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DAC: 3xoptical in and balanced out? Only option is CA DACMagic?

post #1 of 4
10/25/11 at 9:07pm
Thread Starter 

Hi all,

 

I've been looking for  a DAC that takes in 3xoptical in (TV, AppleTV, PS3) and balanced out to my Accuphase E-407. The preference is not to use any optical coax/usb, etc. type converters and to have balanced out.

 

Aside from an expensive NAD M2 (which would make my Accuphase redundant), it seems only the CA DACMagic's my only option based on the criteria above? Does anyone have any other DACs they could recommend that'll take 3xoptical in and have balanced out?

 

I've read that the DACMagic's performance is only mediocre & read that serious capacitor replacements required to improve its performance. However I also read that using balanced out may bypass some of the dodgy capacitors. Does anyone have any experience in such a setup?

 

What are my other alternatives?

 

TIA,

AC

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post #2 of 4
10/28/11 at 6:02pm

Custom DAC from Audio-gd. They will build one with 3 opt inputs I bet. Send them an email (send to the Kingwa direct email).

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post #3 of 4
10/29/11 at 4:50am
Thread Starter 
Cheers. Never knew about this place before. Will check them out.

The other option is the Onkyo DAC-1000. Only 2xoptical & no choice but to use converter to coax for the 3rd.
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post #4 of 4
10/29/11 at 6:17am

Whoever came out with that crap about capacitors is talking out of their rear end. Badly chosen capacitors in the signal path, especially coupling capacitors, do measureable things to the audio - in the case of coupling caps, which is where most people complain they are audible, they can affect phase and frequency response. The frequency response/phase response of the DACMagic is great.

 

Why don't you just use a cheap mechanical TOSLINK splitter? Not even the DACMagic has 3 optical inputs (on of them is an output).

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