DAC recommendations for W5000

Audio-gd's NFB-3

I would very highly recommend buying a gamma 2 in the for sale section, you should be able to find one for around $300, and I h think it pretty much can't be beaten in it's price range.

Quote:

Originally Posted by soocha2 

Thanks for the reply. When I was looking at your rig Elanzer, that was exactly the same system that I was intending to have. I've heard many say that the W5000 matches well with tubes and also the audio GD-NFB12 was well-received by many reviews. How's your system treating you right now?

I'm really happy with it, to the point where I haven't been posting or even looking at head-fi too much anymore because I don't see any reason to further look into gear. The T1 itself has great soundstage and detail, and the NFB-12 + MKIII combo is slightly biased towards a warmer signature for more musicality, so there is great detail while maintaining tight bass and reducing the brightness of the T1 headphones to just the right levels. I listen to a wide variety of music as well as games, and this configuration is a real awesome all-rounder.

Tubes work well for "bright" headphones in general, and the W5000 seems like it's pretty bass anemic so a DAC like the NFB-3 w/ WM8805 would be well suited for it, it has a warmer signature that smooths out the sound in general. The Littledot MKIII is widely considered one of the best budget tube amps and a few on here have compared it to ~$500 units claiming the MKIII is on par.

NFB-3 should be a better DAC than the NFB-12 since it's only a DAC and doesn't have an amplifier section like the NFB-12. If you plan on spending only $300 for both DAC and AMP combined, by all means get the NFB-12 - I think you'll be pretty happy with it, even without the tubes. There just isn't anything else that competes with it on the ~$200 level.