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To DAC or not to DAC

I have somewhat of a dilemma. I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas and had forgotten about it. I just ran across it and have to spend some money. I kind of got all up into doing the digital thing, starting off with a Sonos unit, but I think that I want to run down the road of some quality CD music.

I'm currently running an XDA-1 DAC. Right or wrong, I kind of view it as being a budget solution, but it's doing fine as the converter for my Sonos and Apple TV. My dilemma is whether I should get something along the lines of a decent CD player in the form of a Cambridge Audio 550C and either run that through my XDA-1 or get a better DAC. The second choice would be to get something like the 650C which has dual DACs and just run that straight through the analog outs.

I guess what I'm asking is, will I get better results with the 550C and an external dac or with getting the 650C using its internal DACs.

My next question is whether something like a DacMagic would be an upgrade from the XDA-1, if I go the route of the 550C and external dac. For that matter, would the internal dac of the 550C be better than either the XDA-1 or the DacMagic?

I'm just lost.

Thanks.
tonyangel
tonyangel OP
309 posts
 
Wolf, I thought about trying that, but I just don't know what the purpose would be. The addition of the power supply would have to make a pretty big difference to make the DacMagic sound better than the XDA-1 in my system.

From a practical point of view, I just can't see spending $400 to wind up with something that sounds as good as what I have, but does less, for more money.

I know that I have very limited experience with this stuff, but I think the XDA-1 is a heck of a bargain.
wolf_garcia
6,608 posts
 
The DACMagic was improved by the new power supply but since I've never heard an XDA-1 I really can't say if it would do anything for you, other than make you more like me and nobody needs that! I do think Emotiva is a pretty hip company...and the XDA-1 seems like pretty cool design for 249 bucks!
tonyangel OP
309 posts
 
Unfortunately, it is the 249 bucks that has me second guessing the XDA-1. When I did the A/B comparisons with the V-Dac and DacMagic, I only compared the units themselves, without doing any cable swapping. I was very surprised that I not only liked the sound of the XDA-1 better, but a lot better.

I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that such an inexpensive piece of equipment compared so favorably in my system.

At this point, I don't think that I'm ready to take the plunge into a $1K+ DAC (considering my primary source), but I am toying with the idea of giving the rDAC and DAC*it a try as well.
waxwaves's avatar
waxwaves
206 posts
 
This an older thread but had to put in my 2cents...the only "budget" dac that I have found that can outperform the Emotiva XDA-1 is the PS Audio DL III. All other budget dacs that I have tried, including DacMagic, MF, Peachtree, and several others failed to sound as good to me as XDA-1 in my McCormack/Hales/Wadia/Oppo setup. The DL III was just a tad smoother and more coherant in it's presentation of the music.
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