[bettyn]

There is a good sale on for this product. Would it pair up well with the Liquid Carbon
 and HD800's?. (Am also considering the NAD D3020 and the Emotiva Stealth DC-1.) Hope this isn't a stupid question.

 

 

[eeagle]

I'll say!   I just picked one up from Audioadvisor for $249 off which is where I bought my v1.
 
My v1 is a great sounding & silent performer on the HPs I own and even has the XLR out if that is important.  The only annoyance the v1 had for me was the 3.5mm HP jack which was remedied in v2.
 
Tyll did a review on the v1 and the v2 pretty much fixes the complaints he had.
 
head-fi has some other threads
Link 1
Link 2
 
I've had my v1 a couple years now and use it frequently with no complaints.

 

[Pudding2007]

I just placed an order this afternoon too. It will be my first desktop DAC. 

 

[bb rodriquez]

I haven't had much listening time for the two, but I have a zdac v2 -> liquid carbon -> hd800 and can say I like the pairing. Compared to the DAC in my Sony Uda-1 the zdac produces a more focused, coherent sound that is more analog in nature than digital (as has been said in some of the reviews). I also got mine from audio advisor at $250 of retail and can definitely recommend it for that price. The internal amp does not power my hd800 or LCD-2 as well as I had hoped (my Sony UDA-1 does a pretty decent job with these), but having it hooked up to an external amp really makes it shine.

 

[eeagle]

I haven't had much listening time for the two, but I have a zdac v2 -> liquid carbon -> hd800 and can say I like the pairing. Compared to the DAC in my Sony Uda-1 the zdac produces a more focused, coherent sound that is more analog in nature than digital (as has been said in some of the reviews). I also got mine from audio advisor at $250 of retail and can definitely recommend it for that price. The internal amp does not power my hd800 or LCD-2 as well as I had hoped (my Sony UDA-1 does a pretty decent job with these), but having it hooked up to an external amp really makes it shine.

Analog Devices AD1895 **asynchronous sample rate converter and an AD1853 DAC IC, the same DAC IC that Holm selected for Parasound's $5,000 Halo CD 1 CD player. To further improve sound quality the digital signal for all inputs is up-sampled to 422 kHz. The Zdac accepts 24 bit word lengths and all sampling rates up to 192 kHz on S/PDIF and Optical and 96 kHz on USB. Signals are reclocked and then upsampled to 422 kHz for vivid and effortless reproduction.