Another "What's Best" for my HD 650s...

Hi you guys,

I'm just starting to get into the audiophile business (and my wallet isn't happy of course), and I've been lurking on these forums since last year or so. Now that I want to get serious, I made an account and have been reading tons and tons of information...

I've made the decision to go DAC -> Schiit Valhalla/Asgard (most likely Valhalla) -> HD650 from my desktop.

The question is, what DAC? I've only a $150-200 budget and it would be nice to hear some suggestions and learn a little bit more from people who know more.

I have four choices currently:

Music Streamer II (What's the difference between asynchronous and not?)

Maverick D1 (haven't read much about it)

Audinst HUD-MX1

DAC WOW

Also, will I be able to get "96kHz / 24-Bit upsampling" from all of these with USB? I am a little confused about what this all means, as well as what chips go with what. Too many things thrown around! =(

Can someone help me narrow this down?

I don't know if this is relevant, but I listen to a lot of vocal music (Ingrid Michaelson, Jason Mraz, John Mayer), but I also listen to electronica/trance/house (Deadmau5, Hybrid, etc), as well as hip-hop. I guess I listen to pop too. I listen to it all (have a good classical collection as well).

Thanks so much for your input!

-Unclej

Quote:

Originally Posted by myinitialsaredac 

Music streamer 2 looks interesting.

 

Could also look into a Cambridge DacMagic for a little more (315ish for a used one).

 

Basically, asynchronous means communication can go both ways to check for data as compared to isochronous which is one way.

 

96khz/24bit refers to sample rates and word size. Typical music is 16bit/44.1khz which is technically lower resolution than the higher word lengths and higher frequency sample rates. 

 

It depends if you set your computer to upsample or whether there is upsampling that occurs in your dac for whether or not your 44.1/16 will be upsampled to 96/24 but in my opinion upsampling doesnt do much except a bit of jitter protection/error control.

 

 

Dave

Thanks for the information. Is there any benefit from having asynchronous compared to isochronous? I'm leaning towards the MS II (not plus though - no funds) and the DAC WOW as of now. I like the DAC Magic, but again, no funds hah.