Is there a better DAC/Headphone amp than the benchmark DAC1 for $USD1000? - Page 3

**** - was replying to your post and it vanished!!!

Some good thoughts there thank you and maybe a separate DAC & headamp is a better approach.  However I'm trying to follow the KISS principle if I can as he is not great technologically.

One big advantage, to me, of the combo is that a no loss balanced digital line to where you sit is fairly easy to obtain regardless of length.  I've used that here with my very extensively & expensively modded Benchmark DAC1.  A bit OT but as an owner of a DAC1 you might be interested in the following:

Comments from Steve Nugent who modded my DAC1 about the stock DAC1:

The design of the DAC-1 has several good things about it and some bad ones. First the good things:

1) power supply is decent - transformer
2) Capacitor locations are reasonable
3) Current flow in the board for both power and signal is not bad due to the unbroken ground-plane
4) Chip selection for upsampler and DAC are good
5) high-quality board

Bad things:
1) layout is not optimum - some long traces
2) regulators locations are not optimum
3) too many op-amps - increases noise.
4) Input pulse transformer is grounded - can cause hum
5) uses dual op-amps - not as good as singles

Here is a list of the mods done by Steve - he no longer does this work (total cost, including the oroginal unit around $USD3700):

* Two bridge rectifiers replaced with HEXFRED's
* Replace regulated voltage filter caps
* Improve power delivery to DAC and upsampler chips
* Improve power delivery to 9 op-amps - Black Gates and HF caps
* Upgrade DAC filtering
* Replace all voltage regulators.
* Eliminate AC-coupling and tune-out DC offset
* Improve digital input coupling
* 9 dual op-amps are replaced with high-performance types
* The 50 Ohm BNC is replaced with isolated 75 ohm Canare BNC and pulse transformer is replaced with high-performance type that is isolated from ground to eliminate hum and ground-loop noise.
* Additional 2 op-amps are replaced with high-performance types and power delivery is improved to Headphone/Volume Control circuits.
* Superclock3 is modified for frequency, lowering jitter and matching the transmission-line. Replaces existing can-oscillator. About 10-15% improvement in focus and imaging.
* Change resistors to reduce LED brightness
* Burr-Brown OPA627's substituted for the 9 stock op-amps using Brown-Dog adapters. These lowered the noise floor and give a bit more dynamics to the performance but I did not have the 2 op-amps replaced with high-performance types and power delivery to improve the Headphone/Volume Control circuits

So pretty obviously there is a lot in the Benchmark to improve so that is why I'm trying to find something better for my friend, if it exists in that price range that is!

John

 

Sure there is. It is unknown to headfi but nothing something like overrated and overpriced Benchmark DAC1/Lavry DA10 etc, honestly I do not know how these could gets lot of positive feedback but it is my experience your can be different.

I recomend your friend try Casea Lyra Digital. Sure if he do not need XLR outputs or AES/EBU.
Optimal for Lyra Digital is transport something like Asio - Juli@ with plugin SoX, even better with synchronic clocks of course. Depends what CD player have your friend, many cheap CD players do not have quality digital input.  Price is around $1000 +- according to actual rate.

www.casea.eu (location Czech Republic)

as previously suggested...

I was checking this one out.

Nova hybrid integrated amplifier/USB DAC

http://www.musicdirect.com/product/84249

hope it's an option. I know it retails for 1200 but I figured they could be found for less or used elsewhere.

Don't you mean "almost all the orthodynamics"? :)

Here's another, only downer is that it's around $1200-$1300AUD new and will only do 16/48 via USB but it will do S/PDIF 24/96.

Meier Audio Symphony