[Spasticteapot]

After hearing the massive improvement after I upgraded my crappy Magnavox CD player (no laughing, please!) to a Denon DCD-695 (5$ from St. Vinny's), I decided that it's finally time to get a no-nonsense DAC.

The problem is? I'm a laptop junkie.

It seems to me that a small, portable DAC should be ridiculously easy. The combination of a PCM2706 and TDA1543 is pretty popular, and looks to be simple; 2 TDA1543's in paralell should work pretty well, and at 3$ each on FleaBay, they'll hardly break the bank.

So, why can't I just buy a cheap kit? I've seen a simple TDA1543-based DAC kit on FleaBay for 40$, but it used S/PDIF. (It even included an optical adapter!)

The HPDAC looks pretty nice, but sadly, it's no longer availible, and I don't trust myself not to screw it up.

 

[error401]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spasticteapot After hearing the massive improvement after I upgraded my crappy Magnavox CD player (no laughing, please!) to a Denon DCD-695 (5$ from St. Vinny's), I decided that it's finally time to get a no-nonsense DAC. The problem is? I'm a laptop junkie. It seems to me that a small, portable DAC should be ridiculously easy. The combination of a PCM2706 and TDA1543 is pretty popular, and looks to be simple; 2 TDA1543's in paralell should work pretty well, and at 3$ each on FleaBay, they'll hardly break the bank. So, why can't I just buy a cheap kit? I've seen a simple TDA1543-based DAC kit on FleaBay for 40$, but it used S/PDIF. (It even included an optical adapter!) The HPDAC looks pretty nice, but sadly, it's no longer availible, and I don't trust myself not to screw it up.

Check the site again

. dsavitsk received another set of boards and put them up for sale a couple days ago. I just ordered one myself yesterday. Grab one up before they're gone.

 

[Spare Tire]

Back when the minidiscs were still not in the "net-md" or "hi-md" generation, there was a big demand for USB dacs that could output to spdif. There should still be some xitel going around for pretty cheap (think maybe 15-20$, that's even cheaper than a kit). There are also more reputable stuff, like m-audio sonica and transit.

 

[pegasus21]

How about the Alien DAC currently having a group order in the forums?

 

[Bones13]

Or spend more and get a TotalBitHead from Headroom.

 

[fishpatrol]

Probably this isn't what you meant, but "USB dacs that could output to spdif" would be digital-to-digital and no DAC at all.

There's the Apogee mini-me, of course. Does all this for only $900! Yes that's sarcasm! Though I'm sure it is a great piece of a equipment. Computer-based audio still doesn't have the ear of DAC-makers. I'd guess they're a small group, and the stand-alone DAC market is small already.

 

[daggerlee]

The silverstne EB01 DAC is around $100, $70 for refurbished versions from newegg.com, it's a USB dac that outputs to RCA outs

 

[Pendergast]

There is also Peter Daniel's DAC-1 from AudioSector at $230 US. NOt portable, but the title of this thread didn't mention it So I thought I could bring it here....

 

[kugino]

alien DAC