Need some expert advice from my fellow Roon Lifers. I have recently rented another apartment (in addition to my primary residence) and want to enjoy my incredible music collection. That said, I don’t want to go to the trouble of adding another Nucleus +, hard drive with copy of my music, etc. I love listening to ARC on my iPhone and would like to hook it up to an integrated amp. Does anyone have some suggestions on a portable DAC that would hook up to both my iPhone/iPad and a standard amp or receiver while providing the best sound quality possible?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Hi Thomas,
Not an expert but… There are too many. Totally portable, when commuting, I have an iFi hip Dac v2 but I think you can find better then that. If I would buy a Dac for iPhone or iPad I would buy an Adi Dac from RME but is not portable (and I am biased towards using the Adi as in imput for HQP). So you can have whatever just to check it works when feed USB from an OTG like the camera adaptor. And maybe have some days to test and if you do not like it send it back.
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There’s no need for a portable DAC in this situation; use a powered USB DAC with an Apple Camera Adapter for bit-perfect audio to your amp via an RCA input.
All you need to do then is connect the Lightning cable to iPhone, and you can listen to music and charge the phone.
I use ARC with my Chord Mojo when away from home, but for a permanent setup I’d use something like a Qutest.
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Thank you so much for your suggestions. I certainly don’t need a portable DAC since I intend to leave it there. That said, I wonder if an even simpler solution would be to hook the iPad/iPhone up directly to either a Cambridge Audio CXA81 or Yamaha A-S801, both of which have SABRE DACs?
Any USB DAC will work; just make sure the amp has a USB input. This is usually a USB-B connector (a USB-A connector is for adding a USB pen drive.)
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