Will getting a DAC converter improve mp3 playback

Acura1947 You should check out Scott-nixon.com. He makes both solid state and tube Dacs. I have the tube Dac with coaxial out but he also makes it in USB. Just last week there was one with both toslink and coaxial jacks. Scott also has an extensive background on what you are doing. Visit the web site given above and give him a call. Every now and then one shows up here on Audiogon but they don't last long. The pricing is great but the performance is even better.

If you are using a PC I suggest you upgrade your sound card to a Creative Labs Audigy. If you are using computer speakers that is. The power is clean and the distortion is very low. To me the sound cards built in most computers don't sound very good. And when you send sounds from your computer to your main system via a DAC you will be pleasantly surprised also. You will get a quieter background and lower distortion. Visit his site and see what he has to offer.

FWIW... From my experience, most definitely, a DAC will improve your MP3 playback. It should get rid of lots of harshness. I'd get a glass toslink cable and connect it out of your computer.

If you're using a Mac then it's even easier. Set AudioMidi to 25/96 and you're good to go. Mac's however, outputs through "mini-toslink". You can get a Vandenhul Optocoupler II for $100 (as good as it gets for optical cables get from my understanding) with a mini on one end and a regular toslink jack on other end. Or if you need a longer one, Parts Express has a 12ft glass one for $65.

Or, if it's MP3s anyways, you can simply get an Airport Express and stream your music. It has a DAC in it, and from my experience with a NAD 325bee, it sounded noticeable better through the AEx then a Y-cable straight from computer or ipod. It's $50-90 (look on Craigslist) and you can always return it...

This is your cheapest route.

For $300-350 used you can probably get something very nice these days. I'd go with a tubed DAC if I were you, so you could tube roll later (change sound for cheap) and "color" the MP3 sound. I'd probably look for these ones, as you could re-sell them easily if you don't like it:

-MDHT Paradisea+ (older version)

-Channel Islands vDAC (or something like that)

Hear lots about this one on another forum, but never tried it:

-VALAB Dac (sold on ebay for $200 new).

-the DAC Magic mentioned also gets a lot of mention in other forums as well. No experience.

I really like my Monarchy M24, it's a tubed DAC with a separate tubed linestage/preamp (2 power supplies), but it's $700-800.

I've been very curious about the Paradisea and Valab though.

You might want to lurk around this forum:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Help-DACs-please

People on Audiogon seem to think MP3s are an abomination.

Also try to get 320 kbps files at least... try mininova.
And I don't think there is any point in converting MP3 files into large "CD Quality"-full bit-rate files, other than wasting storage space. As far as I know, once the bits are compressed and gone, there is no way to restore them.

Good luck. Send me a PM if you have any questions.

Acura1947,

If you listen to mp3, an external DAC or Blue Circle USB thingy will be an absolute overkill and a waste of money! Such things are for lossless formats, not for compressed one. On the other hand, if you have no access to lossless files (which seems strange to me), I can understand your desire to get the best out of mp3 files. I was myself in the same situation 5 years ago. Here's my advice to you: find an old Sony DVD player DVP-NS330 or newer models of the same series. I have NS330 and I can tell you that the quality of this Sony's inbuilt mp3-decoder is magical. I don't know what this Sony does to mp3, how it converts it to pcm and how it treats it further before it finally comes out of its analog outputs, but the result is just stunning! In the true blind tests, I and my friend compared the audio-cd tracks, played by cd-player NAD C521BEE against the same mp3 files (lame, 320 kbit/s) played by Sony DVD player DVP-NS330, and in 50-70% cases we couldn't tell the difference! The amplifier used was NAD C320BEE and the speakers were Acoustic Energy Aegist Evo 3. This Sony just refines mp3 sound somehow, making it sound rich, full-bodied, etc. The drawback was that this dvd-player could read mp3 from a dvd media, only from a cd.

When tried to play mp3 files through my current $700 DAC, $1000 preamp and the same NAD amp, it sounded worse than that Sony NS330.

Another curious thing about this NS330 is that it played Audio-CDs noticeably worse than mp3 made from the same CDs! I am not kidding, we also confirmed it, together with my friend, in blind tests.

wow thanks for all the feedback. I just turned 21 so I still got a lot to learn. Many have asked why I dont use lossless format for my music. The thing is I get most of my music off the internet and thus they come in mp3 (192kb/s normally). For the amount of music I have on my computer, over 100 gigs, it would not have enough space to accomodate lossless music. On another note, some of you have said a DAC will do good while others have said that it will do nothing. Do you think a logitech duet transporter instead of a DAC would be a better and more sure to sound better? I have a phase PC1.1 II speakers and a pioneer elite receiver which I am too also replace with a integrated amplifier like NAD or cambridge audio 500 series. nothing too fancy. anyway thanks again for all your help. god bless.

Acura1947!

The above sentence in my earlier post should read “The drawback was that this dvd-player could NOT read mp3 from a dvd media, only from a cd.” Sorry, my mistake.

I can't believe you cannot find lossless in the internet! You must be looking at wrong places. I have an unlimited internet at the office and even though the bandwidth allocated to me is small (3-7 Kb/sec, i.e. 24-56 kbit/sec), by downloading day and night I get more lossless hi-quality exclusive hard-to-get music than I can physically listen to at home!

If you still insist on mp3, try to understand that mp3 playback consists of two stages: First, mp3 signal must be decoded into raw pcm. Secondly, this pcm is then converted to analog signal by a DAC. The DAC does not decode from mp3 to pcm. So, if the decoder algorithm in your source is lousy (and they do differ in quality!), DAC will not help you.

Forget about mp3! It’s a thing of the past. Also, if you have 100 GB of mp3 files in your computer, and if they are normally, like you said, 192 kbits/s, then you have music to plan non-stop for 50.5 days (I’ve just calculated). If you listen to music (non-stop) only 3 hours per day, it means you need 404 days to listen to your collection at least once. I am sure there are some albums which you listen to at least 2-3 times, right? What I am trying to say is that considering the availability of music in the internet, it’s useless to “collect” music as we did in the past. What people lack nowadays is free time (to listen to music), the unavailability of music itself is not a problem. But collecting music steals our time. Just my two kopecks!