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Looking for Dac with pre amp (up to £500 second hand)

L

luckyguliver

pfm Member
I'll try to keep it short and sweet. In a week or two new power amp (Avondale S100) is arriving (yeahhh!) so I thought...maybe I could get Dac (as I play from comp or SBT) with pre amp section and save myself some money. At the same time I want to use full potential of my speakers (Proac Studio 1S or JBL Studio 580) and new power amp.

I scanned UK audio forums (and foreign as well) and didn't find too many options for up to £500 second hand. There's Mdac, ASUS Xonar Essence One MUSES or Audio Gd (?). There's also Anti-Mode 2.0 Dual Core. Is there anything else out there? Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

Ps Just to add that I have at the moment two Dac's: Teac udh-01 and Metrum Octave Mini plus HiFace 1

Built-in headphone amplifier would be a bonus :)
 
I can't comment on your Metrum as I haven't heard one, the Teac is very good however, the M Dac is better IMO, I have heard one a few times in various setups, including with active Harbeth M40's which sounded fantastic.

Buy a used M Dac, fit and forget. If in the unlikely event that you are unhappy, you can move it on very easily.
 
Would this fit the bill? TC Electronic BMC-2 DAC Monitor controller.
http://www.tcelectronic.com/bmc-2/
D/A conversion is supposed to be very nice, it is taken from TC Electronic's System 6000 apparently - which is super high end pro gear.
They are going for about £250 since they dropped the price from nearer £500

Also has headphone amp with separate control knob.
 
Thanks guys (Igloo Audio and tedmanzie) but your propositions sounds a bit too exotic :) Apart from that correct me if I am wrong but suggested devices don't have pre amp...

As for Mdac I had a chance to use it for some time in the past but it's sonic signature, so to speak, did not float my boat. Having said that I might give it a go again because it's well equipped device. Maybe in the new set up will perform differently?
 
I had the Teac on loan recently. It was disappointing in my set up.
 
luckyguliver said:
Thanks guys (Igloo Audio and tedmanzie) but your propositions sounds a bit too exotic :) Apart from that correct me if I am wrong but suggested devices don't have pre amp...

As for Mdac I had a chance to use it for some time in the past but it's sonic signature, so to speak, did not float my boat. Having said that I might give it a go again because it's well equipped device. Maybe in the new set up will perform differently?
Click to expand...

I assumed you just wanted to control the volume, the TC controls the volume in the digital domain.
 
Re TC Electronic BMC-2 DAC controller hmmm it is exotic device. Find a couple short reviews but it's quite hard to get the idea how good Dac or this volume controller is.

As for Teac TEAC DSD DAC I've heard some mixed opinions. Some people were rather disappointed so I think I give it a miss.

So I decided to buy Audiolab 8000Q pre amp for tests. I know I'm impatient :) Cost me slightly more than £200. Maybe this pre amp and Dac (either Teac udh-01 or Metrum Octave) will do the trick? :)
 
Matrix Mini-i? Has preamp (and headphone amp) with volume (no remote on my version) that I could let go if you were interested. It's really excellent if you can run it balanced.
 
datay said:
Matrix Mini-i? Has preamp (and headphone amp) with volume (no remote on my version) that I could let go if you were interested. It's really excellent if you can run it balanced.
Click to expand...
Great DAC, detailed and warm sound, well within the OPs budget. Mine has a remote, which is a useful bonus, though I run mine on fixed output into a passive preamp.
 
mr sneff said:
Great DAC, detailed and warm sound, well within the OPs budget. Mine has a remote, which is a useful bonus, though I run mine on fixed output into a passive preamp.
Click to expand...

I went quickly through a couple of reviews and all they talk is DAC and headphone amp. Nothing really about pre amp function. Would you say something more about this? How does this compare to your pre amp and what pre do you have?

Cheers,
 
luckyguliver said:
I went quickly through a couple of reviews and all they talk is DAC and headphone amp. Nothing really about pre amp function. Would you say something more about this? How does this compare to your pre amp and what pre do you have?

