what is the first dac that comes to mind...?

[Ichinichi]

which outperforms the wolfson dac, in context, inside iMods?

i just opted to go the dac route and want a better sounding dac than the internal wolfson that is in the iPod/iMods.

as a complete newb in dacs, i'm hoping some of you would shoot some price-points i should consider.

thank you all!

[Icarium]

Squeezebox 3. Oritek Modded Zhaolu. Justin/Headamp's Pico amp/dac.

[Dept_of_Alchemy]

This thread is going to turn into a list of all DACs on the market.

Here we go...

[Ichinichi]

thanks icarium!

dept_of_alchemy: so you mean to say that any standalone dac, regardless of price, would out perform the wolfson dac in the ipod?

edit: what sonic effects do dacs have? is it not just about resolution (given my understanding of what dacs can do oversampling, etc)?

[Icarium]

I pretty much listed stuff in the same price point as an Imod 5.5 + LOD. I mean it all depends on how much you have to spend. But yeah, pretty much if you consider that an EMU 0404 usb (170) will be slightly worse than a 5th gen imod + a decent cable at $550... There are a lot of DACs in the 200-1k price range. Really too many to list.

Personally if I were you and space was limited for me I'd go with Justin's portable dac/amp at ~500. It is not only TINY, but the dac is an excellent one that can upsample to 24 bits/96 kHz and will straight up destroy the ipod wolfson dac.

Of course, I haven't heard the two side by side but based on my experiences hearing each item at separate occasions..... I'd love to see someone else do a shootout though.

Shrug, you name it you can find a dac that does it sonically. Upfrontness/great soundstage/great tone/warmth/smoothness/details/clarity. DACs are no different from any other component in the chain in that different models will be strong in different areas.

[epaludo]

MicroDAC.

My only and beloved DAC for the moment ...

[Ichinichi]

Icarium, you've guessed the purpose of my exploring dacs - I want a home based source for flac. I've got the iRiver h120 in hand, and now its just the dac. The iRiver cost $165 and I was looking to spend about $550 tops so I've got about $400 or so to play with.

When you say "there are a lot of dacs in the 200-1k price range" do you mean to say that any of these are as good as the other? I'm not clear as to how the dac I choose will effect the music. I passed on an alien dac, was that a bad idea given that I've got $400 ready to go?

Is the performance of a dac just a measure of resolving power? Does dac performance scale approximately linearly with cost? Or are dacs like CDP and amps...? Where it comes down to personal preference at each price bracket?

[Icarium]

It's exactly like CDPs/Amps/Cables/Headphones... it depends a lot on personal preference at each price bracket.

[Ichinichi]

damn it. and there's the regular flavors too, i guess?

nothing you'd recommend me? because everywhere i ask i'm given the same few names without reason. squeezebox is for those who want to stream from computer, not my cup of tea. other dac names are just tossed around...maybe i'll search again. i'm not seeing many reviews, or at least, the comments in the reviews are not as tangible or relatable as with HP or amps or cables...

[blessingx]

Since you're going to run it out of the iRiver, you'll have to go optical which knocks out a few of the options in this price range (and likely increases the price of HeadAmp/Justins).