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Arcam - IR DAC

L

LouisB

pfm Member
Hi,

My brother recently picked up one of these and it sounds alright, but his system is different.

I could kind of use another DAC, dedicated just for my 2ch hi-fi system.

I wonder if there ware any opinions on these, are they decent and good value for money?

It's unlikely I'll put a CD through this but I might stream to it and sometimes send some higher quality lossless audio through it.

Thoughts? Think the used price is around £250 which seems quiet reasonable to me (if it's any good). There is also the M-DAC, it seems quite a bit more, not sure I need additional features making it more pricey.

(if you think all digital sounds 'the same' and we only need, say, 5 bits at 32KHz to satisfy our hearing, no need to reply here, honestly, please!)

If you have one or compared against one, really interested to hear your thoughts on it.
 
I confess I haven't heard this particular unit. However current Arcam DACs are quite warm and musical sounding, not the last word in refinement, rhythmic ability or detail. If that suits your system, go for it.
 
Hey, well I definitely want it to sound musical.

So put another way perhaps, if you had £250 or £300 in the used DAC market, what might you pick up.

Features probably are just.

USB input as well as coax sp-dif
Decent rates, say up to 96KHz min
Decent bit depths, I can live without crazy extremes here but if it can play anything up to 24bit that would be a real plus.
 
The Arcam certainly isn't a bad DAC. I'd look at the M-DAC (though I'm personally not a fan of Audio Lab products for reliability reasons). Also the Rotel RD-1580, Pro-Ject DAC Box DS, and obviously the CA DACMagic.
 
ashleycox said:
The Arcam certainly isn't a bad DAC. I'd look at the M-DAC (though I'm personally not a fan of Audio Lab products for reliability reasons). Also the Rotel RD-1580, Pro-Ject DAC Box DS, and obviously the CA DACMagic.
Click to expand...

CA DACMagic - ahah! So I have an ancient DACMagic 3 in my rack, I presume then there is a newer/current model of this. For it's time it was decent.

I'll go research that now, thanks for the idea!
 
There are quite a few models in that range now. The DACMagic+ is the one that springs to mind. Some find it a little bright, but get the system right and it's a fine DAC for the money.
 
I've had both the irDac and an M-Dac and found the irDac one hand-down for me. The Audiolab was far to clinical and a little lean for my tastes. Love that it was so configurable and certainly looked the part on the desk but the musicality and tonal range/balance of the irDac nailed it for me.
 
Do not think you can really find a poor dac these days it is just a matter more of choosing the sound you like . I feel you have to try a few yourself as ones lean description could be anothers highly detailed and the overall system makes a difference to the outcome
 
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