New DAC needed old DAC dead

[The Pink Panther]

As the title says, I have been having trouble with my HRT Streamer, so much so it has been sent back. I really don't know what the trouble is but patchy interference and drop outs have been common place. My Net book isn't all that but it certainly has the minimum system requirements to use the HRT.

Any suggestions of either a replacement or what the issue might have been will be great fully received. If I do get a new DAC I don't want to spend more than 200

Thanks, oh and if you havnt already done so check out Nicholas Jarr.

[Gazjam]

gotta be a Caiman for that kind of money.

[The Pink Panther]

It does look like the obvious DAC. There are others such as the Music Fidelity VDAC, little Dot ETC. Dacmagic.

Any way nice to meet you. How is Class D World

[Tim]

For that money a Gaitor Caiman. I had a MF V-DAC and sold it after hearing the Caiman. The V-DAC is very limited for inputs, has a nasty PSU and is very awkward to place in a system, due to where the inputs are located. In fairness to it, the sound is very good and nothing really to choose between it and the Caiman, but with all the other pluses of the Caiman, it's a one horse race IMO. Don't have any experience of the others you mention.

[Yoga]

I would opt for the Gatored Caiman at that price range.

Or, push to £300 and get the NuForce Icon HDP, which is incredible for the money. Really.

[technobear]

The NuForce uDAC-2 gets close to what the Icon can do (with the right cable).

Drop me a line if you would like to pop over to Glastonbury and play with one.

Shame you've sent the HRT back as it probably isn't the problem. Netbooks are borderline for some music players and won't do other things at the same time.

I use Tranquil PC T7's which have Atom processors and it does take a bit of messing about (and choosing the right music player) to get them playing without glitches.

I've settled on foobar and ASIO for troublefree operation but the music will still skip if the PC tries to do other things at the same time.

[The Pink Panther]

Hi Chris ,Ross and Tim.

Thanks for your suggestions and I explored your ideas. In the end I had to think what it was I wanted.

I absolutely love the HRT sound, but the interaction with my PC was beginning to cause more problems that I like.

So what I did was to replace the Netbook as a source with my iPod loaded with lossless files and use my iPad for Spotify. The HRT Music Streamer II has been replaced with The HRT iStreamer.

lets see how it goes. I've had a couple of changes in the last few months and all is going well.

[Welder]

Being a bit of an HRT fan I wondered if the change to the recent “i” version and upgrade from netbook (?)had cured your earlier problems Matt?

[The Pink Panther]

Being a bit of an HRT fan I wondered if the change to the recent “i” version and upgrade from netbook (?)had cured your earlier problems Matt?

Sorry for taking time to get back to you. Well the iStreamer turned up and I could not get it to work with my iPod classic. It would also only work intermittently with my iPad. I sent the unit back feeling quite despondent. So I went down RS and got myself a Cambridge Audio DAC magic, and you know what I am so pleased I did. My Denon amp also gave up last week, so was replace with A NAD. The combo is fantastic. rich full and detailed. Great budget sound

The FATman lives upstairs