A number of years ago I purchased several Sonos Connects for my house in order to feed digital music streams. The line outs were pretty bad as far as sound quality went so I grabbed a DAC that was handy and Lo and Behold! A much improved sound feed. I then grabbed a DAC from Maverick, a TubeDAC 9 and TubeDAC 11 from Grant Fidelity to round them out. They were more than adequate to transfer a 44.1MHz digital signal and make them audibly better to the ears. I wasn't very concerned about getting a true high end source as the Sonos is limited to 44.1MHz and, after 70+ years, my ears aren't much better. I played with better chips as well as upgrading the built-in tubes as the stock Chinese bottles were on the crap side. They sound good to my ears, which is what matters.
The down side to cheap DACs is that they are cheaply built. Biggest culprit is the RCA jacks on the outputs. Flimsiest things I have ever had to work with with minute traces feeding the signal to them as well as just being mounted in a very flimsy fashion that will fail over time.
There you have it. One man's opinion.
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Topic - On the real price of cheap DACs - mhardyman 16:43:58 03/29/24 (5)
- That's a very broad generalization. Define cheap.... - AbeCollins 08:02:03 03/30/24 (2)
- +1 ...........nt - Cut-Throat 13:50:11 03/30/24 (0)
- RE: That's a very broad generalization. Define cheap.... - mhardyman 09:11:05 03/30/24 (0)
- RE: On the real price of cheap DACs - Cut-Throat 17:05:30 03/29/24 (1)
- RE: On the real price of cheap DACs - mhardyman 17:19:12 03/29/24 (0)