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Small form factor, budget DACs?

I'm trying to restore the musicality to my system, piece by piece. A few years ago my Jolida JD-602A CD player finally died and I've never really found a good replacement. I think really I've been mourning the loss and lacked the funds to get something of equal quality (since it was sort of a giant killer).

So, what can I get for < $400? Used is fine, but it has to be a compact form factor - I don't have room for another full-sized component. I think the 1/2 size form factor that Channel Islands, Musical Fidelity and Creek use is about as big as I could go.

24/96 is a plus since I have a bit of DVD-A stuff but not a necessity. I don't really have an opinion for or against oversampling, or regarding filterless DACs.

Here are the DACs that have popped up in my search so far:

$175 - Lite Audio filterless DAC
$250-400 - Ack! Dac
$200? - Creek OBH-14 - I'd have gotten one by now but I have yet to see one pop up on the used market. Probably a good sign.
$300-400? - Musical Fidelity X-24K - older DAC (circa 2000), but it looks nice and let's me stay with the appealing X-component form factor (I have an X-ACT and X-LPS now). Maybe a little overpriced - I can't help but think that for that money I could get something better
$400-600 - Channel Islands DAC - undoubtedly the best DAC on the list, but also the most expensive, so it would take the longest for me to save up the coinage.

Anything I'm missing from the list?
hudsonhawk

Showing 6 responses by undertow

undertow
1,033 posts
 
Hudsonhawk, Killer DAC, the huge difference I found with anything on it was a good 10 or 12 Gauge teflon/silver tinned power cable, Completly makes the bass and mid solid and far deeper sounding, vs. a little 2 dimensional and overly analog flat with the standard power cord.
undertow
1,033 posts
 
As a matter of fact on the power cord, We had 2 of the DAC-AH's stock and set up parallel into one preamp, one on the auxilary input, one on the CD input, A-B testing on the fly at the touch of a button all the same cables and transport, and trust me between 3 people doing the Testing (listening at the same time) we all determined the biggest direct tweak you can do was to use a good thick power cable, the Bass completly went to a much higher resolution level, far more detail, with the stock cord it sounded good, but was totally like a 1 note bass in comparison to the better cable...Soundstage might have expanded a little too which added to the deeper effect? We actually took it a step further and made sure to use both STOCK cables one on each dac and hear that they were the same in the first place and that the better power on either unit would improve it, and it did! we came to the conclusion there was a 20% solid enhancement with the power cord.

We then decided screw it lets pull out some left over deadner material for the panels and cover this sucker, and see what happens vs. the stock, well again a SMALLER but different sound difference, it just seemed a bit smoother sounding or more control with cleaner but nicer rolled off sound.. not sure what really accounted for this.
undertow
1,033 posts
 
I have to ask? Where are you guys finding the DAC + or whatever for 220.00? I ordered these Dac's for me and 2 friends of mine just about 1 month ago, and emailed PacificValve.us directly and actually asked them about what they think audiomirror and others have done different over the stock DAC? They emailed me back saying they are not sure what the upgrade details are on their units but that pacific are not selling any upgraded versions themselves and just deal with the stock version... Also I cannot find this version anywhere on the website, or is there another pacific valve distributor on another website? Thanks
undertow
1,033 posts
 
I would compare the WADIA hooked up via Analog like it is and Simply connect the Digital out to the DAC, Then you have an Equivelant Transport with the Same CD loaded and can switch between your DAC and INTERNAL DAC of the Wadia on the Fly with the remote by just hitting AUX or CD on your preamp, this will be very fast to tell you which one is superior for cost. Take the Sony out of the equation entirely, you might find a suprise in that dac feed the same. Just a suggestion, then you have a straight up fair comparison.
undertow
1,033 posts
 
Bombaywalla, What exactly is done to just modify the Digital out with no clock mod's? Just wondering, cause this would seem to be much cheaper to do than changing the clock.

Also, I have seen some Mods to NOS-DAC's that add a Re-clocker type unit to them, would this be worth simply getting the Digital out modification at the transport and more effective putting the Re-clocker in the DAC itself for the cheapest approch to handle the Jitter issues and get resonably better sound?

Thanks
undertow
1,033 posts
 
Interesting... I got a little lost on the Re-attaching the XO or superclock, I was looking not to purchase these in the transport and just use the cheap osillator or whatever in there? And ad the better clock in the dac, I am not really completly looking to do this but this is something I have seen done, so upgrading everything but the clock in a CD player used primarily as a transport would be a good idea or not without the clock? Thanks
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