Seeking DAC Advice for a Secondary Two Channel System

@puppyt , is the Innuos in this system or your main system ? Can you take the DAC from your main system and try it in your secondary one ? This would give you an idea of what you have to gain.  FWIT a long time ago I purchased the original A series Yiggy for $1200 used. About 2 years ago the original usb card gave up and I had Schiit install the Gen 5 USB. I’ve left that thing turned on for the last 10 years and it’s performed flawlessly. It would be well worth spending above your budget to get a used one. The only issue besides your budget is the Yiggy is pretty big. I’m running mine off an Innuos Pulse using a Wireworld Platinum Starlight 8, everything purchased used and it’s a keeper rig. Maybe think long term and reconsider your budget. I have zero experience with the Chinese DAC’s but others love them. Best Wishes , Mike B. 

For about $1000 you could get a used Denafrips Iris DDC and an Ares 15th.  That would certainly give you noticeable results.  Or just the used Ares 15th would be improvement (I suggest the DDC cause I have a Hermes connected to my Pontus II  and it made a noticeable improvement).  I realize that’s twice your budget but I agree that for $500 you might just be making lateral moves.

I hate how enthusiast forums of almost any type often end up blowing past the stated budget and recommending things way beyond that level. In this case though, I actually agree with the idea. $500 may get something different sounding, maybe a little better, but probably not significant improvement.

Moving closer to $1k should bring a much more obvious upgrade. Even if you have to wait and save for a while, that would be worth doing. I'd stick with second hand units to save big.

Right now for under $1k I can find listings for the original Auralic Vega, Metrum Amethyst, a few nice units from ExaSound, a Wyred4Sound DAC-2 DSD with Femtoclock upgrade, and a classic Sonic Frontiers SFD-1 mkII. All of those should make a large enough difference to be worthwhile and give you years of enjoyment. 

Mike B -

The Innuos is actually used in both systems.  It is connected to my network via a Wire World Ethernet cable. It is physically located in my home office with the secondary system. In my main system (located in a dedicated music room above my garage) I have a LUMIN T2 streamer so when using Roon I can just toggle to either the Node or the LUMIN as endpoints.

@puppyt

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@jastralfu 

@benstelz 

When I mentioned my budget was $500 it was because I had no real idea.  It is clear to me from these responses and other research I have done that $500 isn’t going to buy me meaningful improvement. That is exactly what I didn’t know but needed to know. I am willing to move to the $1,000 range for noticeable improvement. Thanks for helping to guide me there.