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Do other DACs do this? Auralic Vega

I have borrowed an Auralic Vega to demo with a view to buy.  However 90% of the time when I first start to use it I get a very brief crackle before the music starts. 

I'm unsure if this is just a DAC thing, or a known issue with this model (although I can't find anything searching), or more to do with how I am feeding it. 

Most music is coming from Apple Music using Firefox Browser on a NUC and fed to the Auralic via USB.

I get the same when first using the Tidal App but seems to be less frequent.

It doesn't do this between tracks, but if I move between Apple Music and the Tidal app it has a good chance of doing it again.

Ultimately I want to upgrade to a streamer, such as the Innuos Pulse Mini, so now wondering if a better source would resolve the issue or whether it could be a better option to give back the Auralic and use the internal DAC on the Innuos.

Any and all advice would be very much appreciated

incoming
audioman58's avatar
audioman58
4,108 posts
 

The innuos I was not aware make dacs ,just streamers ,

Vs  the Vega you can do Much better ,how much is this?  . the Vega is a dac- streamer. Isn’t it ,a Delta sigma sabre dac I believe , the New Denafrip Pontus -15

is their New Generations of dacs not like their past minor upgrade like the 12th .since finally by wife is on board i Audio I am running this R2R dac in and have found nothing That is better under $3k on par maybe but around $3k ,for $3200 you can get the model 15 with the excellent Hermes 12  reclocker using a I2S cable,this puts this combo way beyond anything in this price class .it is on par with their Venus -12th dac ,without the reclocker.a New venus15 is coming out shortly .Their new Digital engineer is building dacs far better .then in past efforts.

 

incoming OP
17 posts
 

Thanks for the input @audioman58

The Innuos Pulse Mini has an on-board DAC, the Pulse and Pulsar do not. I had thought I could leverage the DAC in the mini with the digital output of the NUC, but it cannot do this. To go the Innuos route I would need to keep an external DAC in the picture.

The Vega that I have on loan is old, released in 2013 I believe, this one - AURALIC VEGA (stereotimes.com)

But sounds great to my ears and would be equivalent of just over USD600. This should give an idea of the options and costs over here.

As with everything so far, it seems committing more budget than I am comfortable with is the best (and certainly easiest) solution...

incoming OP
17 posts
 

In case of interest, the settings in the NUC do make a difference. At this point I am thinking this is not a DAC issue. Will be exploring additional settings.

 

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