[nothing101]

i know virtually nothing about dacs but im curious, what is a REASONABLY PRICED good home dac to plug into my pc.

 

[Entropy]

It depends on your price range as 'reasonable' to one man might be extravagant for another. Have you looked at the Headroom Micro DAC for $299 USD.

What soundcard are you using as source?

 

[warrior05]

since you said you know nothing about DACs, a couple of things first. there are essentially three ways to feed a DAC: 1) rca s/pdif, 2) toslink or optical, 3) usb. the first 2 are typically available as inputs on a DAC but require output that typically comes from a soundcard. virtually every computer has usb but a DAC with usb in, though somewhat common, is certainly not a default. in other words, shop carefully if looking for this type of DAC.

as for what to spend? a bunch of head-fi'ers are enjoying cheap entech DACs which are readily available on eBay for $35 or $100 (there are 2 models available). in general this will be an improvement over a soundcards onboard DAC unless you have a pretty serious soundcard. you next jump up to the $200-$275 range for many of the asian DACs also readily available on eBay. or check out Pacific Valve's site for a nice selection. i'm currently using mhdt's constantine DAC and very happy with it.

of course, as with all things audiophile, you can keep going up the financial ladder. to answer your original question, i would say expect to pay around $250 usd to get something decent unless you go the used market.

oh, by the way - you do have an amp to go along with the DAC... right?

 

[nothing101]

well id like something around $150 and to connect to my laptop and soon to come little dot2+ and akg501 i know about the micro dac but it is twice what i am willing to spend on a dac. I would value performance over anything else and portability is not a concern.

 

[stan11003]

I'm getting a Behringer Ultramatch Pro, its kinda overkill. Not portable at all. But for $129 you get a heck of a DAC with a ton of features.

 

[nothing101]

how do the entechs plug into your computer? is it the headphone out or usb?

 

[FA22RaptorF22]

try the digi 002 rack by digidesign.....mmmmm

 

[nothing101]

how would all of these plug into my pc?

 

[nothing101]

does it even work straight out of a pc??? i dont know how dac cabling works but i imagine that i would use some kind of cable to connect it to my pc then the out on the dac would connect to the amp and then the headphones. does the entech have a usb in?

i bet its not that simple....

 

[keanej6]

sound card via optical -> entech 203.2-> amp via rca-> headphones i'd imagine.

 

[nothing101]

im a complete noob to all these fancy cables. what is optical? is that usb?

 

[keanej6]

the only 2 digitial imputs the entech has are optical and coaxial inputs. the only dac i'm aware that has a usb input is the micro dac from headroom. optical looks kind of like a plastic jigsaw piece you click into the socket and a coaxial input looks like the cables on a tv. i'm no expert at this but hope that kind of helps. maybe this will help http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_cable and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber_connector

 

[nothing101]

well my computer only has usb and headphone out so just about everything is out of the question

So what about the m audio transit? it aint gonna sound great but at least it might work...

 

[keanej6]

i bought the Chaintech AV-710 from my bro for $20. by browsing the forums it seems this is the cheapest bit perfect sound card out there.

 

[lord_tris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nothing101 well my computer only has usb and headphone out so just about everything is out of the question So what about the m audio transit? it aint gonna sound great but at least it might work...

That is not a DAC, really its an extrenal 24bit/96k sound card with analog (line out you use the RCA cable with it) and Digital inputs and outputs you have to use the Optical cables with this.

I am useing one in conjunction with my Jasmine amp to my senn HD600's and the sound is really good but i am sure if i had a better source and better DAC my system would sound even better