[seankonnery]

I am about to buy a DAC to go with my iriver to make my portable rig into a home rig. It is going to cost a fortune. Isn't it better to just buy a cd player for the same price? Which is going to be better sound quality?

 

[PhilS]

What kind of dollars are we talking about? In other words, what is your budget?

 

[seankonnery]

I have between $500-$1000 left to spend on all this. And that's it for a while.

 

[PhilS]

I would think with that budget you should go the CD player route. There are some nice options in that range, including some of the modded players.

 

[seankonnery]

why do you think so? what's better about burned cd's rather than iriver hd? where can I get cd player and what name? what is modded? So forget the dac, and go for the cd player for home rig?

 

[taylor]

Get the best of both worlds - buy a decent transport and a DAC. You can swap the DAC between your iriver and the transport.

For transport, try looking for a NEC external SCSI cdrom on ebay. A low-fi CDP/DVDP with a digital out works too, ask around to find out which models have nice digital outs. There's plenty of options for DACs, a Benchmark DAC1 is in your budget ar $850 IIRC. I have not heard this myself, but it is reccomended. Some other DACs to look at are AOS Piccolo, again I am basing this off what I have read. There is also a nice $500 DAC whose name I don't remember, it has a cover with several holes in it and runs on batteries, which I have heard and liked.

What kind of digital out is your iriver? That might cut down on options, many portable-focused DACs have only optical, whereas the ones made by people and small companies only have coax. A pro-sound one designed for studio use should have both.

 

[seankonnery]

the hp120 has both optical and analogue line out.

 

[clarke68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by taylor There is also a nice $500 DAC whose name I don't remember, it has a cover with several holes in it and runs on batteries, which I have heard and liked.

The Ack dAck!. Pretty highly regarded in places like head-fi/audio asylum/etc., but the manufacturer recommends very high-end transports, so they may not be the best bet for your application. Not to say your iRiver is a bad transport (I've never heard one), but the dAck! is voiced using a CEC belt-drive unit, and they can run upwards of $17,000.

Anyway they've just released a new version, so the previous models of the Ack dAck! are popping up on Audiogon a lot recently for $300-$350.

However, if you're just using your iRiver as a transport you can probably get away even cheaper if you don't mind buying used. This is a good thread about cheap DACs, many commonly available under $200.

 

[EyEPoD]

The Benchmark Dac1 seems to be the best option for a number of reasons. It can be used as a dac through the digital out of your Iriver or you can hook up almost any cd/dvd player with a digial out to act as a transport.

The Dac1 has a pretty good head amp built in (with dual outputs) as well as the option to drive those 650s with the balanced outputs.

Thus your home setup would be:

any dvd/cd transport > toslink > Benchmark Dac1 balanced outputs > HD650

This would make a great home rig comparable to setups costing thousands more.

 

[seankonnery]

would I need to use my sr71 with it?

 

[EyEPoD]

Nope, you could keep that all packed up for portable use.

 

[seankonnery]

but the amp in the dac is as good as the sr71? why not use the sr71?

 

[EyEPoD]

Ive never used the sr-71, but the headamp is on par with the XP-7, and the balanced outputs should be significantly better.