Cheers,
Click to expand...

Hi Lucky,

Buy a second-hand or ex-demo/discounted Benchmark Media DAC1. They go for £500 or so on eBay, and are therefore a bloody bargain. You just need to ensure the stepped volume pot hasn't been over worked from my experience.

Peter
 
luckyguliver said:
I went quickly through a couple of reviews and all they talk is DAC and headphone amp. Nothing really about pre amp function. Would you say something more about this? How does this compare to your pre amp and what pre do you have?

Cheers,
Click to expand...

It's not a preamp function as such, although you can connect several digital sources, SPDIF, optical, USB and AES/EBU. But the variable output means that you can connect the DAC directly to your power amp. However with my Quad 303 I find there's not a large range of adjustment before it's too loud, so I used the fixed output of the DAC into a Tisbury passive preamp. I think that the SQ of the direct (fixed) output of the DAC into the passive preamp is slightly better.
 
luckyguliver said:
Re TC Electronic BMC-2 DAC controller hmmm it is exotic device. Find a couple short reviews but it's quite hard to get the idea how good Dac or this volume controller is.

As for Teac TEAC DSD DAC I've heard some mixed opinions. Some people were rather disappointed so I think I give it a miss.

So I decided to buy Audiolab 8000Q pre amp for tests. I know I'm impatient :) Cost me slightly more than £200. Maybe this pre amp and Dac (either Teac udh-01 or Metrum Octave) will do the trick? :)
Click to expand...

The TC is a pro studio device, but there are more 'pro' items out there - i.e. more expensive! and presumably better, although TC are very much digital experts and highly respected.

I will likely be getting one soon when I change to an active setup.
 
Either of the Emotiva DACs are within your budget new, and tick all the boxes. The Stealth DC1 even has an analog input.

I have an ex-dem Benchmark DAC1 that could be smuggled into your budget.

Used MDACs are a pretty safe bet, too.

Although they don't crop up very often for sale, you might get lucky with a used first version Wyred 4 Sound DAC2 not too far north of your budget: they're still top of the heap at that price.
 
Looking back and finding this thread, I know you want a preamp in your DAC but be careful because your Metrum Octave DAC is likely to be a hard act to follow in terms of SQ - I even suspect the Metrum to be head and shoulders above the ones mentioned so far. I would rather use the volume control on the SBT into the Metrum than acquire a DAC likely to be worse than your Metrum.

However time has marched on a little - what did you end up getting? And was I wrong, is the choice proving equal to the Metrum at least?
 
beammeup said:
Looking back and finding this thread, I know you want a preamp in your DAC but be careful because your Metrum Octave DAC is likely to be a hard act to follow in terms of SQ - I even suspect the Metrum to be head and shoulders above the ones mentioned so far. I would rather use the volume control on the SBT into the Metrum than acquire a DAC likely to be worse than your Metrum.

However time has marched on a little - what did you end up getting? And was I wrong, is the choice proving equal to the Metrum at least?
Click to expand...

I am still in the woods :) Avondale power amp hasn't arrived yet. As I mentioned I bought in the meantime Audiolab 8000Q pre amp, Mdac ( I thought I would give it another chance) and M2tech Hi face 2 (on its way).
All I can say at the moment, I like Octave sound. It's clean yet pleasing to my ears whereas Mdac is a bit fatiguing.

I need to mention that I was testing Octave via headphone output on Audiolab via M2tech Hi face One and Mdac via same pre amp headphone output. Overall sound was close to Octave. However when I used Mdac’s headphone output the sound was different. "Classic Mdac sound" you could say. 100 pages about it here on this forum so I am not going to go into description now.

It makes me think that pre amp could be here what might limit my Ocatve Dac. Again, rules of the game will change when I add better USB S/Pdif converter. Apparently the best converter is essential for Octave to sound really good. Needless to say it might change again when I add power amp and connect speakers...a lot to take in :)

BTW Doing direct A/B comparison won't be as easy as I initially thought...
 
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