spending a lot you might research DACs like Holo, Pontus, LKS, Gustard, or Denafrips.  Costing a fraction of what some DACs mentioned in this thread cost, users are reporting that they outperform some of the VERY high priced ones.

Personally I would not purchase a DAC that does not play SACDs or (my preference) ripped .dsf files. Some of these are simply outstanding in SQ.

You might do a search here and elsewhere.

*Hey, you use a soldering iron!
audioengr
3,282 posts
 

I would not assume that every $6K DAC has $500 of parts in it.

The output coupling caps in my DAC alone cost more than $1K.  The 22 custom linear regulators are $4400.

The other thing about designing your own DAC is that it takes a LOT of experience and knowledge to design a good one.  You must understand how to minimize jitter, how to linearize non-linear analog sections, how to get really low noise floor, how to design low-noise fast responding voltage regulators.  You must be familiar with what are the best and fastest gates are, the latest technology.  Finally, you must have the knowledge to design USB or Ethernet interface yourself, or you end-up buying something from a third-party that is crippled (low sound quality).

This is not a cook-book exercise.  It's not sufficient just to make it functional. It must perform well.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

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