Looking for my first DAC

millercarbon,

Please tell me more about modding.  Who, what, where and of course, how much. 

Thanks.

JD

sfar,

Great idea. I have a subscription and will have to find the review.

My bad for not doing my homework.

Thanks!

JD

leemaze,

The OPPO 93 has Toslink and RCA digital outputs, and it’s currently my only digital source, so for now I only need one input.  

JD

I agree you could mod the OPPO and that might serve you well for awhile but think there are some good reasons for a separate DAC. 

Transports in disc players fail, they always do eventually. My experience has been that as player models change so do the transports inside them and it's sometimes impossible to find a replacement for a model that's no longer current. Without a working transport the DAC inside may be useless, no matter how good it is.
  
And my experience is that most of the advancement in audio quality over the last few years has come from the improvement in DACs. You could reasonably argue that speakers and amps have improved, as well, but the degree of improvement in DACs seems to me to be greatest. I expect that will continue.
 
And, an external DAC gives you more flexibility as new sources of music come along.

SMSL SU-8

Topping D50

RME ADI-2 DAC ($100 over, maybe find one used)

JDS Labs EL DAC


If you are willing to use the $90 Topping D10 as a USB to S/PDIF (Toslink and coax) convertor, then there are some other options you can consider, such as the ~$400 March Audio DAC1.