Bus_Boy Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 Well the next journey for me in hi fi is to improve the quality of my Squeeze Box touch. I find it's a great little device , however it's analouge outputs just don't cut it. Does anyone use an external dac for their SB Touch, and if so which one in particular. From any members who have had a lot of experiences with separate dac's, realisticly what should i be expecting to pay for a dac that's going to provide substantial improvments?
HumanMedia Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 What is your price range? I use mine with a Rega DAC ($859) and it is a VERY good combo.
Bus_Boy Posted July 20, 2011 Author Posted July 20, 2011 I think under $1000 would be a sensible price to spend considering the amount of intended use. I've heard of the Rega dac's, but i've never looked into them. I'll do a bit of reading into them.
andrewjamesdean Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 I've used both a DACmagic and a StageDAC, both were great. StageDAC wins hands down, but the DACmagic would be a good option if you wanted to spend your costs down a bit
Braddles 63 Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 Got mine running through my audio gd nfb2. Tis a good thing!
pete_mac Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 Got mine running through my audio gd nfb2. Tis a good thing! Indeed... I run a NFB-3 with mine and this adds a certain 'refinement' to the sound. Better clarity, better depth, better separation of various musical elements.
Batty Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 Peterpan brought his NFB2 around and plugged it into mine, very impressed, so much so the wife is buying one with her tax money
firedog Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 (edited) I use mine with an old MF-XDacV3. Big improvement in sound. The Touch analogue outs are good, but not true "audiophile" level. The internal digital components are good, so feeding SPDIF to a good DAC gets you better SQ. I think any good external DAC will do trick. The ones already mentioned in the thread certainly count. The Arcam Dac is certainly affordable and got good reviews also. The new MF DAC1 is about $800 Australian and has gotten great reviews. You might also be interested in the new SCHIIT DAC (yes, that is the name) that's shipping next month. http://schiit.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=0&products_id=7 Sounds like a real value, starting at $349 US. Edited July 20, 2011 by firedog
Khanh Hoang Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 What is your price range?I use mine with a Rega DAC ($859) and it is a VERY good combo. +1. I'm still running my Rega DAC in, but impressions so far suggests its a very good DAC. Well worth a look.
katzer Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 I have the NFB-3 in my bedroom rig and the Rega DAC in my main rig. The NFB-3 is very detailed, a tiny bit bright, with fluid easy on the ears sound with good soundstage. I can't really fault it and for the price it is outstanding value. If I had to limit my budget to $500 I would be very happy with it. The NFB-3 is very popular in the states, in such that once it shows up on the for-sale forums it get snatched right away (I was beaten to it a few times). I was able to get mine because the seller lived in the next town and he offered it to me before he posted it (saved him the trouble of shipping it). I testify that it is not an over-hyped DAC - it is really excellent piece of equipment. It offers clear improvement over the SB Touch analog output (which is not too shabby by itself), on every department. The Rega DAC is however a different beast, and it better be for 3x the cost. I listen to classical music almost exclusively and lately a lot of music performed on period instruments. This is where the Rega DAC truly shines. It is more detailed than the NFB-3 yet very easy on the ears. The sound stage it produces is at a different league. Unless you know people, it is very hard to get a DAC for an in-home audition, buying one is a gamble. I decided to mitigate my risk by buying it Audiogon, so if I didn't like it I could flip it and be down the shipping cost. Needless to say, this one is a keeper. My system never sounded this good and for I can safely say that for now, my upgrade itch is satisfied. (the rest of my system is NAD M3 and ProAc Studio 1 speakers).
PorkBun69s Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 Hard to go past the NFB dacs, particularly the NFB-2,3,5 for under $500 landed.
Juicester Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 there's an arcam dac with Teddy PSU upgrade for sale in the FS thread - good buy...
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