What would you buy Sub $350 Firewire/USB DAC

Hello All, I have the Valab Dac, actually it is the second one, 6 of the 8 dac chip capacitors began to fail, the ends of the cap opened up and the contents began to vacate the cap casing. This first dac sounded extremely open and transparant at the same time a little steely and ragged, it was also extremely 3 dimensional, moreso than anything I had heard. Problem is, was I hearing a dac with bad caps, it sounded so good I was willing to overlook the bad points and work on balancing the sound. The second is going through break in at this time, so far it is smoother and less vivid and not as 3 dimensional. The Valab has gone through some changes, one day there were pictures of the dac on his E-Bay ad with different caps and a slightly different board layout, well my second dac arrived with a mixture of some new caps that were only available for a couple of days then Kevin posted some pictures with Rubycon caps and Nec caps, according to his ad this is what he will be using in future production. In any case, it is well worth the asking price.

Hello Phil--

You are not alone. Please see:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/valab-dac-first-impressions-378459/index5.html

It seems to me that the Pacific Valve Co's NOS USB DAC is pretty much the same thing, but available states side.

I am still waiting to hear about the Scott Nixon option. When I sent him an email, he replied within hours with what he has available at the moment. I've heard really good things about his work. He has two different USB NOS DACs--one solid state, the other tube. The latter is out of stock, but I am hoping that he might have one come in on trade and be able to sell it to me in my price range. For those interested, you can see his work here:

http://www.scott-nixon.com/dac.htm

Best,

MP

In my search, i finally decided on the Keces da-151 and i am very pleased. Even though it has the "pedestrian" burr-brown 2702 dac that seems to get flogged here often, the implementation won me over. This piece is a one input, usb only device and not a jack of all trades, master of none dac with multiple inputs. Getting the usb interface done right was the most important to me because that was the way i was going to stream the music out from my computer. I figured i had a better chance of meeting this requirement by going with a usb specific dac like the Keces. Also, i like the full sized ac inlet and power cord on the Keces, assuring at least an adequate power supply.

Like you music prof., my budget was very similar to yours when i pulled the trigger. Just watch the power supply in these units. Some are self-powered which are good for a portable unit to lug around, but not so good for a home-based set-up. Some even have a half-assed walwart power supply like the fubar III which could be better as well.

Good luck in your search and thank you for starting this informative thread for others to enjoy!

Regards,
Paul

An update--I am holding off on the purchase temporarily: I have a birthday in February, and that seems like a fine occasion for this purchase. I'm down to one of three choices:

1) Inexpensive: The Moon Dac at http://www.pacificvalve.us/GigaMoon.html seems in many respects similar to the Gigalabs and Keces models. Buying it domestically might offer certain advantages.

2) Moderate: I'll have to decide between the Cambridge Audio dacMagic or one of the new offerings from Scott Nixon. The former has fine reviews and offers many options. The latter, however, works with just one input type rather than many, and I can't help but wonder if that focus might yield a better product. His past DACs have been received favourably, and I'm eager to hear about the latest offerings.

Oh wow! I'm a student at UT. Hilarious to see a link to UT's website from an audio forum. I have the Blue Circle USB Thingee, if you would like to hear it, I'm sure we could arrange something, but it would have to be soon as I leave for my co-op residence on the 26th.