DAC comparison

31pm

@backdoor That DAC was part of the last of the "we don’t like Redbook" era DAC’s. Since then most good DACs have demonstrated such an improvement with Redbook that you almost don’t care about high resolution music anymore.

Not sure when this era of transition took place, but an interesting observation. I have had the same DAC (Yamamoto YDA-1a) since 2010 it is simply wonderful with Redbook CD playback. Paired with my Pro-Ject RS2T transport the music presentation is genuinely superb and natural.
 

So maybe some brands/manufacturers crossed the threshold to terrific Redbook 16/44 earlier than others. Nice topic. Listening to jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell as I type this. The CD is “Lotus Blossom “ and it’s beautiful and captivating. Long live Redbook CD.

Charles

@erik_squires +1

I owned that dac. It was good, not great, at its release and it was far better upsampling than redbook. If you want it to match other ARC equipment then cool. If you do get it though, the USB input is horrible. Use spdif or AES. In today’s dac world, I would take a Border Patrol at around $1,000 used and never, ever regret NOT getting the DAC 8. For a very brief while though, ARC’s Ref dac was selling for between $4-5k. Now that was a great dac if you ignored all the poorly thought out tech. It was a terrific dac with a Ref5se output stage. Feed that dac through its AES input and it was a screaming deal at its used price.

Dacs have come so far the past 5-10 years. Alot of really bright people have addressed jitter in some truly innovative ways. Its a great time to be in the hobby.

@backdoor 

I hope you are able to hear the ARC DAC 8 and judge for yourself within the context of your own audio system. This DAC had a very good word of mouth reputation. I think it’s worth looking into.

Charles 

@ghasley 

I have heard the Border Patrol DAC (BP) but in a full BP system with Volti speakers under show conditions. The overall sound quality was quite good but of course no way to isolate the BP DAC contribution. Some on this forum have praised the BP DAC and others have trashed it and called it over rated.  Just makes the point that no audio component goes unscathed. Thus home audition if feasible.

After bringing home a new DAC it further reinforces how important the DAC is as a source component. Especially if it is the hub of your system like mine is. I still listen to FM, but  the DAC is really where most of my media is connected to.

If you asked me last year if I would be spending $3200 on a DAC I would have thought you were crazy. It was money well spent .