Music from hard drive better than CD?

Pardales, my quick check of i-retailers indicates the Apogee mini-DAC will set you back about $1.2K. I use a Waveterminal U24 ($160). If you went that route, it would leave you a cool $1K to find a good DAC that could also be used for other things... $1K on the used market almost gives you a Theta Gen Va, for example, or a Birdland. I haven't A/B'd my Waveterminal/dCS set-up against the Apogee, but I still think the U24 route gives you more ultimate flexibility. The USB input of the U24 will let you put the device right next to the DAC and limit the length of your coax digital interconnect...

Pardales - There are also the two USB DAC's offered by Wavelength, The Cosecant and The Brick, as well as the Grace M902. Of those, the Apogee is certainly the least expensive. I'm pretty sure there are a few others as well.

Marco

Thanks Edesilva and Jax2. I might go with the inexpensive wavelength to begin with and see how it sounds. This is all a bit of an experiment to see if I even like interfacing with my music in this way. If I like it I may then go for a more serious DAC.

An even less expensive option, if you are running a Mac, is to use an AirportExpress module (about $120) which has an optical output that streams raw data and bypasses the DAC (you'll need a toslink cable). You can stream your music from your computer via either an Airport card or other wireless device, or via an ethernet cord directly to the AirportExpress. The optical output of the AE runs to your DAC and VIOLA! If you are looking for an inexpensive way to experiment and see if it suits you, that might be an alternative worth considering.

Marco

The Apogee Mini-Dac has a Big Ben clock in it. I used an M-Audio Audiophile USB Dac before the Apogee and the Apogee Mini-Dac is many jumps in quality better than something like the M-Audio. Completely different ball-park. I also used the M-Audio just to convert the signal to SPiF so I could plug the computer into a Proceed AVP2 and use the Proceed's DAC. Again -- the Apogee USB Mini-Dac sounds way better. The computer plus Apogee just sounds great. Natural, detailed, organic, not digital sounding at all. I am extremely happy with it.