USB DAC ~£200 to beat iBasso D4 Mamba?
Jan 24, 2012 at 5:46 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 2

losteden

New Head-Fier
Joined
May 18, 2010
Posts
35
Likes
10
I currently use an iBasso D4 Mamba (with HiFlight topkit) as a DAC at home for my hifi setup & at work as a DAC+amp for my headphones, taking it to & from work each day. I want to invest in a 'desktop' (eg non-portable) DAC to leave at home & that way I can leave the Mamba at work & never again get home planning to relax with a movie only to realise that I left the DAC at work...
 
Obviously I want anything I buy to sound as good or better than the Mamba's DAC section. The Mamba will only do sample rates up to 48KHz which is fine because 99% of what I listen to is 44.1KHz, but I have started to amass some 96KHz vinyl rips so it would be nice if my new DAC will handle that.
 
I don't want to spend much more than £200. I spent ~£125 on the Mamba (IIRC) so £200-250 seems like the next logical price point down the slippery slope. The problem is that there are hundreds (literally) of DACs on ebay from China in that sort of price range & I really don't know where to start. To save me from spending days trawling through reviews & possibly missing something good, can anybody point to a few good ones I should consider?
 
Just to confirm, I'm only looking for a DAC, not a DAC+amp, as my headphones live at work permanently. I don't need volume control, input selection, etc. just straight USB to analogue, but naturally I won't discount a DAC that has some/all of these features in addition to fitting the rest of my criteria.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top