I remember when affordable DACs like Audio Alchemy and Theta Chrome were popular, the average blue collar guy like myself could afford one. I had several early DACs and most were pretty good...at least better than the average decent CD player at the time. There were always killer dacs like dcs and MSB among others but then DACs fell out of fashion....
My first DAC was an Audio Alchemy 1.1 , shortly after that I bought a like new California Audio Labs Alpha for half price. It was a great DAC but like a fool I sold it. I've had a few others si ce and my current DAC is a NAD M51 which still sou ds pretty damn good.
I was blown away at the quality of MQA streams through my Bluesound Vault 2i, it's hard to say what sounds better, the M51 decoding the 24/96 stream or the player unfolding MQA but for most MQA I've listened to sounded better than it's redbook version.... not that I'm in the market for a new DAC but one thing is for sure, I'm not replacing the NAD until DACs with dsd and MQA are mainstream and somewhat within reach.
My first DAC was an Audio Alchemy 1.1 , shortly after that I bought a like new California Audio Labs Alpha for half price. It was a great DAC but like a fool I sold it. I've had a few others si ce and my current DAC is a NAD M51 which still sou ds pretty damn good.
I was blown away at the quality of MQA streams through my Bluesound Vault 2i, it's hard to say what sounds better, the M51 decoding the 24/96 stream or the player unfolding MQA but for most MQA I've listened to sounded better than it's redbook version.... not that I'm in the market for a new DAC but one thing is for sure, I'm not replacing the NAD until DACs with dsd and MQA are mainstream and somewhat within reach.