advertisement


Best £500 DAC for Naim/Avondale setup

glancaster

glancaster

In the silicon vale
The pink fishermen were kind enough to help me when I was looking for speakers about 18 months ago. I’m very happy with my Royds (and, indeed, with the amp upgrades that were suggested!). Now I’m asking for your assistance again.

My current system is:

Avondale-modified Arcam Audio 5 CD player ->
Naim NAC 62 preamp (powered by TeddyCap Mk 2) ->
Avondale-modified Naim NAC 140 power amp ->
Royd Minstrels

I’m currently building myself a music PC with the aim of relegating my CDs to a cupboard or the loft. I do like the sound of my current setup, but if I can pack away the CDs that would clear up my lounge and allow me to buy more music without worrying about storage problems. I’m also attracted by the prospect of high quality downloads over the net.

I’ve decided to avoid using a traditional sound card and instead buy a USB DAC, as I think I will get better sound this way. Whilst I’m sure there are other ways to great sound, I’m tending towards the asynchronous USB implementations – I’m convinced that, in theory at least, these ought to be better.

My budget for the DAC is around £500. My current list of possibles are:

1. HRT Music Streamer II+ £300. Goes up to 24 bit/96 KHz.
2. Devilsound £270. 16 bit only, non-oversampling. Reviews suggest may work well with Naim.
3. Arcam rDAC £280. Another 24 bit/96 KHz implementation with generally good reviews. But Arcam doesn’t generally go well with Naim, does it?
4. Audiolab 8200 MDAC £500???. Another 24/96 implementation. Not out yet, but spec and reviews of 8200CD stablemate suggest could be something special. Endless discussion on another long-running PFM thread.

The first two are USB only. The last two have other inputs, which would be helpful for TV.

Usually I like to demo kit before I buy, but with at least two of these DACs that will be tricky as there are no local dealers. I would break this rule if there is something that otherwise appears ideal. In the worst case, I have to sell it on, and lose a relatively small fraction of the price. At any rate, I want to get as much information up front before I go any further.

Has any heard any of the above with anything like my system? If so, what did you think? Are there any other options I should consider?
 
I should add that most of my listening is rock and pop (although I have recently developed a strong liking for Johnny Cash, so does that mean I like country too???).
 
Yeah I started to like J Cash too a year or so ago. I usually detest C&W as well but putting labels aside it's all just music in the end.

Yes I agree, the new Rega they're all raving about must be worth a listen. I bought a Beresford Caiman+ with all the latest upgrades to dip my toe in the water very recently and it sounds the same as my CDP from the Macbook, by which I mean it sounds really quite good. But I might take it to a dealer to compare it with the Rega in a little while.
 
are you considering second hand?

If so and assuming your PC can do decent spdiff out then the original Benchmark Dac 1, the Lavry DA10 and the Lavry blue (same but pro version) may fall into budget.
 
Thanks for the replies so far. I'll try to address the suggestions made so far.

The Rega DAC initially appealed to me, as Rega stuff often works well with Naim, but then I realised that the USB input, which would be my primary input, is the worst one - it's limited to 16 bit/48 KHz (the rest go higher) and it's not async USB.

It's the Rick Rubin produced Johnny Cash recordings (the 'American Recordings'), produced towards the end of his life, that are my favourite. He's the real deal, and the recording quality is also great - makes you realise how great CD can sound.

I would consider second hand. Although my computer has very basic integrated audio with no S/PDIF, if required I could add S/PDIF for a relatively small additional outlay. In theory though, I'm convinced that async USB ought to be capable of outperforming S/PDIF, but detail is all I suppose (what I mean is that I accept that a good S/PDIF or non-async USB implementation can outperform poor async USB). The bottom line is, if the Benchmark or Lavry DACs could be had for £500 (about half their new price) I'd certainly consider them. I've been checking eBay but so far those I've seen have gone for more than that.
 
who told you that?

USB is the worst sort of compromise designed to cater for crappy laptops which can't do any better.

Show me the 192/24 usb link! You won't find any trouble in establishing 192/24 toslink or sp/diff links with most decent equipment.

You really need a mobo with sp/diff onboard. The cheap pci and usb plug ins are crap since they don't run on th HD audio bus. To get proper performance on a PCI card under any os later than XP you need to be buying RME or Marian since they were designed to work perfectly within the PCI limitations in the first place. I'll be first in the queue for second user RME PCIe cards at some point since they can maximise the new sound subsystems in Vista and 7

Any board with Realtek alc888 or better is reasonable.

If you build a crap mediacentre it will always be crap and has limited scope for salvation. It doesn't need cost any more to do it right.
 
With the new VAT rate the Young DAC will be the wrong side of £800. The OP is after a £500 DAC.

Did you mention a PFM discount? ;)
 
If it can do what it says at that sort of price it must be worth a look.

never underestimate how fast digital technology moves and how much more can be done for ever reducing cost!

Does it happen to need the new USB3 standard to achieve that performance? or can it do it on USB 2.0

most budgets are a bit flesxible really after all.
 
Col, 2.0 I believe, it's a cracking DAC, I am looking forward to comparing it to theRega,Arcam Audiolab, etc.
Keith.
 
muzzer said:
Keith
In one of the other dac threads you have stated that the Young Dac is £930
Click to expand...

And at that money one wonders how it compares to the Weiss let alone its cheaper rivals.

Op-Why not compare the Audiolab CDQ to your current cd player (I know its a bit more cash but you could rake a little back and might come out at £500ish).
It seems a versitile unit and one I intend on trying before others to gain a level playing field.
Si
 
Ta for the responses. I’ll just go into a bit more detail as to why I’m so enthusiastic about the asynchronous USB route.

USB 2.0, which debuted in 2000 and is now pretty much universally adopted by PCs and Macs, has enough bandwidth for any reasonable stereo audio data stream (and then some). Even USB 1.1, the earlier standard, is sufficient for 24 bit/96 KHz data. The reason DACs’ USB inputs often have relatively low bandwidth limits is more about the DAC itself, and limits in the driver software shipped as standard with popular operating systems.

The other thing that makes USB potentially great for transferring audio is that, unlike S/PDIF, it is a two way connection: the DAC can talk to the computer as well as the computer talking to the DAC. This means that the DAC can tell the computer when it wants the next chunk of data to be sent, rather than just taking data whenever the computer sends it. Given that the computer and DAC clocks will never be exactly in sync, this is particularly valuable. As far as I can tell, this two-way conversation is what is meant by ‘asynchronous USB’.

Of course, ultimately it’s all about how the DAC sounds and it doesn’t really matter how it’s done. We can’t just read a spec sheet to work out what will sound good in practice. Still, the approach shows great promise.
 
Simonms said:
Op-Why not compare the Audiolab CDQ to your current cd player (I know its a bit more cash but you could rake a little back and might come out at £500ish).
It seems a versitile unit and one I intend on trying before others to gain a level playing field.
Si
Click to expand...

Hi Si,

I may well try to audition the Audiolab 8200CD (the CDQ is the one with preamp, which costs £200 more, and I'm rather attached to my Naim amps). If I really like it, I would probably hold on for the MDAC later in the year, which ought to have a similar sound, and just buy a cheap DAC for the time being while I sort the rest of the system out.

Even the 8200CD, which was the first of the line to roll out of the factory, is in quite short supply at the moment though, so this may be easier said than done.

General reports of the 8200CD(Q) seem very positive, but I've not seen anything about how well it works with Naim (or Avondale) stuff.

Kind regards

- Garry
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top