Considering my budget and equipment, <$150 DAC or LOD-to-RCA?

[TheMarchingMule]

Hey everybody,

I'm a college student right now, and life is okay. I am missing my nice Stax set up at home, though; my iPod and KSC75 have kept me occupied so far.

But now I'm swinging for a college setup, which I'm determined to have like this:

Laptop => [some DAC] => Little Dot I+ => Grado SR225

I'm sure you can see the missing link.

My first impulse was to re-buy the same DAC as the one from home: KECES DA-151, but I really won't have the budget for that for awhile, and I honestly think it's too good for the rest of my system overall.

Perhaps having a LOD-to-RCA output cable will fare the best at this rate. I think that's the best option for me right now.

Thanks for the help in advance!

[mow_the_hawk]

I saw an Entech 203.5 in the FS forum. He is selling it for $50+ shipping from Canada. Those are supposedly great for the price.

[TheMarchingMule]

BumP

[andrew jc]

What about something small like the Alien Dac? You could build it or have some else build one for short change. I have one and I like it, but then again I have nothing to compare it to. There is always the used market http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....cobalt-307-dac