Poll - which Dac?

Equipment / Electronics / Gear / Accessories DACs
21

So going to mix things up and hit you with some more dacs that might be attainable for you @SM_Music. I think these would all pair well with your setup if you can find them for a reasonable price. Look used

Audio Note DAC 0.1x: warmer but still neutral, spatially and tonally accurate, pretty natural sounding

Borderpatrol dac se-i or se: a bit more warmer leaning, smoother, lots of body but isn’t the most detailed and no high res or anything

MHDT Orchid (or another mhdt): smooth, thicker, very enjoyable listen, pretty colored and expressive

Blacknote DAC30: neural ish, spacious, lots of detail, impressive and impactful

wyred4sound dac-2v2: neutral, impressive technicalities, spacious, well rounded

bryston bda-2: clean, technical, revealing, pretty quick sounding but not lacking body with good tonality, still actually on the warmer side of things

aqua la voce S2: neutral but very smooth, just really smooth and non offensive dac, still has detail and staging and everything but very smooth

I’ll give a mention to lampizator if you can find one in your budget used but idk

22

And a shout out for the Benchmark DAC3 B if you can find one cheap enough?.

23

So I do like that dac, but not with the phonitors imo

24

Denmark, so 25% tax…
I have not found a shop where they have the ares ii, new or used. So it was never part of the equation.

You really did mix it up, most of those dac’s are new to me, so I will start the hunt; they sound interesting most of them. Unfortunately is the second-hand market not as big as in the US, but I have seen dac’s around in various web sites.
And I can buy in the US as well, I have an adress with a company that ships to Denmark, so the US second-hand market is also a possibility; I usually look at head-fi.com and Audiogon.

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25

Just select Denmark. They ship with vat included in eu. This is only official distributor. Will get one for me sooner or later.

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26

Check hifishark.com

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27

WAy ahead of you :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :yum:

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28

Right… I have been on that site… I can’t remember why I moved on; perhaps it was in backorder as I recall.

29

Yes, they only recently caught up with orders

30

Might be the case as they had some backlog for a while. I do check that page rather often :smiley:

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31

Then I remember correctly, as I was by it several times, some months back. But that looks VERY interesting and the price is quite decent.

32

Yeah I thought it wouldn’t be too expensive since vat was included, but idk lol

33

Compared to the trio I listed, this is by far the cheapest option.
$100 below Bifrost
$250 below RME
$275 below Soekris

And it is a R2R :yum:

34

Yes, that might be the play imo, and it does match your setup well (unless you can find a deal on one of the dacs I mentioned above lol)

35

I just went through all of them on hifi-shark and they all more or less are still quite expensive. So this is a new R2R Dac, cheaper and the first you mentioned as an option beyond the trio.

Only one thing to do…

Order placed!

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