best cheap dacs?

[xerxes]

I'm chuffed with my HRT Music Streamer II+

[Deleted]

I was mulling over one of these myself for work. As the home system will soon be HQ DAC and A class amp.

Therefore I was planning on either the Xcanv2 or SCHA with a USB to twin RCA DAC to replace my HA INFO NG27.

I don't want to spend much on it, the HRTII+ is deffo not on the list! I'm assuming the Behringer UCA222 is too cheap to be worthwhile over the NG27 and I have not seen any reviews specific to the analogue out on the Poppulse Uii.

I'm thinking under £150 new or DIY (paint by numbers stylee).

Any stand out recommendations from experience and comparison?

Thanks in advance.

[elysion]

I don't want to spend much on it, the HRTII+ is deffo not on the list! I'm assuming the Behringer UCA222 is too cheap to be worthwhile over the NG27 and I have not seen any reviews specific to the analogue out on the Poppulse Uii.

At least if you use the UCA222 with OSX, I can guarantee you that it's a very good value for the price. Very smooth sounding, but of course it has also a few drawbacks. I like the warmth of the Burr-Brown PCM2903 especially with the AD8160 equipped Neco's. Given the low price, you can't do much wrong.

The big question are the windows drivers tough: The built-in drivers (especially those of Win XP) aren't low-latency and the low-latency Behringer drivers are probably also not on par with the (IMO) very good OSX drivers. Linux with ALSA should work very well also.

I'm thinking of setting up a few Linux boxes this year. Some of them with audio in mind.

Chris, if you get an UCA222, I'd be very curious what results you have with Windows. If it doesn't sound good, then I suppose it's a problem with the drivers. There are also some 3rd party driver solutions for audio devices around. Maybe that could be also a way to get more out of cheap audio interfaces.

Maybe the UCA222 could be also modded somewhat. At least changing the caps should be possible. I've heatsinked the PCM2903 in one of my UCA222. The case of the UCA222 isn't shielded at all. Maybe some paint containing metal particels could help here.

One remarkable point of the UCA222 is the very low power consumption over USB: only 100mW at maximum. Most USB audio interfaces need 500mW or an external psu.

[Deleted]

Oops,

I should have given a little more info;

The source will be my Dell laptop on Windows XPpro. Currently using Foobar out to USB. On board sound is extremely basic and not up to much, hence having the NG27 in the first place.

The 27 is good for the dosh but now a few million miles behind the home rig.

Chris

[Deleted]

Have you checked the Musiland 02 thread? Mick has compared his to his Asus ST PCI sound card and his miniAPE and said that for the asking £77 shipped is a very nice DAC. I use mine daily and I'm very happy with it. Its integrated HPA drives the 681B beautifully.

[Deleted]

mrarroyo wrote (in another thread)

do you mean the Kinrex unit? ( www.kingrex.co.uk/dac.html ) .

I had a peak at there UD-01 DAC (se version also out).
Do you, or anybody else, have any experience, first or second, of these?

as listed here

[XTRProf]

May 15, 2011 20:40:27 GMT @cjarchez said:

mrarroyo wrote (in another thread)

do you mean the Kinrex unit? ( www.kingrex.co.uk/dac.html ) .

I had a peak at there UD-01 DAC (se version also out).
Do you, or anybody else, have any experience, first or second, of these?

as listed here

This dac is quite a favourite of my countrymen on the cheaper. However, please take note that it can only do up to 16 bit 48khz.

I have not audition one yet.

[XTRProf]

May 13, 2011 18:42:30 GMT Z said:

they said it was a no brainer.

There had been said a lot of that over the years and yet there will be more no brainers coming months after months and more flavours of the month to come, I can assure you.

We, ourselves, us are the best no brainers if we have the chance to audition the products, btw.