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DACs with volume controls

Okay, I love all this audiophile stuff, but I'm a private school teacher (little money). So are there any decent used or new DACs that I can purchase with a volume control and hence skip the need for the preamp? I'm thinking I can go 1.5 grand, maybe 2 if I wait till summer. Anyone out there use this stuff or heard it? I'm new to this sonic world and have only read about the Wavelength DAC, don't know any others.
tbadder
tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
The Camelot Uther v2 m3 is a great DAC and used it is in your price range. The only problem is it is hard to find used. To get better than the Uther, you need to move into d/c/s gear for DAC/preamplifiers (around $10k).

Peace.

Keith
reubent
7,051 posts
 
The Creek OBH-14 is only about $300 new. The Monarchys are very nice and they are inexpensive. You can choose from the Monarchy Model 18B, 22C or 33. All have analog line amps built in. The model 33 also has 2 additional inputs, so it can replace a line level pre-amp and DAC and it sounds great. You can purchase one direct from MonarchyAudio.com for $719 which is 50% of original list.

The Monarchy Model 33 is very good and has been favorably compared to well regarded DACs such as Bel Canto and MSB linkDAC3.

TIC
tbadder OP
103 posts
 
Geez, one day and all these responses, you guys are great. You've given me stuff to start my research, and I love researching!

Does anyone else agree with Stevegolf1? That if I'm looking to save money by "skipping" a component it might be better to go with a CD player with a volume control? Hmmmm...thinking out loud. My eventual upgrade path then would be via a superior DAC as opposed to a superior Transport with my original idea.

Which upgrade path would probably be more fruitful? Improving the DAC with a long standing transport, or improving the transport with a long standing DAC?
rockbox
17 posts
 
You could build a bottlehead foreplay preamp for $150 and get a sony sacd 333es or 555es player for under a grand from some of the dealers on the net or good guys in california. I think they are selling the 333es for $400. With the money you save, you could get yourself alot of sacd's and regular cd's and I bet it will sound as good or better than any 2k dacs out there except maybe for the EVS dac.
aroc
760 posts
 
Audio Alchemy DDE v3.0's had volume controls, if I remember right. I see a DTI32 and DDE3.0 for sale here on audiogon for under a grand.

The DDE3.0 is AA's best DAC and the DTI32 is AA's best jitter box. Too bad AA went out of business. They made some good inexpensive stuff.
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