[spwal]

dude,

just get a modded squeezebox. the dac is wonderful. i sold my wadia within 2 minutes of seeing what these units were capable of. I have digitized my entire music collection in EAC lossless format. I will not look back. The dac in the modded sb is fine. My friend runs his into a ble canto dac2. Not that much of a difference really... just an extra 2 pairs of cables and an expensive black box. For the record, i have owned 4 bel canto dac 2 and i love them, but have found no reason to own one currently.

red wine audio no longer makes a modded sb2. bolder cable makes a mod. you should investigate, and not quibble over a 2500 dollar dac. you are barking up the wrong tree, imnsho.

 

[tonyx]

Hi all,

My DAC3 took by my friend after he visited to my place. I need to order a new one.

My friend using a SONY SCD-1 as a CD player/transport. He compare a disc at normal layer & SACD layer music comes out from SCD-1 and through DAC3.

At the normal layer, DAC3 easy to K.O. SCD-1 at different part(treble, midrange, bass, air, density......).

At the SACD layer (strength of SCD-1), SCD-1 should be slightly better at the treble part. But the rest,......

Now, I still wating for my new DAC3.

Happy listening

 

[granodemostasa]

bumping this to see if there are new impressions.

 

[Zuerst]

Anyone familiar or had experince with the Bel Canto S300iu integrated amp's built-in USB DAC? How does it compare against the likes of Benchmark DAC1, Stello DA100 or DA220, Lavry 10, other Bel Canto DACs...etc?

I currently have the Stello DA100 and have a S300iu coming my way and am not sure whether I should put the DA100 on sale or keep the DA100 and use it over the S300iu's USB DAC. I'm just afraid that I currently don't have speakers or headphones with enough resolution to determine the difference.

Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by krusty09 /img/forum/go_quote.gif i don't think i said that and if i did thats not what i meant.220 is still better then a 100,i was saying that there is no way that dac3 is better mk2 because the da-100 was better then a dac3 and the mk2 is better then a da-100. i hope this helps to clear it up.

You think the Stello DA100 is better than the Bel Canto DAC3? You must think the DA100 is better than S300iu integrated amp's built-in USB DAC then?

 

[Kieran Comito]

How about the Bel Canto CD-1? Has anyone heard it or compared it to anything else?

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

I can add some new findings. Not on the DAC3, but you can read backwards for my comments about the differences between the DAC2 and DAC3. What I have now heard is a Benchmark DAC1 against my Bel Canto DAC2, in my own system.

The differences were far from small, though preferences might be more personal than anything else.
My thoughts were that the DAC1 was very "dry", making the music seem to be very detailed. On further listening, it became apparent that it wasn't actually dragging anymore info off the disk, but it was IMO missing some of the tonal information that the BC DAC2 was pulling from the disk. So the DAC2 sounded slightly more "diffuse" in how it put out music.
In the context of my system, the DAC1 was if anything slightly edgy, whilst the DAC2 did IMO a much better job of involving me in the music.

My guess is that in a laid back system, the DAC1 would be much prefered by some owners.

So basically, I'd suggest that it depends upon the rest of your system. As a straight DAC, I do feel that the BC DAC2 does find more actually information on the disk, though it isn't the leading edge stuff that the Benchmark shows up.

Hope that helps.

 

[puntloos]

What Im curious about is what the DAC3 does when you give it 192khz 24bit sound? The components seem to be able to 192/24 (the Burr Brown 1792) but can its input stage keep up?

Anyone have a DAC3 and some piece of spdif equipment that can do 192?

 

[Riboge]

I own both the Bel Canto Dac3 and the Benchmark dac1. To me the former is clearly a better dac. The specifics are much as Mr_Sukebe describes. The Benchmark is quite dry and "precise"-sounding; whereas, the BC delivers open, clear and natural-sounding music. Of course, I am not saying that either is not a very good dac. Both are.

As to feeding the DAC3 24bit via spdif, I have accumulated a fair number of 24/96 recordings from various online sources. It handles them admirably upsampling to 192. I have no 192 source to try out. I wonder what source is possible these days? Private recordings made 24/192? For anything else, it seems to me, having the dac do the upsampling from the 44.1, 48 or 96 of the source material to 192 is preferrable to the computer or whatever doing so first.

 

[robm321]

Wow, sounds very underwhelming for the price after reading through this thread. Especially, for someone like me who puts 90% on sound quality.

This thread makes promotes the Lavry 10 more than anything

No threat to my wallet here - thanks all for the impressions.

 

[Riboge]

Quote:

Originally Posted by robm321 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wow, sounds very underwhelming for the price after reading through this thread. Especially, for someone like me who puts 90% on sound quality. This thread makes promotes the Lavry 10 more than anything No threat to my wallet here - thanks all for the impressions.

Suit yourself, but it's puzzling to me how you got support for that view from what I wrote. You can buy a Lavry 10 used for $800-900 and a BC DAC3 used for $1600 more or less. The BC is definitely and significantly better though not worlds better. However, dacs costing thousands more also are not so so totally and dramatically better either. Diminishing returns is always the case once you get into at least mid-range equipment. Even so, better is better. Whether it is enough better to be worth the dollars called for is a personal individual determination perhaps more a matter of one's circumstances than the relative merits of the dacs being compared.To me the DAC3 is worth the $700-800 difference--though perhaps not worth the greater difference between these units' new list prices.

 

[robm321]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riboge /img/forum/go_quote.gif Suit yourself, but it's puzzling to me how you got support for that view from what I wrote. You can buy a Lavry 10 used for $800-900 and a BC DAC3 used for $1600 more or less. The BC is definitely and significantly better though not worlds better. However, dacs costing thousands more also are not so so totally and dramatically better either. Diminishing returns is always the case once you get into at least mid-range equipment. Even so, better is better. Whether it is enough better to be worth the dollars called for is a personal individual determination perhaps more a matter of one's circumstances than the relative merits of the dacs being compared.To me the DAC3 is worth the $700-800 difference--though perhaps not worth the greater difference between these units' new list prices.

Not from what you wrote. But James (earlier in this thread) prefers the more analog sounding Lavry. And unless I am mistaken the difference with the Bel Canto DAC 2 earlier in this thread was very minor from a sound quality point of view considering the huge cost difference. I don't care about features much. These are just my observations from reading here.

I tend to not go for broke but try to hit the value spot with my gear. Bang for my buck. And that might be why I'm a little critical of the DAC 3 at least from reading here.

 

[Dan the man]

Does the Lavry DA10 stock unit have a I2S USB input? If not, for those of use wanting a computer server, the BC is a better choice. Also, does the the Bel Canto. Dac3 have balanced output for use with a balanced cabled headphone?

 

[SR-71Panorama]

Anyone know the refresh rate for Bel Canto Dacs? Is there a DAC4 coming soon?