Check TMRaudio they have tube DAc listed..
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.
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You might want to try the Wyred4sound 10th anniversary DAC It's about $4,500 US, great reviews, one of the reviewers put it up against his VPI turntable with a $5,000 Japanese cartridge and he said that the 10th anniversary DAC was every bit as analog sounding on that review I bought it and I totally agree, and it's got seven different filter adjustments on it and you can also adjust the jitter as well for your transport and they offer a 30-day trial period, can't beat that. |
@soix Do you have any suggestions in the 8 to 10 k range (new) that you would perfer to the denafrips terminator-2? Anyone else please chim in too. thx |
Whoa! That’s quite a jump from $3k-$4k used. Frankly DACs in the $10k range are unfortunately outta my budget realm and not much personal experience there so take this FWIW, but If it was me and especially if I was looking for something different from the DAC3 I’d look first at Lampizator if you’re open to tubes. For solid state at the lower price point used I immediately thought R2R NOS hence the Terminator recommendation, but up at higher price levels most everything sounds great so names like Bricasti, T+A, Weiss, Rockna, etc. are all worth a look depending on which has sound characteristics most closely aligned with what you’re looking for. Hope this is somewhat helpful, and I’m sure you’ll get many more great recommendations at this price level. Best of luck in your search! |
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