[faultfracture]

I need some input for the choices, please reply with your choice for the best Windows Driverless USB DAC!

 

[cossix]

Schiit Modi 2

 

[faultfracture]

Thank you! Although maybe a bit more transportable than portable...

I'll add: Dragonfly and Audioengine D3

 

[Rach13]

Fiio E07K

 

[fianbarr]

I have a Modi 2 and am very happy with it. When I was investigating this (a few months back) I found there are very few dedicated USB powered DACs. They are mostly DAC/AMPs. For dedicated USB DAC I finally doubted between the SMSL (VMV) Magic and Modi 2.

What drove my decision was that I already had good experience with Schiit (Valhalla 2) and I couldn't find any reviews for the SMSL.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Thank you! Although maybe a bit more transportable than portable...

I'll add: Dragonfly and Audioengine D3

Ibasso D-Zero MkII and Fiio Q1 MkII have their own batteries so when used with smartphones, power draw out of the USB port isn't a problem.

 

[PurpleAngel]

I need some input for the choices, please reply with your choice for the best Windows Driverless USB DAC!

All DACs connected to personal computers (Windows, Macs, Linux, etc) need to use software drivers.
Do you mean DACs that use drivers that Windows normally comes with (or can update with) and not having to take the time going out and finding the software drivers yourself.

 

[faultfracture]

I mean without third party drivers.

 

[faultfracture]

bump

 

[buke9]

I don’t know what you mean by third party drivers as most of the dacs that need one would be supplied by that manufacturer and not by a third party. If your meaning by one that can be run on a networked computer that you can’t install a driver then your going to have a hard time with that. You would probably be limited to a dac that only does 16 bit at 44khz which is not a bad thing but finding one that does only that will be the problem if this is the case. As I mostly use a Mac I don’t have that problem but my HiFiMan EF2A didn’t need a driver on my PC other than that sorry don’t know.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I don’t know what you mean by third party drivers as most of the dacs that need one would be supplied by that manufacturer and not by a third party. If your meaning by one that can be run on a networked computer that you can’t install a driver then your going to have a hard time with that. You would probably be limited to a dac that only does 16 bit at 44khz which is not a bad thing but finding one that does only that will be the problem if this is the case. As I mostly use a Mac I don’t have that problem but my HiFiMan EF2A didn’t need a driver on my PC other than that sorry don’t know.

I'm guessing by "third party" it means the DAC unit manufacturer, the first parties being Microsoft/Apple and second party being the USB receiver chip manufacturer, ie why you get drivers from AudioGD, Ibasso, and Schiit instead of Texas Instruments.

 

[trellus]

FiiO E18. It's plug and play. Presents itself as a standard USB Audio Class 1 device, so that means no driver installation necessary for popular OS's, including Windows 7, Windows 10, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, even works on some Chromebooks I believe, as well as many Android devices.