(05-22-2020, 01:58 PM)jonners Wrote:(05-22-2020, 12:45 PM)hifimarco Wrote:(05-22-2020, 11:07 AM)jonners Wrote: Hi Marco,
What speakers are you using, and which NAD amp?
I've got KEF IQ9s on a NAD C 326 BEE
OK, so your system looks good enough to benefit from a better DAC, but I don't think that $100 will buy anything significantly better than you have already. I think your best bet might be a USB DAC rather than a HAT one, and the chart that Kent linked to shows some possibilities, like the Topping E30 for example. The trouble is that the ASR site reviews on the basis of measurements only, and doesn't mention sound quality. The forthcoming Revolution DAC from allo.com looks interesting, but probably a bit over your budget. IFi also have some DACs that might be worth looking at.
There are a lot of very good budget DACs appearing at the moment and it might be good to wait a while, keep your eyes open,.....and be nice to your wife
Thanks for your thoughts! Yes it’s hard to pick one because there’s like hundreds now and as you said they don’t really tell you much about if you’ll like the sound. Usually I listen to vinyls so a DAC that sounds more analog/warm would suit my preferences more. I hope one day to be satisfied with the sound of digital enough to move on from vinyl. So far for whatever reason I never get the same relaxation and emotional response as from vinyl.
I was also thinking about investing more and getting a Bluesound Node 2i as it could directly stream Amazon Music HD in full quality. And I guess Amazon will never open their API. But that’s a whopping 550€ without knowing how long this thing will get updates and keep on working :/
Yes the Revolution DAC looks interesting! But that Topping E30 you pointed out seems like a real good deal in terms of price/performance. It looks like surely worth a shot and that there's little more to gain spending 300 EUR more. And I could just connect the E30 via USB to the Raspberry as an external DAC and from there via RCA to my amp if I got it right. Tempting!
