Cheapest "transparent" DAC?

[Chumanista]

I spent around a week reading through this forum and doing other research and I cannot come to any reasonable conclusions.
What is the chapest available DAC that is "good enough"?
Do I understand correctly everything in the green/blue part of the graphs should be indistinguishable in ABX?
I've been considering the Loxjie D10 or Khadas Tone Board?

 

[daftcombo]

Topping D10?

 

[Feyire]

Any recommendations will be significantly influenced by what features you are looking for. In turn, this will also affect the final price.

 

[TungstenC]

The meizu dongle?
measurements

 

[flipflop]

Topping D10?

It's unclear whether it's transparent or not due to the inverted polarity.

 

[Purité Audio]

Decide upon the features you need, or may need in the future, look at Amir’s measurements there are hundreds of decent dac’s available.
Keith

 

[Berwhale]

I spent around a week reading through this forum and doing other research and I cannot come to any reasonable conclusions.
What is the chapest available DAC that is "good enough"?
Do I understand correctly everything in the green/blue part of the graphs should be indistinguishable in ABX?
I've been considering the Loxjie D10 or Khadas Tone Board?

The Loxjie D10 is a DAC and Headphone amp and the KTB is a bare circuit board (which generally requires the addition of a case and some assembly). What do you intend to connect the DAC to?

 

[Chumanista]

Any recommendations will be significantly influenced by what features you are looking for. In turn, this will also affect the final price.

At this point I have no idea. I bought the HE4XX and now I'm looking for something to drive them. I am thinking about building something like the O2 or The Wire and buying a DAC. But on the other hand I could just get a DAC/amp combo and be done with it. Or a Scarlett 2i2 and have a microphone interface to which would be useful to me. I am a bit out of my depth right now.

The meizu dongle?
measurements

Would that work well with the HE4XX?

 

[JJB70]

I think that many devices have perfectly adequate DACs and you probably don't even need a separate DAC.

 

[vitalii427]

Cheapest is Apple USB-C dongle $9

 

[vitalii427]

Would that work well with the HE4XX?

Finally I tested with my Hifiman HE-400i. This was a delight with enough volume where I reduced levels by 3 to 4 dB for comfortable listening. Excellent fidelity was had with again, zero hint of distortion.

HE4XX is almost the same as HE-400i

 

[flipflop]

HE4XX is almost the same as HE-400i

No, 400i are more efficient:
Volts RMS required to reach 90dB SPL: 0.162 Vrms
Impedance @ 1kHz: 45 Ohms
Power Needed for 90dB SPL: 0.59 mW
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/HiFiMANHE4002014.pdf

4XX:
Volts RMS required to reach 90dB SPL: 0.271 Vrms
Impedance @ 1kHz: 49 Ohms
Power Needed for 90dB SPL: 1.51 mW
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/MassdropHiFiMANHE4XX.pdf

 

[solderdude]

Do I understand correctly everything in the green/blue part of the graphs should be indistinguishable in ABX?

No, the SINAD chart only ranks distortion at 1kHz and noise level. This is not the same as sound quality.

Also what bitrates/depths are you going to use... what connectivity ?

 

[Chumanista]

Also what bitrates/depths are you going to use... what connectivity ?

Whatever "very high" is on Spotify and preferably USB.
EDIT: It's 320 kbps.

 

[Berwhale]

At this point I have no idea. I bought the HE4XX and now I'm looking for something to drive them. I am thinking about building something like the O2 or The Wire and buying a DAC. But on the other hand I could just get a DAC/amp combo and be done with it. Or a Scarlett 2i2 and have a microphone interface to which would be useful to me. I am a bit out of my depth right now.

Would that work well with the HE4XX?

A Topping D10 DAC + JDS Labs Atom headphone amp would be an excellent combo to drive the HE4XX. The D10 is USB input only, if you want to drive it with SPDIF, you'll need to go up to the D30, the D50s that I have has the benefits of a nice display, remote control, external power supply (so not dependant on USB) and bluetooth connectivity.

 

[LuckyLuke575]

Whatever "very high" is on Spotify and preferably USB.
EDIT: It's 320 kbps.

Well there's probably no need for a DAC then. If you're going to be listening to mp3s then just use device's onboard DAC and save the money.

 

[Berwhale]

Whatever "very high" is on Spotify and preferably USB.
EDIT: It's 320 kbps.

A Topping D10 DAC + JDS Labs Atom headphone amp will be more than sufficient then. I don't think there is much point pursuing a 'transparent' DAC when you are only playing lossy MP3 audio.

 

[solderdude]

No, 400i are more efficient:
Volts RMS required to reach 90dB SPL: 0.162 Vrms
Impedance @ 1kHz: 45 Ohms
Power Needed for 90dB SPL: 0.59 mW
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/HiFiMANHE4002014.pdf

4XX:
Volts RMS required to reach 90dB SPL: 0.271 Vrms
Impedance @ 1kHz: 49 Ohms
Power Needed for 90dB SPL: 1.51 mW
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/MassdropHiFiMANHE4XX.pdf

Both the HE400i and HE4XX are rated (officially) as being 93dB/mW but impedances differ so voltage efficiency differs as well.
This would account for a 0.6dB difference in efficiency.
Acc. to drop the impedance is 35 Ohm and the HE400i is rated at 40 Ohm.

Of course there are tolerances but its strange both are 10 Ohms off.
The EdXX is rated at 20 Ohm and measured 21 Ohm

The Sundara is rated at 37 Ohm, IF measured 43 Ohm and I measured 37.3 Ohm

I have also measured differences between stated and measured impedances though but not as big.

 

[daftcombo]

It's unclear whether it's transparent or not due to the inverted polarity.

True but:
- we don't known if all units have that problem
- a lots of music players allow to invert polarity, so one can solve the problem that way and get a transparent DAC if it wasn't.

 

[LTig]

It's unclear whether it's transparent or not due to the inverted polarity.

AFAIK inverted polarity is not audible. If in doubt you can connect your passive speaker with inverted polarity as counter act. Or get a balanced cable wirh inverted polarity if there is a balanced connection between pramp and poweramp or preamp and active speaker.