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Bargain DAC Suggestions?

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amirm

amirm

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Mr amirm, I'm from China.I'm using musiland's monitor 03 plus, which seems good for me, but I do not know its measurement.
 

Eric Auer

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What about the Dragonfly Black? Cheap these days and pretty popular, also revised recently to do MQA via a update.

Yeah I know MQA bla bla bla but it's the only thing out there that can do that at under $100. So it's versatile. And tiny.

Eric
 
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amirm

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Sylafari

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I have a RME ADI-2 DAC coming in soon, which leaves my Schiit Bifrost Multibit 2nd Gen USB (I see the original Bifrost has been measured before, but I think the Multibit is different enough?) unconnected and free, would this be a DAC that you guys would be interested in measuring? If so, I could contact amirm about sending it in once I receive my RME ADI-2 DAC (though I would think the RME would be the more interesting DAC to measure :p).
 
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amirm

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I am SUPER anxious to measure more Schiit DACs. People keep saying their other products are better so would be good to see if they are. Please PM me and I will give you my address to ship when you are ready!!!
 

stunta

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I have a RME ADI-2 DAC coming in soon, which leaves my Schiit Bifrost Multibit 2nd Gen USB (I see the original Bifrost has been measured before, but I think the Multibit is different enough?) unconnected and free, would this be a DAC that you guys would be interested in measuring? If so, I could contact amirm about sending it in once I receive my RME ADI-2 DAC (though I would think the RME would be the more interesting DAC to measure :p).

Why did you decide to buy the RME?
 

Sylafari

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Why did you decide to buy the RME?

After I bought the Schiit Bifrost Multibit to replace my old Yulong DA8 and trying to listen to the advantage of this "multibit" DAC, I started to feel like the "multibit" is more marketing maybe, that and measurements of the cheaper Schiit DACs are making me wonder about things.

As for why I chose RME it is a bit of a long story; a few months ago I bought the Massdrop JBL LSR-30X, and I can honestly say the sound quality for just $280 (even lower now) was just mind blowing to me. I usually listen to my HD 800, and I was expecting the JBL LSR-30X to sound vastly inferior and honestly I did not feel like the 30X sounded vastly inferior at all. I mean sure the HD 800 digs deeper and has more detail but the JBLs sound so good to me. In terms of enjoyment level the JBL is arguably even better possibly (HD800, I am slowly finding sounds a bit too bright for me?), my only gripes with the JBL is that the hiss at idle is very annoying cause I use them in nearfield and the connection options are all pro connection options and not really suitable to what I am using (Had to buy a few extra rca to xlr cables to get the thing to even work).

Since that experience with JBL LSR line I been looking to try out audio equipment from companies that make products for professionals, not for the consumers. It seems to me IMO that these professional companies do a lot more actual engineering into there products than the consumer companies (feels like they just do a lot of marketing). RME seems like a respectable professional company to me so that is what I went with.
 

Wombat

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After I bought the Schiit Bifrost Multibit to replace my old Yulong DA8 and trying to listen to the advantage of this "multibit" DAC, I started to feel like the "multibit" is more marketing maybe, that and measurements of the cheaper Schiit DACs are making me wonder about things.

As for why I chose RME it is a bit of a long story; a few months ago I bought the Massdrop JBL LSR-30X, and I can honestly say the sound quality for just $280 (even lower now) was just mind blowing to me. I usually listen to my HD 800, and I was expecting the JBL LSR-30X to sound vastly inferior and honestly I did not feel like the 30X sounded vastly inferior at all. I mean sure the HD 800 digs deeper and has more detail but the JBLs sound so good to me. In terms of enjoyment level the JBL is arguably even better possibly (HD800, I am slowly finding sounds a bit too bright for me?), my only gripes with the JBL is that the hiss at idle is very annoying cause I use them in nearfield and the connection options are all pro connection options and not really suitable to what I am using (Had to buy a few extra rca to xlr cables to get the thing to even work).

Since that experience with JBL LSR line I been looking to try out audio equipment from companies that make products for professionals, not for the consumers. It seems to me IMO that these professional companies do a lot more actual engineering into there products than the consumer companies (feels like they just do a lot of marketing). RME seems like a respectable professional company to me so that is what I went with.


+1 on the Pro gear.
 

Dismayed

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Since the subject of this thread is DACS . . . I came across this excellent explanation of how digital encoding works. Certainly too basic for a fair number of folks in this forum, but perhaps useful for many of us non-engineering types (I was educated as a scientist, so I'm far less practical than are engineers).

 

Purité Audio

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RME have a new cheaper “domestic” version of the ADI Pro, should arrive here in a week or two, no ADC but it does have a remote!
Keith
 
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amirm

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richard51

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dac2_with_battery_800x600.jpg


I bought a dac2 from starting point system, a nos dac with internal battery, with tda 1543 chip.... Rightly installed in a clean system he sound so good that for the price paid, too low to be named here :), on an ebay bid I am astounded...The design of this dac is so minimalistic that I think this is his key point... I drive his internal set of batteries with an external lithium battery... I had install also a hifimediy isolator and convertor from my pc.... I listen mainly to files...The reason I speak about that here is because it is one of the cheapest NOs dac and in my system is more than only good...All negative points I read about it, I know they come from some bad implementation of this dac more than from his potential possibility...My experience is a clean system is the greatest upgrade someone can do after buying something good... best regards to all thanks for this remarkable forum...
 
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Sylafari

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Good deal! Do we know the US price for it yet?

It is $999 in the US so half the price of the RME ADI-2 Pro, but it doesn't come with the ADC or the balanced headphone out operation (neither which I particularly need).
 
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