Looking To Purchase A DAC. Where Do I Begin?

Uppercut

Uppercut

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 26, 2009
Messages
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I'm interested in purchasing a DAC to further enhance my computer audio experience but beyond knowing what they're for and what they can do, i would say my knowledge of DAC's is pretty limited. So where should a DAC newbie begin? What type of features should i be looking for in a DAC? Should i want a DAC with or without USB? And would purchasing a sound card be better than purchasing a DAC?
 
DAC's are parts that convert a digital to analogue signal. Soundcards have them on there, as do receivers, and just about any modern audio playback device (like mp3-players etc).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital-to-analog_converter

A soundcard (assuming you have a desktop pc) is by far the cheapest way to get a good DAC (if you get an Asus Xonar), although a USB one has the advantage of modularity and longer life since it's not tide to one pc/type of motherboard slot). The soundcard will give you more in the way of surround options if you want to hook up 5.1/7.1 instead of just 2.0/2.1.

Another (costlier option) is to get a receiver and set of passive speakers and run a digital signal (either toslink or hdmi) direct to the receiver to let it do the conversion. For that, you still need a soundcard that can output that however.
 
I have a pair of Audioengine A5's running off the onboard audio of my mobo.
 
Depending on what you do, you might wish to consider a better soundcard instead. DACs, as the name implies, are what converts digital to analogue. Thus any soundcard with an analogue out has DACs and of course better soundcards have better DACs.

The benefit of getting a "DAC" that is actual outboard hardware primarily designed as such is that at a given price point, you are likely to get better components and thus a bit better sound. The disadvantage is that it is two channel only, and less capable as a soundcard, if at all.

A USB DAC is more or less an expensive DAC with a very simple soundcard in it that you talk to via USB.

If all you do is music and such, then a DAC may be right for you. If you are in to gaming and movies, then you may wish to consider a soundcard instead.

However, before we talk any further the critical factor needs to be established: What's your price range? Audio varies so widely that there is no use talking option until you know what range you are looking in. Doesn't have to be a number, a range is fine like "I'd like to spend less than $200 but I'd spend up to $400," or something. However we need to know what your budget is like.

Don't say cost is no object either. I can easily point you to a $10,000 DAC (yes really). With audio, cost is ALWAYS an object.
 
My reccomendations:

Internal: Xonar Essence STX. If you are feeling adventerous and want the BEST internal card IMO, check out sourcing an Onkyo SE-200.

External: Fubar II, Devilsound DAC, etc.. Few others in that price range, all quality pieces.
 
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I will be using it for music mostly. My one hesitation with going the internal sound card route is having to deal with driver compatibility issues in Vista/Win7 so i guess i'm just looking for a simple external DAC to take care of everything. I have a $100 to $300 budget to play with. With cheaper being better of course but i understand that you get what you pay for, so i'd be willing to swing the $300 if neccessary.

What can this price range net me?
 
The E-MU 0404 USB might be a compelling option if you're interested in its recording functions and headphone amp. The Fubar II is very popular among DAC only devices in your price range.
 
Uppercut said:
I will be using it for music mostly. My one hesitation with going the internal sound card route is having to deal with driver compatibility issues in Vista/Win7 so i guess i'm just looking for a simple external DAC to take care of everything. I have a $100 to $300 budget to play with. With cheaper being better of course but i understand that you get what you pay for, so i'd be willing to swing the $300 if neccessary.

What can this price range net me?
Click to expand...

What are the specs of your computer? The Asus Xonar line work well in Vista/Win7 as long as you don't have some funky crap (*cough* mostly nvidia) chipset. The lowest of their line, the Xonar DX can be had for ~$60 after rebate and still provides pretty good sound. The next major improvement for internal would be the Xonar Essence STX that Criccio mentioned.

If you have space, I would say go for a receiver before going for an external DAC and that's only if you actually need more than a sound card can provide. External DAC's better if you plan on using 2 speakers far down the line, but for any kind of processing a soundcard/receiver will do you better.
 
My specs atm are:
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Mobo
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @3.16GHZ
4GB G.Skill DDR2 800
XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB GPU
Corsair 850W PSU
w/Vista Ultimate X86

I thought about doing a receiver plus a pair of passive speakers/subwoofer a couple of months back at the suggestion of users in this forum but ultimately decided i would not have enough space for everything to fit comfortably (would've had to move some actively used components into a closet just to get everything to fit). So i decided against doing a receiver. However, I would like to eventually do a proper 5.1 setup down the road but this mini project of mine will probably have to go on the back burner for a few years until space and time allows it.
 
I'll support what others said about a soundcard. Coming from onboard, you might find the improvement in SQ that a soundcard gives you is enough for your needs. Which leads me to asking, are you looking for a DAC because your onboard audio isn't good enough? Or because you just want to try it out?

The Xonar DX or the HT Omega Striker are two good, but cheap soundcards you can try:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132006
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271001

I've heard the Xonar DX is AMAZING for music, and I can tell you from personal experience that the HT Omega Striker is near perfect as far as drivers go (very small footprint and an easy install).

If you really want to go for an external solution, the current darling of the Head-Fi.org message board would be a good choice. The Audio-gd Compass:

http://www.audio-gd.com/enweb/DAC-Compass.htm

Its $330, so its a little over the top end of your budget. Its a DAC + Headphome Amp + Preamp all in one convenient unit. It can power your speakers and a pair of nice, high-quality headphones should you use to get any. It has coax, optical, and USB inputs.

