[Silenced]

Can I get some opinions on how DIYs (Buffalo 32, Gamma 2... et all) compare to their consumer counter parts. I've been convinced on the amp front that DIY is a better option but I am not so sure about DACs. Will a DIy compare well to something like an audio-gd which has built in dsp and ummm.... magic components and whatever? help!

 

[sk3383]

I have read that Assemblage DAC's preform really well but may be a little bit more $$ than you wanted to spend....

 

[steven2992]

Amb has said that the gamma 2 can stand proudly among dacs in the 1k range. I have the gamma 2 and I think it sounds wonderfull. Deep and punchy bass, but very controlled not boomy or anything. And lots and lots of detail. I don't have any comercial dacs so I can't really compare.

 

[IPodPJ]

Quote:

Can I get some opinions on how DIYs (Buffalo 32, Gamma 2... et all) compare to their consumer counter parts. I've been convinced on the amp front that DIY is a better option but I am not so sure about DACs. Will a DIy compare well to something like an audio-gd which has built in dsp and ummm.... magic components and whatever? help!

It depends which Audio-gd DAC.  I can say for sure that the Reference Seven and Reference One DACs seriously outperform the Buffalo32.  I only spent a brief amount of time with the Gamma 2 so I can't give an informed opinion on it.  Your transport is just as important as your DAC though.  Many people don't realize the true potential of their DACs because they haven't considered the transport to be as essential.

 

[Silenced]

Quote:

It depends which Audio-gd DAC.  I can say for sure that the Reference Seven and Reference One DACs seriously outperform the Buffalo32.  I only spent a brief amount of time with the Gamma 2 so I can't give an informed opinion on it.  Your transport is just as important as your DAC though.  Many people don't realize the true potential of their DACs because they haven't considered the transport to be as essential.

I'm sorry what is a "transport"?  What if I feed my music directly from my laptop.
 

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

It depends which Audio-gd DAC.  I can say for sure that the Reference Seven and Reference One DACs seriously outperform the Buffalo32.  I only spent a brief amount of time with the Gamma 2 so I can't give an informed opinion on it.  Your transport is just as important as your DAC though.  Many people don't realize the true potential of their DACs because they haven't considered the transport to be as essential.

x2.

 

[IPodPJ]

Quote:

I'm sorry what is a "transport"?  What if I feed my music directly from my laptop.
 

Your laptop is your transport.  It is certainly not a good method of doing so though, as far as quality is concerned for several reasons:  jitter, poor power supply (unless it is running solely off battery power but even then the hardware inside generates a lot of noise)....  I recommend you use something like the M2Tech HiFace asynchronous USB-to-SPDIF converter which would give you much better results than a built-in optical out.  If you are just using the analog outputs from your laptop, that would be the worst possible scenario.

 

[tranhieu]

How about a good usb cable (wireworld, cryoparts...) with a good jitter filter (or whatever you call it) module in a dac?

 

[knopi]

There are dacs that using their own chips, clocks etc. like Chord QBD76, Emm Labs Dac 2 etc., this dacs you can simply put in the cheap cd players and it will sound still the same. This expensive machines are (so-called) immune against the transport and it is great.. So it is time when problems are solved with timing signal and we can hope that cheaper dacs with newer chips will coming.   
If not. M2Tech, Juli@, Lynx 1 are all ok they have good reading, low jitter which is important for DA transmission.