Your favourite DAC?

[Jonboy]

Just found this " The Art of Sound" Burr Brown based Dac also with a battery power option any one tried one? looks interesting at that price

[Yomanze]

There are a few but here are the main and obvious traits... fantastic dynamics, a good 'crunch' to the bass, and fast infectious toe tapping rhythm plus lack of haze...

Interesting, I would definitely go with all
of that! Dynamics, timing and lack of haze in particular, and more natural sound especially apparent on female vocals.

[nat8808]

I would love to try a Dax Decade, Threshold or Sonic Frontiers DAC or the LFD DAC3 with the UltraAnalog chips.

My favourites have been a DAX with the UltraAnalog chip and currently a Manley Junior 20 also with the UltraAnalog chip .

I found myself a few 1990s Weiss mastering processor 20bit DAC modules which have a UltraAnalog in each on neat little cards so I'm going to make myself some kind of Dual UltraAnalog, Non-oversampled, valve output stage DAC - my big project for 2014! Most likely with built-in upsampling to 384KHz.

[MCRU]

Mytek DAC, good sound but fiddly to set up and ugly

Young DAC, good sound when used with a good linear psu

Bushmaster as above

M-DAC as above

Q-DAC as above

Dacmagic + as above

Heard plenty more around £1000 but were mediocre or poor so will not name them.

[Gazjam]

Mytek's a good'un, especially if you need the digital preamp.

[misterpete]

I recently sold my Red Wine Audio Isabella pre amp which had one of the best DACs I have ever heard built in. I auditioned many of the models listed here and and failed to find something I was happy with so decided to try the Bushmaster Mk II as a cheap stop gap.
I have got to say that it is brilliant and has to be one of the best value buys in the often extortionate world of Hi Fi.

[Gazjam]

Bit disturbing...

Compared the dac in my Marantz UD7007 universal player from its analogue outs to playing through my Young dac via spdif.
Its making music every bit as good as the Young...interesting.
Its a bloody analogue output stage thats in it!

When watching 2 channel stereo bluray its obviously better via analogue, more dynamic bigger soundstage, clearer even.
It sounded a bit flat when I first plugged it in mind, seems to be coming on song nicely.
Not got around to making up a foo cable for it, will be hooked up to the Belkin PF30 mains filter/balanced mains eventually, atm just plugged into the wall with its wet string supplied mains cable. Expecting it to get better.

Would be happy playing bluray, CD and SACD discs from its analogue outs, no need to hook it up to the dac.
biggest draw is being able to play SACD's, good knowing when I get some its output will be top notch.

Music not as good as from the server connected to the Young but didn't expect that.

[loonytunes]

Interesting, I would definitely go with all
of that! Dynamics, timing and lack of haze in particular, and more natural sound especially apparent on female vocals.

And this information is from listening to a much much older DAC than your 'likely to be' far better modern TDA1541A Audial DAC. Overall the true multibit DAC has a more expressive musicality about it. Some other older DACs do well in this department too, such as the DPA Little Bit 3 DAC I am listening too as I put together this response. I had recently put this DPA DAC for sale on eBay, only to quickly take it off again realising what a formidable little DAC this is as I was checking it out in my system to ensure it was working fine before it sold - it's another DAC that just 'sings'!!!

[darkmatter]

At several price points my budget fave is the MF v90 which sound very musical and dynamic in my system

I have been having some fun with the M2Tech Young with Palmer PS

One of my all time faves is a custom modded Orelle (XTC DAC1) which still provides a presentation to match the very best.

[icehockeyboy]

Bit disturbing...

Compared the dac in my Marantz UD7007 universal player from its analogue outs to playing through my Young dac via spdif.
Its making music every bit as good as the Young...interesting.
Its a bloody analogue output stage thats in it!

When watching 2 channel stereo bluray its obviously better via analogue, more dynamic bigger soundstage, clearer even.
It sounded a bit flat when I first plugged it in mind, seems to be coming on song nicely.
Not got around to making up a foo cable for it, will be hooked up to the Belkin PF30 mains filter/balanced mains eventually, atm just plugged into the wall with its wet string supplied mains cable. Expecting it to get better.

Would be happy playing bluray, CD and SACD discs from its analogue outs, no need to hook it up to the dac.
biggest draw is being able to play SACD's, good knowing when I get some its output will be top notch.

Music not as good as from the server connected to the Young but didn't expect that.

Gaz, and anyone else really, how do you just use the Dac section of something like a blu ray player or whatever?