2. digital
  3. 189918-170711

Is there anything other than a Benchmark DAC?

I own the Benchmark DAC3 and love it.  I am looking for another DAC due to the addition of a  second system. It will either go with a Boulder/Audio Research/(B&W or Vandersteen) system or a McIntosh/Bryston/(B&W or Vandersteen) system. I am looking to try to get something under 3k (maybe 4k) used. I've been looking for a month or so and have seen Bryston (DAC3 wanna be), Primaluna (too much distortion) and a bunch of really old stuff.  I have yet to justify any purchase when a DAC3 is sitting there new around 2k with those untouchable distortion numbers. I would love to try a tube DAC tho another solid state DAC would be fine. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Given my DAC3 bias I would love to hear from  those whose bias differs from mine.

128x128delmatae
delmatae's avatar
delmatae OP
14 posts
 

@mitch2 yes I am, tho I am leaning towards something suggested in this thread.

yyzsantabarbara
4,790 posts
 

Since you are going through a tube preamp my suggestion is the Schitt Yggi+ MIB. For the longest time I thought Schitt was mid-fi gear. However, after buying the Jotehuim R headphone amp for my RAAL headphones I started to try out more of their gear. Some of it is top notch.

kairosman's avatar
kairosman
278 posts
 

You can't talk about tube DACs without mentioning Lampizator, you could get an Amber 4 for $4K but frankly given the quality of the other components in your systems you really don't want the weak link to be your source, you should really be looking at spending minimum $7-10K. 

treynolds155
184 posts
 

OP, you mention that you may go with Mcintosh. If it includes a built in dac give that a shot for a while. They are actually quite good, I'd image the DAC2 module would compare nicely to a lot of top rated dacs.  

bellemusique's avatar
bellemusique
68 posts
 

There’s DAC 2.2 SE by Abbas Audio on eBay in UK right now. You can easily convert it to 110V. I’m using the model 3.1 and it is by far the best DAC I owned so far. I'm using Sound Lab speakers with Atma Sphere electronics and Missing Bond cables.

More to discover