Lateral move or real upgrade?


Just starting to listen to computer-stored audio. Have a first gen V-DAC used with a V-Link 192. Using a Kimber USB from MacBook Air to V-Link and StereoVox coax digital cable from V-Link to V-DAC. Did upgrade the power supply on the V-DAC.

Am wondering if changing the V-DAC to a Schiit Bifrost would be an upgrade or just a lateral move. Preferred budget sub-$500.

All constructive input welcome but would really appreciate hearing from folks that have been able to compare these two. Thanks in advance.
128x128ghosthouse
I have owned both. The Vdac/v-link combo is better than the Bifrost for USB in my opinion.
Hey Rotarius...I was planning to order the BiFrost withOUT the USB option and continue to use the V-Link (coax.) with it. Any thoughts about that?
If you go with the bifrost make sure you...
- get the UBER analogue upgrade
- get a good power cable - like those from Signal Cable should suffice
- get a really good interconnect - again, the silver Resolution interconnect from Signal cable is great value for money

The Bifrost will reward you - it's a great DAC and it responds extremely well to the above tweaks. There's more in that box than meets the eye!

I have the Bifrost and in my system it's kicking some much higher priced butt

Granted, better cables will up the anti on any DAC, but the bifrost seems to excel when given the right cabling.

Regards
Oooops, one last item...

I also second the Audirvana route - I also tried Bitperfect, but found Aurdirvana to be much better and it integrates nicely with iTunes, which I control from my droid tablet with 'Retune", another very good program.

I use all three inputs on the Bifrost and cannot discern any difference, so the coax input is very good. For that I am using a Van den Hul "The Name" which works extremely well.

I like the fact the Bifrost does not upsample. Upsampling on a previous DAC was not done well and put me off.

I also like the fact that the Bifrost does 24/192 on all three inputs and you can grade to the USB at a later date.

Hope this helps
Thanks, Willie. When you changed from BitPerfect to Audirvana, did you have to
uninstall BitPerfect or just disable it before installing Audirvana? I see Audirvana
offers a free trial period.

Thanks to all for the advice so far.