Another option is the Fubar III USB DAC + Headphone Amp for $267, which I've seen used by many people on the Head-Fi.org forum.

http://www.audiophileproducts.com/fubar3

Seriously, I'd give a soundcard a try first. THEN, if you feel like stepping up, move to a DAC. Going straight from onboard to external DAC I think might be too big a leap as far as money goes.
 
And also, since you're considering surround sound down the line the analog out from a good soundcard will probably be better better than the receiver you get (at least if you get the Xonar since it has better DAC's than a lot of the receivers on the market) and it'll put you in a better position to expand out.
 
I'd absolutly recommend the Compass from Audio-GD. It's been VERY well recieved, and given it's current price compared to it's performance, very worth it.

This would be an ideal resolution if your focus is music. Another thing (and I realized it as well) is that as you start improving your equipment, if your music collection is 160bit .mp3... you are going to start hating life. Trust me.... :)

If you are going to do a combination of gaming, movies, and music (my situation), get a decent card that will support EAX for gaming (I know, its getting long in the tooth, and slowly fazed out), and good hardware decoding for movies.

Utimately, read, research, and listen. Then make the best decision, and pray it works that way you want it to. Another good site to research is head-fi.org. Good luck man!
 
Mr. B said:
The E-MU 0404 USB might be a compelling option if you're interested in its recording functions and headphone amp.
Click to expand...

Its amp isn't all that great...the DAC stage on the other hand is extraordinarily neutral for the budget.

The Compass is nice, although I'd feel much better about it at a price closer to $200 than $400.
 
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You just missed out on the introductory deal of $275??? Mine was $330 shipped from China to Michigan.

Still, pounce for the ounce, I'd definately recommend it.
 
HyperTension said:
You just missed out on the introductory deal of $275??? Mine was $330 shipped from China to Michigan.
Click to expand...

It's like $380-390 now after freight charges. $200 I'd recommend it, $300 I'd give it as an option. But $400 seems a bit high, no?
 
King of Heroes said:
I'll support what others said about a soundcard. Coming from onboard, you might find the improvement in SQ that a soundcard gives you is enough for your needs. Which leads me to asking, are you looking for a DAC because your onboard audio isn't good enough? Or because you just want to try it out?
Click to expand...

Thank you for the wonderful suggestions. They make for great reference points in my research. I would say the onboard audio that i'm using atm is decent enough for my uses but since purchasing a set of A5's (also at the suggestion of members in this forum) i've started going down that slippery slope of searching for new ways to push things even further (this usually happens when i start buying stuff and gets worse when i receive my tax return).

The last sound card that i owned was an Aureal Vortex 2 card (this was the late 90's) and that was paired with a crummy set of Altec Lansing speakers. But i've never used a receiver/dac of any sort outside a home theater setting, so i thought it would be fun to see what it would be like in a computer setting where i'm sitting 5 feet away.
 
I have the Firestone Audio Fubar III, paired with some Beyerdynamic DT770-250ohms. It's a USB interface DAC with built in HP Amp. For what it costs, the little device rocks. The day I got it and tried it was the last day my IPhone had music on it. Now i refuse to add headphones to any device without it. :p

It really hit me as a great price to performance device.
 
how about having one built for you? i just got my new headphone amp/usb dac in the mail today. was built by misterx over at headfi

ran $270 shipped, but i paid extra for a fancy enclosure. gamma lite dac, mini3 amp. pre-amp outputs for my speakers that also function as analog amp inputs if you need something other than usb. misterx helped me every step of the way choosing exactly what i needed and picking out all the options

fit and finish is AWESOME and it sounds very good. i could not be happier!
 
On a side note, but related, how well would a normal receiver work for powering some nice headphones?

For instance, I just bought a Denon 1909 and it does have a headphone jack. Would it sound decent enough and power a nice set of headphones well enough?

I listened to some Grados on some nicer gear at my local hi-fi store and they sounded amazing, but I'm not sure they will sound as nice on my Denon. I'm more or less just concerned that they will work and sound decent, not sound as nice as the $5000 NAC amp or whatever it was at the store.

Any ideas?

Edit: I guess I should add, will it sound as nice as the above mentioned solutions? That is really what I'm wondering. I'm not looking for a portable solution, however. Headphones that I like are the Grado 325s and Sennheiser 650s.
 
Depends on the headphones. IMO, the headphones that require excellent amping should stay away from receivers. But Grados should be fine off of receivers. They don't require too much amping. The 650's, on the other hand, are a different story...
 
Depends on the receiver, but it should do a passable job. You usually don't have to worry about it being underpowered for high-impedance phones, at the least.

HD650s or AKG701s are opposite cases which would probably be beyond most receivers.
 
ashmedai said:
Depends on the receiver, but it should do a passable job. You usually don't have to worry about it being underpowered for high-impedance phones, at the least.

HD650s or AKG701s are opposite cases which would probably be beyond most receivers.
Click to expand...

In which case I would buy an amp, plug headphones into amp, and amp into receiver, and source into receiver? Its so painful being a noob.
 
Many receivers will give you a line-level signal (often only stereo, which is all you need anyway) in addition to the speaker-level outputs. You could then feed these into a headphone amp, effectively using the receiver as your DAC stage for headphones and DAC + amp for speakers.

If you have the receiver already, try it first...you might be surprised.
 
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