DAC for under $100? - Page 5

under 100$ dream on.

make a little effort u can find it on ebay :P

souperman, PM me if u want to know where, i would like to show u

i know where but they don't have 110V. they are 220V. and i'm sure you are the same otaku

it's tooooo obvious, it muuuuust be true

no comment

just want to back at you.

Having heard the HD650 for about a year through a cheap headphone amp (which is what the HP jack on the 0404USB is), and then through a Gilmore Lite thereafter, I'd say it's more like 60-70% - a complete waste of time.

And as far as DACs under 100USD go, it's called a soundcard. You'll notice a much bigger difference if you get an external amp and feed it with the line out from most onboard soundcards, and you can buy a DAC worth buying later on down the road.

Just trying to help u get bang for buck and avoid pointless side-grades.

But if you want to get rid of the computer noise, a sound card and amp will not do the trick right?

It depends on where the noise is coming from and how much ERS paper you use.

What is "ERS paper"

Soundcards are hit and miss. My AV710 in a dual core 64bit box with 4 hard drives is fairly clean & quiet on the line out. (though recently I've noticed some noise on the optical out as heard by a cheap dac but not a more expensive dac - go figure)

Was your cheap amp a Class A discrete headphone amp like the one on the 0404USB? I doubt it. Just because it comes rolled into a package for less than $200 doesn't mean that it's a low-quality amplifier. It may or may not be quite on par with a Gilmore Lite (which I've owned), but it's probably a ways ahead of a cMoy or almost any portable amplifier that people use here on head-fi (probably not the hornet, tamahawk, ect.).

The truth is, you haven't heard it and you don't know what you're talking about.

Why ask a question and then try to TELL me my answer when you don't know what I've heard or not? I've heard the HD650 through amps touted as being able to drive them and some were laughable. Discrete non no-discrete isn't a deciding factor of a good amp. While I found the Hornet (which I owned) to drive the HD650 pretty decently, the Gilmore Lite just does it better, and with ease. Ray's products are pretty good, and the E-Mu range are, after all, just tarted up Soundblaster cards, which many go and mod after buying them, Zhaolu style (ie not buying them to use in stock form). And if you're going to say they are professional quality, most serious studios are using either the top of the top E-Mu, or products on a completely different level where you get both dedicated hardware and software provided.

The 0404USB will most likely give improvements. But when you can spend another 50% of the cost for a DAC that will mean you won't feel the urge to upgrade again, why bother with anything in the middle. He shouldn't buy one jack of all trades and then have to buy a DAC AND amp later on. I'd get just one (so the amp) that he can use now, and get the other as money permits.

A DAC outside the PC can introduce just as much 'noise' as it's supposed to eliminate by virtue of being 'outside the noisy box'. For example, cards like the 0404 PCI have a shonky made up break-out cable exposing their SPDIF and COAX ins/outs. These certainly don't conform 100% to the standards of resistance etc for coax/optical cable cos it's just some cheap junk E-Mu used. A lot of ppl reterminate the soundcard with better material. I daresay a similar approach is used in items lower down the 'scale'.

I don't know if you've heard the Gilmore Lite AND the Hornet (and I won't tell you u haven't...), but I HAVE, and I can tell you if I knew how both drove the HD650 before buying, I wouldn't buy the Hornet for HD650. You said (and I agree) that you don't think that the 0404USB would be as good as the Hornet. So thanks for agreeing with me.

Obviously, the OP should try to listen to both (meets/friends) and make his own conclusion. He may not hear a worthwhile difference, despite everything we say here.

If you have audible noise coming from your PC, you've either got a terrible POS sound card (ie. $5 no name job), a signal much too quiet (ie setting everything -20dB in Foobar and then having to crank the external amp will usually result in which noise from the amp being run too hard), or some other issue. Even a Soundblaster Live's lineout connected to an external amp should be fine WRT 'computer noise'. Some ppl think that using optical out isolates an external DAC from electrical noise - while this may be partly/mostly true, the tosLink transmission format (and associated hardare medium) are some of the most poorly specified, with heaps of rebound at the terminations - even the Benchmark DAC1 is guilty of it. I'm sure there is some level of inherent noise that can't be avoided with PC as source, those worried about that should know that once the noise is there, it can't be 'removed' or 'cleaned' away, and should use a stand alone source if they are worried about it's effects. These same people would also most likely poo-poo separate transport and DAC though, so should go for a high quality CDP and use it's analog outs.

@ ERS paper: he's making a joke. It's usually said in reference to someone talkin a lot of hooey. I'm not sure who he's referring to.

Response in respective order

- The E-MU's are far from "tarted up soundblaster cards". They're not even close.

- You're right, most STUDIOS don't use E-MU products. For digital work they mostly use Digidesign's ProTools flagship hardware. This has absolutely no bearing on what we're talking about. For example, the E-MU 1212m uses the same DAC and ADC as the top ProTools cards but it's implementation is far less robust.

- Depending on the person's goals and their disposable income that could be true or untrue. The fact is there are herds of people here happy with their 0404USB and some of them have the HD650.

- I find the source makes a WAY bigger difference in the sound when compared to amplification. You obviously think that the amp makes a bigger difference. The amp certainly would play a bigger part with the HD650, but from all reports the 0404USBs amp is pretty good with them.

The DAC in the 0404USB is generally accepted as being better than the one in the 0404PCI (which is your source right?). I know that the HD650 have above average power needs, but the 0404USBs amp is fairly robust.

- I have NOT heard the Hornet, and I didn't say that it was definately better than the amp in the 0404USB. I just put that disclaimer in so no one would come back and tell me that the Hornet or Tamahawk is "Way better than that!".