Regarding the perceived invalidity of my comparisons of the V-DAC (or DACMagic) to considerably more expensive components, I am not sure I accept the criticism for doing so.
I'm getting criticised here for comparing cheap DACs to high-middle range CD players, but being told at the same time that I should use more expensive transports with the V-DAC to make the comparison fair.
The Editor of the highly respected Hi Fi News, on page 37 of the February 2009 issue speaks of the "...giant killing £200 DACMagic..." and that "it's sees off most competition below £1000...". Last time I checked, an 840C sold for considerably less than £1000, even at official retail prices. And you get a free, high quality CD transport with that.
Additionally, I have also stated on these forums that the integrated DAC in my $300 US Microtrack II field recorder is considerably better than either the V-DAC or DACMagic. How much do you think a stand-alone DAC based on the DAC inside a cheap field recorder with a $220 US street price would cost?
And in a recent audition of an NAD C545BEE CD player (around the same price as a DACMagic), I thought I would be better off buying that than a separate budget DAC / transport combination.
Regarding using better transports, I am well aware of that, but I also stated that I am more interested in the practical results in real world situations where the V-DAC or DACMagic are likely to be used. And that is to connect to an existing transport, connected to a PC or connected to some sort of modest-spec non-disk based transport such as a portable playback device that happens to possess an optical or coax output. If we start saying things like it's unfair to use a cheap transport, then I would want to consider the price of a V-DAC / DACMagic as well as the transport, and then compare that to a comparably priced integrated unit such as a CD player.
Can they really be used to improve old CD players and transports? Not really in my opinion, unless it was a bad player to begin with (and that being the case, it goes against the V-DAC-needs-a-great-transport argument to reveal it's potential).
But more importantly, I just see both the V-DAC and DACMagic as a waste of money in hindsight. Use it with an existing transport and when the transport dies, you are up for the cost of a new player or transport anyway. I think it is better economy to save the money that would have been spent on the DAC and putting that towards a much classier component. In the end you are spending around the same money (versus buying a V-DAC then upgrading the transport down the track) and getting much better sound at the end, with the downside of having to put up with your existing setup till you can afford a good player.
Whilst I may appear on these forums to be the kid who does not want to play ball, I am also writing from expensive experience. I bought the V-DAC and initially thought it was great because it improved the analogue output of my Sony PCM D50 transport (in hindsight, that was not a very hard thing to ask of it). But there is always a love affair with any new component that simply achieves nothing more than to change the sound of one's system, even if it ends up actually just being a sidewise step (a change is as good as a holiday so they say).
You only have to look at the people who have bought and sold DACMagics and V-DACs (myself included), who, after the love affair, got down to it and were able to make an unemotional comparison between a budget DAC and a half-decent integrated solution and / or were given the opportunity to see what is achievable in an integrated solution that costs not a whole lot more than a budget DAC and a decent transport put together.
And then there are the endless tweaking posts in both the V-DAC and DACMagic threads. There is no need to fiddle with a component if it sounds good. The tweaking comes under so much discussion because deep down (whether owners want to admit it or not), they are outgrowing these budget components. How many tweaking threads do we see in relation to components that you pay a lot more for? How many 840C tweak threads for example? About the only tweak that has reached any consensus is that it needs a lot of burn-in, and that isn't really even a tweak.
With the V-DAC and DACMagic, we have people pulling them apart, replacing caps and other parts left right and centre, changing op amps and mucking around with power supplies (guilty as charged for the power supply). It's almost starting to remind me of the tweaks to the old MF V3 headphone amps, where practically everything except the RCA sockets were replaced.
The professional HiFi Magazines ought to plead guilty to way over hyping these budget DACs before I am prepared to plead guilty to excessive dissension
I can certainly understand purchasing a V-DAC or DACMagic to improve the sound out of a laptop computer, but even then there is a lot of competition in terms of alternatives. I can't understand using a V-DAC or DACMagic with a full-blown PC, because you can buy an Asus Xonar Essence soundcard for less than half the price. It's internal DAC sounds better to me than either the DACMagic or V-DAC, plus it has both optical and coaxial digital outputs if you want to use a really good quality DAC.
That sort of leaves the V-DAC and DACMagic as orphans. Not good enough to outdo a good integrated CD player and not really any better than the best available internal soundcards these days either.
