Dac magic plus

Update - After a week with the DM+, I am sending it back today. I'm not even sure if I let it burn in long enough, but I just got the sense that I wasn't going to be 100% happy with it. I thought it was a bit bright at the top and I noticed too much sibilance (sp?) for my liking. Perhaps this would go away with further use, and perhaps it's my system, but I just ordered a Wadia 121, so we'll soon find out!

[By the way, it was hooked up in the following arrangement:
MacBook running Audirvana -> Pangea Pure Silver USB Cable -> Dacmagic+ -> Kimber Kable Hero XLR cables -> Rotel RB-991 power amp -> Hovland Ninelines speaker cables -> Meadowlark Kestrel Hotrods] Also tried it with my Sennheiser HD-600s plugged directly into the headphone jack.

Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I didn't think it sounded noticeably better than my tiny portable Dacport plugged into a preamp with a mini-RCA adapter.

Not surprized. Try the V-dac. More organic sound in my system.

Ssglx - I already ordered the Wadia 121.

FWIW, are you sure you want to eliminate the preamp? Below 80% of full volume, most digital volume controls will shed bits in order to attenuate the signal level, which might explain some of the problems you heard. I know nothing about Audirvana, so perhaps it deals with this issue, but otherwise, you should have at a least a passive, non-digital volume attenuator for volume control. Also, do you have any power-line filtering in use? Dirty a/c (like a/c polluted by computers on the same circuit) can contribute to some of the treble nastiness you described.

I tried it through my pre-amp and didn't think it sounded any better. There seems to be a split of opinion about digital preamps. Some people think they are bad for the reasons you state, and many others think that taking a separate preamp out of the chain improves the sound. I think it probably depends a lot on the digital attenuation technology that is used. My understanding is that the Wadia 121 has excellent preamp technology (don't ask me to explain it). Anyway, it's coming tomorrow, so I'll see how it sounds.

Your comment about the power line is probably true, since my office is in a really old building. However, when I had my Oppo CD player in the office in the same system, it sounded great.