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Small form factor, budget DACs?

I'm trying to restore the musicality to my system, piece by piece. A few years ago my Jolida JD-602A CD player finally died and I've never really found a good replacement. I think really I've been mourning the loss and lacked the funds to get something of equal quality (since it was sort of a giant killer).

So, what can I get for < $400? Used is fine, but it has to be a compact form factor - I don't have room for another full-sized component. I think the 1/2 size form factor that Channel Islands, Musical Fidelity and Creek use is about as big as I could go.

24/96 is a plus since I have a bit of DVD-A stuff but not a necessity. I don't really have an opinion for or against oversampling, or regarding filterless DACs.

Here are the DACs that have popped up in my search so far:

$175 - Lite Audio filterless DAC
$250-400 - Ack! Dac
$200? - Creek OBH-14 - I'd have gotten one by now but I have yet to see one pop up on the used market. Probably a good sign.
$300-400? - Musical Fidelity X-24K - older DAC (circa 2000), but it looks nice and let's me stay with the appealing X-component form factor (I have an X-ACT and X-LPS now). Maybe a little overpriced - I can't help but think that for that money I could get something better
$400-600 - Channel Islands DAC - undoubtedly the best DAC on the list, but also the most expensive, so it would take the longest for me to save up the coinage.

Anything I'm missing from the list?
hudsonhawk
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
>> 04-05-06: Undertow
>> I got a little lost on the Re-attaching the XO or
>> superclock,
look at this page
http://www.tentlabs.com/Support/Support.html
click on "XO 2 and 3" to read the mounting instructions to understand what I'm talking about.

>> so upgrading everything but the clock in a CD player
>> used primarily as a transport would be a good idea or
>> not without the clock?
good idea (if you don't want to go the PC route).
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Hudsonhawk, I've owned the Bel Canto 1.1, Ack dAck 2.0, Kora Hermes 1 and Audio Mirror D1. Of them, my favorite is the Audio Mirror, for the reasons cited previously, their organic sound. I also felt the Audio Mirror was more dynamic with a greater sense of scale than either the Bel Canto and especially the Ack which to me sounded small. The Audio Mirror couldn't match the lucid midrange of the tubed Kora, but it comes close. And with all its other attributes is an amazing bargain at under $550.
hudsonhawk OP
137 posts
 
Long-dead thread, but since there was some question as to the difference between the two versions of the DAC-AH (the stock one and Pacific Valve's modded version) I thought I'd let people know that I wrote a review / comparison between the two models.

Pacific Valve was kind enough to let me borrow the stock one for comparison.
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