[Nova40]

I'm looking for a DAC upgrade but am struggling to find ways to get 192/24 to any DAC without using their drivers (which are only available for Windows and Mac).  Before I hadn't realized that this needs to be an actually consideration when buying a DAC.  Any recommendations?

 

[PurpleAngel]

Any reason the DAC needs to support 24-bit/192K
Music CDs are 16-bit/44.1K, so any FLAC audio files made from music CDs would be fine if they are made at 16-bit/44.1K
The last Blu-ray disk I watched was 16-bit/48K audio.
I would assume a 24-bit/96K DAC would work just fine for over 95% of the world population.
What is your over all audio setup? might effect the DAC recommendation.
Budget for your DAC purchase?

 

[Nova40]

About 15% of my music collection right now is 192/24 and I hope to make that even more.  I also feel that's a reasonable place to put the bar as far as recording quality goes, and as the technology advances, that will have me set for a while.  Right now I have B&W 686s and HE-500s I'm using it with, but my next upgrades are going to be the HE-6 and Magnepan 0.7s so this DAC is with them in mind.  Right now I have the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100, and I would be looking at something $400 - $750 (preferably balanced, but that may be too optimistic).  I want to be getting a good performance/price ratio, but do want it to be bottlenecking my system considering my next upgrades.

 

[dgently]

I have been using my dacs exclusively with linux for years. The highres dacs without problem (All the dacs I have had have worked, but I was a bit careful) are Asus Essence Muses, Resonessence Concero HD(DSD works) (for some kernels it needs one of the later firmware to work better), Yulong DA8(DSD, DXD works). I also have used a Moon 100D with a nuforce U192 USB to SPDIF  converter(doesn't work with old kernels). All these dacs worked with Squeezebox touch USB as well, but I did have to upgrade the kernel for the Asus and nuforce.
 
Pretty much any DAC that is driverless on Mac should work +- (maybe a click or glitch or two who knows...).
 
There are drivers for Ayre and M2Tech as well, but I have no idea how good they are.
 
My next dac will probably be a Chord 2QUTE which should work as well.
 
Good luck in your search.

 

[dgently]

Oh, forgot to mention that the iFI IDSD Nano works like a charm as well with DSD and DXD on linux.

 

[noahbickart]

The Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 is a great DAC that measures well and handles 192 kHz via coax.
 
You are unlikely to hear significant differences with a new DAC.
 
Save your money.