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What's the greatest bargain in DAC's these days?

Hi, Gang,
I am currently running my Music Hall CD 25.2 CD player as a transport through my Musical Fidelity M1 DAC. I also have the Musical Fidelity V-Link 192 for playing hi-res files from the USB port on my laptop.
DAC's are such a fast-moving market segment that I started to wonder whether there was a "stupid good" DAC, even better than the MF M1 DAC, that could be had for well under $1000.
I started a thread in the Amps/Preamps forum called "What's The Greatest Bargain in SET These Days" that yielded tons of great info. I hope this thread does, as well!
rebbi
johnjc
63 posts
 
I heard quite a few DACs
If you have some DIY skills the best value DAC is the DDAC This is capable of going up against the big boys. Close behind (very close) is the JK Cunas. If you want to go via SPDI then the Caiman mk2 via a battery is pretty hard to beat
dgarretson
2,613 posts
 
If into DIY, the Twisted Pear Buffalo DAC is a relatively easy kit to build-- requiring, however, a customer-supplied chassis. I've built several iterations from Buffalo II through Buffalo IIISE, in stereo and dual mono. The latest Placid 2.1 and AVCC regulator upgrades have raised the bar for TP and for all commercially available implementations of the ESS reference 9018 Sabre chip. Whatever your biases for or against the ESS chip, this one will astonish.
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
Johnjc,
I can't find references to either of those DAC's. Can you provide any links?
rebbi OP
1,326 posts
 
I have narrowed the field to wanting a DAC with variable level analogue outputs. In the sub $1000 category, I see the Parasound ZDAC v.2 and the Jolida FX Mark III. Anybody have thoughts about the relative merits of these two units?
ait
480 posts
 
I built a Buffalo IIIse into my 26 tube preamp, using the 26 tube fed by Lundahl LL1676 transformers as its output stage, and added a Sonore asynchronous USB board in there as well. Salas Reflektor-D regulators supply power for the DAC and USB board, fed from a choke input LCLC power supply. So now I can plug S/PDIF, USB, and six conventional sources all into the same box and switch between them. The combination of the Buffalo IIIse with 1920's tube technology is very nice, indeed!

If you already have a tube preamp with some room in the chassis and some DIY skills, adding the Buffalo IIIse board for $279.00 (with TP regulators included) is a great bargain! Excellent sound as well.

The Preamp that became a DAC
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