Are "vintage" DAC's worthwhile, or is this a tech that does not age well

On the digital front, who knows? But the analog conversion and the analog amp do make a difference. Very rare to have a good sounding cheap amp. 

Very rare to have a good sounding cheap amp.

Call me i will give to you a list of cheap very good amplifiers....my sansui AU 7700 is unbeattable for the price: 100 bucks and 6th year of working in my room 12 hours each day....

Try to look for a very good and low cost dac? This is HARD, good luck..... 😁




I bought a NOS french dac which use only one old chip TDA 1543 in a minimalistic design... Sold on EBAY by Starting point systems...Christophe Mariac designer...

He is so good i want to buy another one used in case...If someone want to sell one call me.... 😊😁😁😁😁😊

I will bother no much ever for a dac, because in my actual acoustical settings i sense NO limitation at all coming fromt it...

And my audio system for his price is so well embedded that i dont listen to my 7 headphones anymore, i dont like NO other system i listen to more andi dont to want to upgrade or buy another one....

It is not the best system there is at all, but when all music is there filling the room without heavy limitations, we listen music without thinking about a new component....

Then my greatest purchase luck what the luck to buy one of this dac....

A good dac at LOW price is perhaps the harder piece of gear to discover and bought....harder than even buying low price good speakers....

I am born under a good star.....


Then yes, old designed cheap could be more good or than dreamed of because most people has never listened to their own system at his peak working potential at all anyway.... Often the real causes of theor unsatifactions unbeknownst to them, comes from the bad embeddings controls and less than from the gear they already own.... Then instead of adressing the more complicated questions like vibrations controls, electrical noise floor controls or more importantly acoustical controls, they search for an easy solution: an upgrade....And the more evident one : a costly DAC....


I think it is not the vintage chip TDA 1543 which only explain the result i listen to but more the MINIMALISTIC way and  the low noise which is associated also with the internal battery....I connect it to a good power supply also: IPOWER ...

Older DACs will still sound as good (or bad) as they were originally, but there have been significant advances in DAC implementations. So I would recommend at least listening to some newer DACs before deciding to go with an older one.

To this day, the Audio Note Level 5 Special is a state of the art, sought after DAC. MSRP in 2008 was $80K! It can only be used to play Redbook and SACD only having a SPDIF input. I feel fortunate to own and enjoy a 3 Dimension Audio DAC which was inspired by the AN 5. Like it, a fully tube DAC. It is in my office headphone system with a Theta Compli transport, Bakoon HA-1 and ZMF Verites. I listen to it daily and feel, “Wow, that sounds great”. But when I listen to my TT main system I feel, Wow, I am speechless”
Not to open up that Pandora’s box...
As far as aging digital, for sure 16/44 is not going away and still sounds great!

Older DACs will still sound as good (or bad) as they were originally, but there have been significant advances in DAC implementations. So I would recommend at least listening to some newer DACs before deciding to go with an older one.

Improvement of technology in amplifier or dac are not synonymous with an automatic improvement in S.Q. in your own room, gear and electrical grid.... And a change on some aspect of sound is NOT an improvement in itself just a change, an improvement is a change on all aspect of sound simultaneously: details but also natural tonal timbre, imaging but also soundstage, listener envelopment but also source width....Any change on only one or 2 aspect is not necessarily an improvement, but only moving the unadressed problems around one upgrade after an another....Most people call a change from warm to more details or the reverse an improvement and it is not an improvement AT ALL just a moving around of unadressed problem....







The real question is with the least money possible how will i make my actual dac sound great? Is it possible? if yes why upgrading at all?

Some vintage dac can probably sound so good in the right "environment" that upgrading them will look like silliness.... It is my case....

But people dont know what is an environment: a mechanical,electrical and acoustical environment.... The words "embeddings" here is replaced by environment for a best understanding....New words are terrifying it seems... 😁😊

a change of a piece of gear is often  only a "change", a moving around of the problem, not an improvement....