Help Choosing DAC

FLAC sucks with most computer interfaces. So does ALAC and even AIFF. .wav is the only pure format. If you are after the best SQ, imaging and soundstage, .wav is it. Even sounds great on an iPod or iPhone.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Steve, How much bigger is a .wav file than a .flac file ? Thanks

I am sure Steve must be right, but I have quite a good set up and I can't convince myself of a worthwhile difference between between ALAC and AIFF. Perhaps my ears are getting old, like me. I know he recommended WAV, but I have been scared off by the problems of attaching metadata with WAV

Mabonn - 2X bigger.

David12 - do you have acoustic treatments in your room? Are your speakers optimally positioned and toed?

You should be getting pinpoint imaging, soundstage well outside your speakers and 20-30 feet behind them. If you dog jumps and looks around when the music comes on, you know you have it. If you can go into the adjacent room and it sounds like a live concert coming from the other room, you have it. Otherwise, not.

It takes some patience and tweaking to get even the best systems to be dynamic and live sounding, and most of all, resolving.

If you are using an active preamp, all bets are off. You probably will not hear these differences.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

An example of a Dac with pre is the Burson conductor, it have 3 gain settings + lots if inputs for PC users. (USb/coax) a solid unit.