New to DAC, need advice.


I recently purchased a Parasound ZDAC here and it worked well for a short time but then started acting up with short, intermittent bursts of static while streaming Tidal. Then for a day wouldn't play certain parts of the music such as missing a guitar or piano notes. After contacting Parasound they tell me it's a circuit issue. It's out of warranty and they are offering to have me ship it there for repair. It's been error-free for a few days now and in the mean time it's been recommended to me by Jim Williams of Adcom modification fame that I should consider the Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital DAC. It's roughly twice the price I paid for the ZDAC but if I send it in for repair, with shipping, I'll be right around the price of the Pro-ject DAC new, and it can decode MQA files where the ZDAC can't. So I defer to the community here. What's my best option on a limited budget?
128x128ratboysr
Just out of curiosity was any of the stuff you were streaming when you got static higher resolution i.e. 24/96 or 24/192 or MQA?
jond- good question! I don’t think the ZDAC will play MQA or hi-res files. If the OP is not trying to playback redbook quality he might?? be getting problems with the device. Try spotify or other streaming services orbtry Tidal non-hirez material and if DAC is playing fine, that is the problem.
@jond i'm fairly new to Tidal and I don't see where you can determine the resolution of the song you are streaming. I have the HiFi membership and play Master recordings when available. But I'm fairly certain the files it acted up on were not Master versions.
@gdnrbob unfortunately the Gugnir and Yggy are out of my price range for now. But thank you for the suggestion.
@kalali and @ amg56 I’m using my Windows 10 PC as the source with USB. I’ll check out the Bluesound, thank you both.