Advice for affordable DAC for laptop
Oct 3, 2011 at 5:05 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 9
NYG92

NYG92

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Hey everyone,
 
I am interested in buying an external DAC for my laptop. I have done some narrow research on DAC's and because i have a verly low budget i actually immediately bumped in to the Fiio E7. For a price of about 65 euro's I can order them from Amazon.
 
Now maybe the weird part is that I only want to use the E7 as a DAC for my laptop which is connected to a pair of Audioengine A2 speakers. So i have no interest in using the E7 as a headphone amp or with any headphones in particular.
My music collection is ever growing and especially with FLAC and WAV files ranging from 16 bit to 24 bit.
I hope that a DAC will increase my joy of listening to music but will the E7 combine well with speakers and especially the A2's?
Are there better DAC's in the same price range maybe?
 
Some advice will be appreciated :)
 
 
 
 
Oct 3, 2011 at 5:31 PM Post #5 of 9
I have downloaded quite a lot of nice vinyl rips and i hoped that i could get the best perfomance out of them and because they are all 24/96
I taught it would be logical to get a DAC that supports 24/96. But hey i'm quite a newbie so i can be mistaken.
 
Oct 3, 2011 at 5:38 PM Post #6 of 9
Bit depth mostly just determines dynamic range. Every bit is 6 decibels. So 16 bit allows for 96dB dynamic range versus 24 bits 144dB. Seeing as vinyl's dynamic range as a best case is something like 70dB, and seeing as the most dynamic recording I've heard of is somewhere in the mid-60s, 24 bit doesn't offer you anything that 16 bit won't. If you listen louder than 96dB you might hear the noise floor, but you don't listen that loud I hope.
 
Sampling rate mostly just determines maximum frequency. Divide it in half and you get that. So 44.1kHz offers 22.05kHz frequencies, versus 48kHz. Since you can only hear up to around 16-20kHz unless you are a very lucky human being, 96kHz doesn't offer you anything that 44.1kHz won't. Resampling down to 44.1kHz could cause issues, but resampling down to 48kHz shouldn't do much of anything.
 
If you want to know more, check gregorio's awesome post.
 
Oct 6, 2011 at 10:45 AM Post #8 of 9

Great stuff! I'm glad you posted this and linked to the Gregorio's post as well. Thanks! (BTW - any idea how/why was he banned?)
 
Quote:
head injury said:
Bit depth mostly just determines dynamic range. Every bit is 6 decibels. So 16 bit allows for 96dB dynamic range versus 24 bits 144dB. Seeing as vinyl's dynamic range as a best case is something like 70dB, and seeing as the most dynamic recording I've heard of is somewhere in the mid-60s, 24 bit doesn't offer you anything that 16 bit won't. If you listen louder than 96dB you might hear the noise floor, but you don't listen that loud I hope.
 
Sampling rate mostly just determines maximum frequency. Divide it in half and you get that. So 44.1kHz offers 22.05kHz frequencies, versus 48kHz. Since you can only hear up to around 16-20kHz unless you are a very lucky human being, 96kHz doesn't offer you anything that 44.1kHz won't. Resampling down to 44.1kHz could cause issues, but resampling down to 48kHz shouldn't do much of anything.
 
If you want to know more, check gregorio's awesome post.
Click to expand...



 
 
Oct 10, 2011 at 10:08 PM Post #9 of 9
The Fiio D3 for about $28 is absolutely fantastic. I use it with an optical cable that cost more than the DAC itself! 
 
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