King of the Non oversampling DAC's? Lavry /Kondo ?


If you are looking for the best Non oversampling DAC's then two DAC's will come to my head; Kondo DAC & Lavry Gold.
1) Have anyone compared those two ?
2) Is there any other brand(NOS DAC's) better than those two above mentioned ?
rademaker

Showing 3 responses by rockitman

The failure of both DAC's to handle 24/192 bit depth/sampling rate is enough for me to pass on them. I have 24/192 sources. Wouldn't sound as good at 24/96 downsampled. At the price of the Lavry, I would buy the Berkeley Audio Design DAC that can handle that bit depth/sampling frequency. The Kondo is obviously way over priced, imo.

http://www.berkeleyaudiodesign.com/products.html
More and more source material is coming out at higher sampling frequencies than 24/96. Why would you want to spend that much money on a DAC that can't playback (properly) higher sampling frequencies ? To each there own. As far as a comparo wiht a good analog rig ? Don't bother. Analog will win.
I hear what you are saying 11flat6. I have been ripping DVD Audio discs to hi-rez wavs. Most have been 24/96. Some have said the rez was 24/192 on the label(Chicago II) only to find out using a DVD ripper that the MLP files were only 24/96. The DVD Audio Eagles Hotel California is 24/192 and is pretty much my reference standard for the best in digital audio sound from a rock music standpoint.
Reference recordings HRx is 24/176.4 kHz. I wouldn't be surpised if HDtracks.com get more digital source material that samples higher than 96. One thing for sure, sampling rate does matter. 192kHz sounds better and more natural than 96kHz. Cheers !