[Bigg35]

First post, just want to start by saying that I have enjoyed reading in this forum the last few days, there seems to be lots of knowledgeable folks here. I am trying to improve my 2 channel system and would like to hear some of your advise as to which dac I should go with. Keep in mind this is not for headphone usage, just speakers. The rest of my system consist of Salk Songtowers driven by a Yamaha receiver, using an older Samsung bluray player as a source. I am actually in the market for an entirely new setup, with the exception of new speakers. I am keeping my Salks.
 
 
Right now I am going to start with the Dac and Cd player. My budget for the Dac is 700 dollars and my budget for the Cd player is 400 dollars. What Dacs and Cd players would you suggest for me? Depending on which Dac and Cd player I end up getting, are there mods or upgrades I could possibly do to improve the sound? opamps, power supply, clock, analog output stage? I am pretty new to this so bear with me.
 

 

[Bigg35]

No one has any suggestions? What about any of these..
 
1. Musical Fidelity V-DAC
2. Cambridge Audio DACmagic
3. Schiit Bifrost
4. PS Audio DLIII
 
 
Or any others that you might suggest??

 

[basementdweller]

I more or less asked a similar question the other day and didn't get any replies.  Of course I was impatient, didn't bump the thread, or wait very long and ended up ordering an Eastern Electric MiniMax Plus.  In my case I was only looking to upgrade the DAC from my Decco2.  I may well have sidegraded, but I won't know for sure until the unit actually arrives and I burn it in.  So, in a couple weeks I would probably be able to offer more advice.  My speakers are different(Zu Omens) and I was also concerned about the headphone portion of my listening, but I certainly wouldn't want to upgrade DACs if I wasn't also looking to improve the performance of my 2-channel set up.                                                                                                                                                          Obviously, I want to reiterate that I don't want you to take anything I say as advice because I won't know first hand what I am talking about for a couple of weeks...I just thought it might be encouraging if someone responded.  I chose the MiniMax specifically because of other users' experience with tweaks and you did ask about tweaks.  I also saw a MiniMax in the used forum two days ago for $700 which was your upper limit.  The Decco2, that I have is also great, but it is an all in one solution so you might not be interested...
 
 
 
 

 

[basementdweller]

Also, the Decco2 would break your budget by $99.  If I were you I would simply look up the impressions for the four DACs you mentioned.  There is probably someone who has owned, or at least reviewed more than one of them and can offer a comparison.  For what it is worth, as long as the DAC has the connections and functionality you are looking for I don't know why it wouldn't be good for either headphones or speakers: it is performing the same function either way.  Sorry about the weird paragraph structure and break in posts.  For some reason the computer has been misbehaving lately.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

First post, just want to start by saying that I have enjoyed reading in this forum the last few days, there seems to be lots of knowledgeable folks here. I am trying to improve my 2 channel system and would like to hear some of your advise as to which DAC I should go with. Keep in mind this is not for headphone usage, just speakers. The rest of my system consist of Salk Song towers driven by a Yamaha receiver, using an older Samsung Blu-ray player as a source. I am actually in the market for an entirely new setup, with the exception of new speakers. I am keeping my Salks.
Right now I am going to start with the DAC and Cd player. My budget for the DAC is 700 dollars and my budget for the Cd player is 400 dollars. What DACs and Cd players would you suggest for me? Depending on which DAC and Cd player I end up getting, are there mods or upgrades I could possibly do to improve the sound? op-amps, power supply, clock, analog output stage? I am pretty new to this so bear with me.

What model Yamaha receiver are you using now?
 
 

 

[Bigg35]

I am using the Yamaha RX-V663. I also have a Denon avr-4308 that is in storage due to not having enough room for my theater setup in my tempory apartment.

 

[The8thst]

No one has any suggestions? What about any of these..

1. Musical Fidelity V-DAC
2. Cambridge Audio DACmagic
3. Schiit Bifrost
4. PS Audio DLIII


Or any others that you might suggest??

The only one listed that I have experience with is the PS Audio DLII, and I thought it was fantastic.

My suggestion to you would be to put a bigger portion of you $1100 budget into the dac. You really only need a stable low-jitter transport for a CD player since you are putting a nice DAC into the system. That means you will be feeding digital directly from the CD/DVD/Bluray player directly into the DAC and bypassing it's internal DAC. The DACs are often one of the most improved parts of audiophile CD players, so you would be spending money for features that you won't be utilizing.

In short, I would search for a great DAC and a good value CD transport.

 

[PurpleAngel]

The Yamaha RX-A700, which sells for $330, has better speaker amplifiers then the RX-V663, so matter how good a DAC you get, the RX-V663 will still be a limiting factor.
If you get the Yamaha RX-A700, you will still have $770 of your budget for other stuff.
The RX-A700 use to sell for $500, but is being sold off at discounted prices to make way for the newer RX-V710.