Hi There
Well certainly not, and I wasn’t saying you needed to buy the same one I have, but the best dac that fits in your budgets in your case with a 10 k budget likely 3300 to 4 for speakers , 2500 to 3 for amplification and 2 ish for a dac is plenty. If your streaming then a streamer needs to fit in there as well aside from the digital storage and what ever your running your software on.
The real trick I’ve found is to listen to them and not worry too much about the tech specs , a DAC with jitter issues won’t sound good to you.And trying to determine in advance if the spes or part used will cause jitter isn’t easy. Some users have a preference to the chip, others the the signature sound of a manufacture. In a budget system I really like the Resonessance Concero HD, Best bang for the back at 850 new ( Canadian dollars ) and several can be found at 450ish used. It does DSD and uses a Sabre DAC. It was in my system for a while before I moved to the Schiit. There are several others that would be comparable. FYI. in my discovery path I have really been surprised what made some of the larger changes in the music quality, after I bought the best DAC for my budget. Moving to Roon core on a solid state drive was one of the larger ones.
It’s predecessor was Audirvana on a data drive.
Cheers
Steve
Hi Steve,
What you say makes perfect sense to me.
The practical issues I have:
- Living outside the US/Europe means I have access to VERY limited options I can take home to try without paying a lot for shipment back and forth.
- I really need a multi-channel DAC since I do Room Correction on my PC + Use a subwoofer (system is in profile).
If I don’t want HDMI I’m “stuck” with only these options:
1: miniDSP u-DAC8 ~$300 (USB, no DSD) or miniDSP N-DAC8 ~300 (no DSD, ethernet/AVB input with MacOS)
2: exaSound e38 ~$3900
3: Merging+ NADAC ~$12,000
4: Stacking three Mytek DACs via a USB hub with their special ASIO driver. Cost depends on which DAC I choose.
6: Pro Audio like Motu 1248
Tough market for PC audiophiles 
OK. copy that, so why would’nt you use the latest Oppo digital player? They specifically have a product that manages HDMI jitter. You can connect with three different options. Exasound is amazing but too much $$$ for your budget. Oppo make a great product, I wouldn’t shy away from that and its not so heavy that shipping would ruin the price.
Oppo reclock HDMI input?
I’ve seen their “Audio HDMI” but figured it is for output to an AVR. Misunderstood something?
It is how the the DAC chips are implemented in the design of a fully functional DACs; most of DAC chips from most renowned manufacturers are good enough, with excellent specifications such as Burr-Brown, ESS, AKM and Cirrus Logic.
A noisy source when fed into an excellent grade DAC will simply rendered it to bad SQ.
Things that I will spend money on when looking for my next DAC include:
Chipset - I like R2R, meaning discrete resistor chains rather than an integrated circuit. The Holo Audio Spring has 4. Two for PCM and two for DSD. The second chain in each group is used to preserve linearity (presumably by rejecting non-common discrepancies). This seems a good fundamental design to me.
Output - a discrete Class A balanced output section rather than opamps.
Integration - No capacitors in the signal path. The best capacitor in audio is always the one you can leave out. Short cable lengths with good conductors, effective RFI shielding and vibration damping of the chassis.
Input - Ethernet or Fibre Optic input integrating directly by l2C to the R2R chain. A few SPDIF coax and a Toslink input for TVs, DVDs etc. Don’t want a USB input if Ethernet to I2C can be done. Want the input stage to implement Roon Bridge and an HQP NAA. I would prefer to switch Inputs using an iPad app rather than an IR remote.
Power Supply - I’d like a LPS-1 Ultra Capacitor bank to power the digital stage and a nice linear power supply with a big stiff bank of good quality capacitors to power the analog stage. I haven’t heard a silver wound transformer, but imagine that it has more impact on the digital stage than the analog stage. If so it might not be needed with an LPS-1 style solution.
Sampling Rate/Format - at least 768k PCM and DSD512
Jitter/Clock - happy to spend money here to get a good clock for RAAT to lock onto.
Things I don’t not want to spend money on include:
Volume Control - I use my preamp analog volume control.
Remote Control - prefer an iPad app.
Upsampling, DSP - prefer Roon or HQP.
That is an interesting statement.
So I’m taking this as that cleaning the source input is one of the main goals of high grade DACs, is that right?
Coming from this logic would you think making sure the source (HTPC) is as clean as possible by treating it with something like SOtM tX-USBexp or SOtM tX-USBhub and then using it with a cheap DAC like the AKM based miniDSP U-DAC8 (Well, it is the ONLY sub ~$4k 8ch async-USB DAC… which is what inspired me to write the OP in the first place) would put this ~$500K combo with higher grade DACs, at least on this specific aspect?
*BTW I’m doubtful regarding this, isn’t an async-USB DAC means the source clock is irrelevant? If so then it probably means other as important properties are affecting SQ
Nice reply!
A dream DAC indeed.
So what have you found to meet these criteria?
Less familiar with RAAT, are you talking about the quality of the internal DAC’s clock or something external that can be used with RAAT?
