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Go Back   Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio > Equipment Forums > Headphone Amps (full-size)

Headphone Amps (full-size) Discussion of desktop headphone amps.

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View Poll Results: What is the best cheap DAC out there (I mean DAC section, not Amp section)?
Beresford TC-7510 13 17.57%
Zero 24 Bit /192 KHz DAC 24 32.43%
Zhaolu (unmodded) 9 12.16%
Behringer SRC2496 0 0%
KECES DA-131 11 14.86%
Other (<$250; worldwide delivery; please specify which) 17 22.97%
Voters: 74. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 01-21-2008, 07:48 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Default Poll: Best cheap DAC?

Simple question, difficult answer. Question: what is the best cheap DAC out there?

A few things to note:
  1. I'm interested in the DAC itself, not the headphone amp that some DAC's have.
  2. The DAC will be connected to a tube amp (LD MKIII) which in turn drives a pair of K601's.
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Old 01-21-2008, 08:33 PM   #2 (permalink)
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These might be a good place to start:

*broken links*

Please feel free to take advantage of other similar search terms. Best of luck!
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Last edited by ironman64; 01-22-2008 at 02:17 AM..
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Old 01-21-2008, 09:26 PM   #3 (permalink)
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Keces DA-151....
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Old 01-21-2008, 09:42 PM   #4 (permalink)
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If you are using a computer - E-MU 1616. I owned it at the same time as Stello DA100, the sound is almost equivalent (Stello is more crisp in the treble). Has balanced outputs also, and has a headphone out if you really end up needing one.
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Old 01-22-2008, 02:00 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by ironman64 View Post
These might be a good place to start:

Search #1

Search #2

Please feel free to take advantage of other similar search terms. Best of luck!
The links don't seem to be working for me...

What are the search terms you used?

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Old 01-22-2008, 02:17 AM   #6 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by doubletaps View Post
The links don't seem to be working for me...

What are the search terms you used?

Sorry to hear that. Well, first select the equipment category (so you don't receive For Sale threads), and I chose "cheap dac" and "help dac." But try any combination you'd like--the more the better.
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Old 01-22-2008, 09:37 PM   #7 (permalink)
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I think the exact search in the second link was "DAC recommended".

Of course I did the search and read hundreds if not thousands of posts. It's difficult to choose the right DAC on individual observations. There are loads of discussions about opamps and such. Comparisons with regard to SQ are harder to find. Furthermore, there seem to be a number of 'fanboys' that defend their own DAC. Therefore I thought that a poll would be a way to check if there is a consensus on the forum.
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Old 01-22-2008, 10:02 PM   #8 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by verbaan View Post
I think the exact search in the second link was "DAC recommended".

That may be correct--sorry if I misquoted my own entry!

You've probably thought through this, but polling doesn't eliminate the presence of fanboys either; sometimes forcing people to choose one encourages "bandwagoning" (w/ name recognition, etc). It's because of this that yourwork's cut out for you. My two cents is to look for consistency and longevity of a product: was it a passing fad, did only a handful of members post in multiple threads making the support base appear larger . . .
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Old 01-24-2008, 08:54 PM   #9 (permalink)
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You've probably thought through this, but polling doesn't eliminate the presence of fanboys either; sometimes forcing people to choose one encourages "bandwagoning" (w/ name recognition, etc). It's because of this that yourwork's cut out for you. My two cents is to look for consistency and longevity of a product: was it a passing fad, did only a handful of members post in multiple threads making the support base appear larger . . .
Of course you are right. I'm very curious if the ZERO frenzy continues and I wonder what people think in a few months. The Beresford is around longer but only a very small number of people are very enthousiastic about it. The KECES is very new, not many people have one to review. It looks great though (also with regard to the specs).

So the quest continues... I think I get the Beresford or .... maybe the ZERO?
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Old 01-24-2008, 09:11 PM   #10 (permalink)
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Of course, you could always buy one, or two, or all three and let us know what you think! You could always sell what you don't want to keep.
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