Quick DAC question.

[Retronym]

If you don't believe in high end dacs, don't buy one. Enjoy your motherboard audio and switching power supply.

There's no reason to crusade against those with the means and enthusiasm to pursue high-end.

Lastly, there's a good amount of folks who've heard the DAC1 who think it is not worth the money, who own other expensive DACs they do feel warrant their price tags.

 

[chrimila]

I like my Benchmark DAC1. Many sound mastering engineers use the DAC1 because it's transparent and doesn't mask the sound. I don't want to get into the argument of which one sounds better but I'd have to say that DACs is kinda like wine. You got the wine people who can't tell the difference between a $5 bottle of wine and a $100 bottle wine. Then you got the wine snobs who can discern the differences. Some people like it dry, some people like it sweet. In this tough economic time, I like my wine cheap and really dry with a side of DAC1 ;-)

 

[guppy]

ClassD amps use switching power supplies. Some of the best amps made now are ClassD amps. T amps use switching power supply too. I don't use mb audio either and actually said I use EMU 0404 so you are twisting what I actually said to support your crass put down post.

 

[MisterSparkle]

recording being so bad.

Thus lies a huge problem in today's world. No matter the equipment you have and what audio format you use, the vast majority of music is recorded poorly. Once you have a decent setup, it really shows, I've found myself changing my music tastes towards musicians who record their music well.

 

[chrimila]

Thus lies a huge problem in today's world. No matter the equipment you have and what audio format you use, the vast majority of music is recorded poorly. Once you have a decent setup, it really shows, I've found myself changing my music tastes towards musicians who record their music well.

Agreed! A well engineered DAC is supposed to be transparent and many DACs in consumer products mask/hide a lot of that bad recording. It's amusing to me sometimes when I hear some people think that the higher end DAC made their recordings sound worse. They don't realize that the music was recorded poorly in the first place.

 

[ashmedai]

Thus lies a huge problem in today's world. No matter the equipment you have and what audio format you use, the vast majority of music is recorded poorly. Once you have a decent setup, it really shows, I've found myself changing my music tastes towards musicians who record their music well.

Yeah, very much so, and for surprisingly low values for "decent."

 

[guppy]

Well, there you go then. I can tell bad recordings from good easily on my DT990pro headphones with LunchboxPro headphone amp and EMU0404 so if I bought a $1,000.00 DAC1 I would just be wasting my money because then the poor recordings will sound even worse. Sex Pistols probably sound better on Lo-Fi than Hi-Fi.

 

[iso5]

Thus lies a huge problem in today's world. No matter the equipment you have and what audio format you use, the vast majority of music is recorded poorly. Once you have a decent setup, it really shows, I've found myself changing my music tastes towards musicians who record their music well.

Thus lies a bigger problem, I listen to rap. I only listen to 1 rapper and a lot of his old songs were made in small low budget studios. I still want a new dac because the creative xmod has too many different setting like crystalizer, cmss3d, on or off and you can change the amount of crystalizer and cmss3d on it. I'm thinking of spending from $100 to $150 on an external dac. does anybody know of any other good one's?

 

[Retronym]

ClassD amps use switching power supplies. Some of the best amps made now are ClassD amps. T amps use switching power supply too. I don't use mb audio either and actually said I use EMU 0404 so you are twisting what I actually said to support your crass put down post.

Thats certainly one opinion.