[vapman]

Things I liked a lot about the iDSD Micro:

1. great sound quality
2. killer (power wise) built in headphone amp, but headphone amp was pretty plain, unimpressive otherwise

 
ODAC

1. was great overall... loved it. had a rev A, sold it to a friend.
2. would consider getting a newer revision one, they were nice.

 
Some sort of pro interface

1. But I don't know anything cheap aside from e-MU which i have an insane size hoard of

 
I am very intersted in R2R DAC, would even DIY one if it was'nt too much $$$, but looking for something in the 200-500 range that will honestly and truly blow the iDSD away.
 
The iDSD sounded great but when you get get down to it the dual Burr Brown design will never outperform a Sabre designed for non DSD playback or one of the iDSD or the AK4XXX series discovered by E-MU way back when when they were completely unkown (IIRC that's how the story went, but I heard it from E-MU's point of view...)
 
Either way it's good enough Modi 2 still uses it.
 
so looking for a desktop dac that won't break the bank but be somewhere between the ODAC/iDSD micro and Mojo.
 
Much as I loved the Mojo it was too revealing of flaws on mp3's under 320. a lot of my library is sadly 128-v0 and can't possibly hope to get higher rips without getting the discs myself... so I prefer to use slightly forgiving DACs. that said i screw* loved the mojo when i had it, wish i still had it.

 

[theveterans]

 I am very intersted in R2R DAC, would even DIY one if it was'nt too much $$$, but looking for something in the 200-500 range that will honestly and truly blow the iDSD away.

 
IMO, that's just a pipe dream. By design constraints, delta sigmas like the iDSD and Chord MOJO will have a much better sound quality per price ratio that will best any entry level R2R DAC. Sure the Bifrost Multibit will sound more musical than those, but the iDSD  and MOJO will match or even beat the Bifrost Multibit in microdetail retrieval, imaging focus and transparency.
 
IMO, forget R2R DAC if you can't fork $1500 including taxes and shipping for a Gungnir Multibit. Bifrost 4490 should be able to compete well with iDSD and MOJO but may not beat them in all areas.

 

[vapman]

IMO, that's just a pipe dream. By design constraints, delta sigmas like the iDSD and Chord MOJO will have a much better sound quality per price ratio that will best any entry level R2R DAC. Sure the Bifrost Multibit will sound more musical than those, but the iDSD  and MOJO will match or even beat the Bifrost Multibit in microdetail retrieval, imaging focus and transparency.

IMO, forget R2R DAC if you can't fork $1500 including taxes and shipping for a Gungnir Multibit. Bifrost 4490 should be able to compete well with iDSD and MOJO but may not beat them in all areas.

Thanks for the help... I was kinda hoping there would be a DIY R2R kit that would be semi affordable!

I had a mojo once and my single a only complaint is that ******* microusb charging port!!

I might go for Bifrost Multibit or similar.

 

[burgunder]

Take a look at the Soekris dac, Google is your friend.

 

[burgunder]

http://soekris.com/products/audio-products/consumer-line-dac1101.html