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Decent small DAC with optical input?

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OhSoJoe

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Sep 14, 2022
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Hi All, I'm looking for a small DAC with optical (preferably TOSLINK) input and unbalanced out. While there are many small and well performing DACs with USB input, I'm not finding any with optical input. DACs like this and this had all been poorly reviewed. HiFime has a small optical input DAC, but their similar USB DAC doesn't look to perform better than the Amazon Basics.

This will be for dedicated home theater. I have a SMSL Su9 for HiFi listening, but its remote interferes with my preamp, i.e., it turns off my preamp when I try to switch inputs between streamer and TV. I'm tired of getting up to switch inputs, so I'm looking for this second DAC, but it needs to be small because I'm out of space and it will need to go behind something.

Thanks!
Joe
 
Welcome to ASR!

The Schiit Modi 3 and the previous version of the SMSL M100 are reviewed and recommended by Amir. You can probably find others at similar prices from the list of DAC reviews.
www.audiosciencereview.com

Schiit Modi 3+ Review (Stereo DAC)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit Modi 3+ DAC. It was kindly sent to me by the company for testing and costs US $99 from the company direct. Externally there is not much that indicates the new revision of the Schiit Modi series of DACs: The back side is the same as...
www.audiosciencereview.com www.audiosciencereview.com
www.audiosciencereview.com

Review and Measurements of SMSL M100 DAC

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL M100 DAC. It was kindly sent to me by the member @lunagreenjp who is a distributor for SMSL. The M100 costs US $79.99 on Amazon including prime shipping. As such, it falls into our bargain DAC category. The one word that describes the...
www.audiosciencereview.com www.audiosciencereview.com
 
@OhSoJoe another option: Khadas Tone Board
Costs $80 with decent transparency.
Cases are available for $10 on Ali, eBay, Amazon.
S/PDIF input only, so you'd need a $10-15 Toslink to S/PDIF converter to go with it.

Is this DAC for a TV?
 
staticV3 said:
Is this DAC for a TV?
Click to expand...

Yes, just for TV. So, my understanding is that I'm looking for something that performs well at 16bit 41kHz.

There might be room in my preamp for the Khadas Board, looks good. Are optical to coaxial converters straight forward? In other words, can they introduce losses or distortions?
 
How about the SMSL SU-6? It meets all your requirements: small, optical input, recommended by Amir, excellent measurements.
I've had one for several months of daily use. It works flawlessly, which is more than I can say for some other DACs that have had firmware issues and glitches.
 
Thank all. These are good recommendations. I have created a short list of small optical input DACs. I'll wait for one to go on sale or pop up used.

Monoprice Liquid Spark DAC
JDS Labs Atom DAC+
Topping E30
Schiit Modi 3 DAC
SMSL M100 Mk1/Mk2
SMSL SU-6

As a future project I might directly integrate the DAC into my preamp with a Khadas Tone Board which has the physical space, but I'm full up on projects now.
 
Last edited:
I've included the dimension and price of these small(ish) optical input DACs in case others have a similar question. Notice that these are still larger than portable USB headphone DACs or the "I don't care how it sounds, I just need to watch Rick and Morty" DACs. I'd love to see a decent inline optical input DAC in this form factor. Considering the audio depth and rate of streaming TV services and TVs themselves is limited, this should be achievable.

Monoprice Liquid Spark DAC4.6" x 3.7" x 1.5"
$100​
JDS Labs Atom DAC+5.0 x 5.3 x 1.4 in
$110​
Topping E304.9" x 3.9" x 1.25"
$150​
Schiit Modi 3 DAC5 x 3.5 x 1.25”
$130​
SMSL M100 Mk1/Mk22.2 x 2.2 x 3.7
$130​
SMSL SU-65.5" x 4.1" x 1.1"
$160​
 
conuss said:
https://neoteck.cn/products/192khz-digital-to-analog-audio-converter
or any other choice
Click to expand...
Props to Neoteck for supplying tech specs for a sub $30 dollar DAC (below). Distortion and noise are both within the audible range, but at least you have an idea of what you're getting for the money. It does look like it performs a bit better than FiiO Taishan or Amazon Basics at a similar price and with a few different forms and feature sets for different applications.

Neoteck 192kHz DAC Converter SPDIF to RCA​

Signal-to-Noise Ratio:105DB
Separating Degree (1KHZ):94DB
Response Frequency:20Hz~20KHz -0.2db
THD+N:-90DB
Total Harmonic Distortion:10Hz~20KHz 0.25-0.065%
Blocking Time:0.577Fs
 
Last edited:
Don't confuse performance claims with actual measurements.
Neoteck can write whatever they want into the Specs section.
Wouldn't be the first time that a MFR just copy pastes the specs from the DACs datasheet into their product page, even though in reality, the specific implementation has led to drastically worse performance.
 
And where is the specification here?..
Provide information from the manufacturer.
 
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