Unforgiving DAC or add Tube Preamp??

Jond why would the OP seek out dac’s that are nearly impossible to hear?

The Electro stuff is good but lacks many of the features people want and the Remiyo was very good but does not have the resolution of today’s more modern dacs we had one it was very good in 2008.

The Ifi DSD pro has both tubes and burr brown dac chips at $2500 including streaming and a heaphone jack seems like quite a bargain again we haven’t heard it but the reviews from six moons and stereophile pitt this little $2500 dac vs really expensive dacs and the OP can get a demo of the product it is currrent and can be demoed.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

@audiotroy One of the advantages buying used is essentially an "in-house audition" if you are smart and buy right you can listen at your leisure then resell and move on, I did it for years. And frankly resolution is overrated. There are plenty of older dacs that have fine resolution and excellent musicality. My current DAC an original Audio Note Dac-3 Signature was built in 1995 and sounds great.  Audiogon is at its heart a website for buying and selling used equipment I was offering the OP a few good looking used options from the listings.

What about a tube pre amp? Not a solution?

Can i ask that we back this up? First describe the system more fully. transport, preamp, amp, speakers, etc.
What material are you playing and complaining about? In my opinion there is great digital that i can only tell from analog by the absence of clicks and pops, and absolute crap digital that I can;t listen to. I cant listen to some of those in analog either to be honest.... An example of superb digital is "Ella and Louis" (Verve ~ 1960) Another is Pink Floyd’s "Wish you were here".

Next - before we suggest magic digital cables, let’s ask an important question - is this SPDIF? If so is it a proper 75 ohm cable? Not just a regular RCA?

Depending on the transport we could have a bunch of jitter. Improperly terminated cable (not 75 ohm) would ensure jitter and outright errors.

I don’t know the benchmark directly, but have heard that it’s kinda analytical. Not a fan overall. But apparently you liked it when you auditioned it, so i cant say for sure.

First, adding consonant harmonic distortion and rolling off the top (tubes) wont fix some of the digital harshness that can occur. That stuff is just non-harmonically related trash. So the tube preamp may soften it a bit, but is really not, IMO, an answer. You will wind up with tolerable mediocrity. not my goal.

So back up, and let’s first find the problem. Then, maybe we can fix it. Throwing a bunch id random ideas around is an expensive, ineffective solution.

If it comes down to a different DAC i would consider some oldies (Theta DSPro), The Chords, Schiit BiFrost or Gungdir multi-bits (,multi-bits tend to sound more laid back IMO). The Schiit BiFrost Multi i heard (out of the box) was fairly laid back.  Yet none of these is relaxing on screechy, badly mastered rock - mid 80s being about the worst.
As i have posted in other threads, jitter is a huge issue, and since SPDIF has the SOURCE as the mater clock, even a good DAC wont fix it unless they go to extreme lengths.  For example, i thinjhte Gen* was the first Theta to completely re-clock.

G

Turntable