Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
I'm getting very confused by all this.

Most people have DACs already. In most cases, rather good ones. And in any event, most digital sounds the same,
Does it?, I'm not convinced IME there are notable differences between DACs

Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
so any DAC will only be as good as its preamp functionality (I'm been down this route before of voltage output ... people start of thinking its wonderful, amazing lovely sound right from a circuit board ... then after some months they add a transformer to match impedance... or a sold state buffer ... or a tube output stage to make it sound better)

Surely the market here is in the streaming part of the device - the interface between files stored on a network, and output of AES/EBU, SPDIF, or USB output to a DAC? Squeezebox area of the market?

What if I don't need or want an integrated DAC?
Yes, the streaming part is important as is functionality, however the beauty of an integrated DAC, if it is implemented well is that it eliminates the USB or SPDIF interface and associated issues…like clock recovery and (hopefully) power line noise. One reason, IMHO, the external DAC market has sprung up is the poor implementation of internal DAC's in CD players and early streamers due to cost restraints and and the need to hit a market price point…an external DAC dangles the carrot of improved sound quality but I see nn reason why equivalent sound can't be achieved with a well designed internal DAC….one fly in the ointment could be the requirement for a quality power supply.

The other benefit, for me, is less real-estate on the shelf….