Jump to content

The Great Dac search


granodemostasa

Recommended Posts

son, if you seriously consider HC "rational" then you simply have not been reading enough.

for those who know: how "good" or bad would you say that the dac I linked earlier is... i'm starting to seriously consider it.

-david

I almost pulled the trigger on the meridian it looks interesting and I liked the cdps from that era although I am not sure how Empirical implements the usb in on this unit???

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 367
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

poor english-typing-skills dude in SF would not let me hear it before purchase. nice...

Keep saving your monies for bigga and bedda DAC's. We all know you won't be satisfied until you get into EMM/top Esoterics/APL, etc.

The CEC DAC basically uses the same "discrete output stage" in that small plastic module as used in the AQVox DAC and Citipulse DAC.

And you have already owned the Lite DAC60 type, which is really the same thing as Monarchy in question, with addition of another tube stage for "preamp" and a "SS output," which is most likely signal taken off just before the tube stage, then gone through an op-amp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Keep saving your monies for bigga and bedda DAC's. We all know you won't be satisfied until you get into EMM/top Esoterics/APL, etc.

The CEC DAC basically uses the same "discrete output stage" in that small plastic module as used in the AQVox DAC and Citipulse DAC.

And you have already owned the Lite DAC60 type, which is really the same thing as Monarchy in question, with addition of another tube stage for "preamp" and a "SS output," which is most likely signal taken off just before the tube stage, then gone through an op-amp.

Just buckle down and get an APL. The SA10 mod or whatever is supposed to be awesome and 'close' to that of the 3.0.

Neil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been looking at this lately, too. I'm trying to decide if it'll be worth the cash expenditure or not (already have an Opus which is pretty nice).

I built one of the eariler ones and am about to build another. We can work something out once it's done if you'd like to hear it... I can definitely give you a copy of the revised BOM. I wouldn't hold my breath, Feb. is likely unless someone lights a fire under me to get it done for the next DFW meet...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd love to build one and compare it with my Opus, but based on the price list I was sent, the D-I 16 costs around $1000, minus a case O.o

I haven't checked to see if it could be done cheaper sourcing my own parts, though.

there are a lot of parts that are hard to get over here... like the Philips parts and the fancy polystyrene caps. As for the TDA1543 there are cheaper places to get those. I'll work on my BOM and total things up later next week for 'ya.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ask n_Maher, afterall his hertsens DAC is basically a max DAC (balanced and snazzy and such).

I'm listening to it as I type and about to start a little back to back vs. the Wadia 830 over the next couple days. Both are feed single ended outputs to tyrion's MPX3. I'm going to run them like that for a while and then run them both balanced to the mini32 and we'll see just how good this little dac is. The WADIA was originally ~$3000 and still considered to be pretty decent as far as I know. In fairness though, I'm generally not the pickiest guy so I don't expect to uncover earth shattering differences between the two.

And the Florida crew got to spend some time with the Hertsens recently, I think their impressions are in the thread on Head-Fi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.