I’ll add to this list:
Room Correction - I use Dirac Live or Convolution made with acourate, expert service like this or anything else that the future would bring
Bass Management - Roon’s DSP or other software - Needed in order to feed the PC based Room Correction with the subwoofer channel so it would be “corrected” as well
These two means I now require at least a 3 channel DAC (haven’t seen any).
And here instead of saving money and future proofing with a PC replacing the classical pre/pro/avr… I’m left with either HDMI connection to something with tons of features I don’t need or something like Merging+ NADAC which costs more than my entire system.
Praying for more to join the PC Audiophile evolution so that more sensible 8ch DACs would become available 
At the moment I’m using a microRendu (powered by an LPS-1) by USB to a Matrix Audio SPDIF-2 then by l2s (HDMI) to a Holo Audio Spring. Ideally I’d l8ke it all in one box.
Internal to DAC. Brian gave us some info about clocks here.
I convolve room correction in HQP, but I could do it in Roon. My speakers have built in active bass. Preamp has 3 sets of Outputs; Balanced to Power amps and RCA to each active bass.
Do you use a preamp that could send an analog out to your sub ? Then you could just convolve two channels.
+100000000
I have large floorstanding speakers with great bass but EDM and Techno really benefit from the air moving capabilities of my 12" JL-Audio. Closer to what it sounds like on massive club systems. I guess larger floorstandings might not require an extra sub (and different genres wouldn’t require one with my speakers as well) but for me it’s all about doing the best for my use case with my budget.
Also there is multi-channel content with original LFE signals.
I can, and I suspect that is what most people do.
I think it is less than ideal, to say the least. For that to be remotely accurate in terms of DRC the system should be measured with the preamp’s BM active. That means that the right & left sweep would be split and reproduced by 2 sources - Right + Sub and Left + Sub, unaccounted for by the DRC software. FR would be good (even better as it would include the XO) but the correction of anything in the Time Domain and Phase would be shady at best.
I think it many folks are simply unaware of this easy to miss and important information.
The noise spikes from the switching circuits like in the PC can cause ‘ground bounce’ when feed directly to a DAC’s own ground. In my line of work, a 100mV spike can cause the a large drop in the SNR ratio. Care is normally taken by using a galvanic isolation(we use high speed opto-couplers) and which is found in some DACs.
Having a clean source to begin with really helps a lot if there’s no isolation ground between the source and DAC. In some critical design when it comes to mixed signal processing that deals with digital as well as analog, the power supplies that powered both the digital and analog must be separated. Meaning, there’s two isolated power supplies. This is sometimes seen in high-end DACs
Hello Ron,
To begin I think the most important parts of the system are speakers and amplifier. I spent a long time auditioning before deciding on my current combination. What’s interesting to note is that pairing “better” equipment didn’t yield the best results. Some combinations were flat and others too bright.
I suspect this is true of DACs too. My first endpoint was the Squeezebox2. When paired with my old Denon/ Mission combo I thought it was fantastic, but it was no where near as refined as the Dragonfly 1.2, and IMO the IQAudiO Pi-DAC+ was another step up. Unfortunately, and I guess this is the nature of hi-fi, when I upgraded my turntable I realised that the Pi-DAC+ had become the weakest link in my system.
I took many months seeking an upgrade and eventually settled on the fabulous Chord 2Qute. But before I opted for this I auditioned a few DACs from Arcam, Bluesound and Audiolab. They just didn’t do it for me, or rather, they weren’t a serious upgrade on the modestly priced Pi-DAC+.
So, coming back to your post … what’s important? Well, I think you’re mixing up the properties of a recording with those of the DAC: sample rate, dynamic range etc. It doesn’t follow that higher sample rates and resolution offer a better recording. However, I do think “chipset” is relevant. It’s very evident to me that the Burr Brown has a definite “signature” and it present whether you pay £30 or £600 for a DAC based on this $5 component.
Personally, I like a DAC to do one thing: digital to analogue conversion. No volume control, no DSP, no MQA!
Whether jitter reduction, using high-end interconnects, or switch mode power supplies and so on improve the listening experience is moot. Personally, I think the vast majority of claims are marketing hype and any gains are marginal at best. Ducks out of the way! 
Amen to that!
@Ron_Kuper
Totally pointless conversation unless you define ‘Sound Quality’.
What do you mean by that.
What do other people mean by that? Is it the same thing?
Is it what you like, or something that’s real / tangible / measureable? Or are you just talking about feelings / preferences?
Exactly!!!
I get that.
Have you ever used this term? What did you mean by it?
I guess I would want my DAC or any other electronic equipment to not “hurt” the original sound. For example - not add distortion to it, not add audible bits around frequencies, etc. Perhaps that means that for me SQ is about transparency?
In my mind, a good DAC is a DAC that converts the digital sound as accurately as possible, without adding any objectively detrimental properties to it which are not there in the recording.
If I’ll refer to some of the “benefitial” properties some might think of (“warm”/“cold”/etc) - I’m not saying that I’m a “flat response” guy, I’m into “Room Curve” (if you’re familiar with the unofficial term). It just that whatever changes I would like to do to the sound I prefer doing with software PEQs, Filters, etc and not be forced to one built-in in the DAC design.