Bought myself a DAC for my second best sound system.

[Harry]

In my living room I have two wall mounted Avalon speakers,  a Musical Fidelity Dual-Mono amp A 308, a Denon Blu ray player 3800BD, plus a 4K LG television (55 inch) and hooked them up With the Teac DAC UD 503. Big improvement and I did not even use the upsampling DSD. Any thoughts?
A few pics of this DAC.

[Harry]

Well well, no one on GMG has a DAC, or cares to say anything about it.
The DACS in my BR player are good, (player is 8 years old) but the new TEAC DAC adds a lot more detail, midrange, and especially the background noises, so important for the complete picture. I have listened yesterday to music of Josquin Desprez, Miserere, sung in a cathedral, and the way the acoustics came into my room made my jaw drop. The price excluding a optical and coax cable from Audioquest (Forest) is a mere 999,-€. I have listened to the V 90 DAC from Musical Fidelity a cheap one (275 €), but of a good build, failed eventually in my listening test because of the weak power unit. And the fact that the switches were barely visible. I could have build my own power unit, but it involved too much work.

[The new erato]

Well well, no one on GMG has a DAC, or cares to say anything about it.
The DACS in my BR player are good, (player is 8 years old) but the new TEAC DAC adds a lot more detail, midrange, and especially the background noises, so important for the complete picture. I have listened yesterday to music of Josquin Desprez, Miserere, sung in a cathedral, and the way the acoustics came into my room made my jaw drop. The price excluding a optical and coax cable from Audioquest (Forest) is a mere 999,-€. I have listened to the V 90 DAC from Musical Fidelity a cheap one (275 €), but of a good build, failed eventually in my listening test because of the weak power unit. And the fact that the switches were barely visible. I could have build my own power unit, but it involved too much work.

I have a small Electrocompaniet DAC mainly used for TV through Optical. As I only play CDs and SACDs from very good players (DCS, Wadia, high end Sonys) I have had little use for a DAC so far.

Care to tell us what happened to your beard?

[Harry]

I have a small Electrocompaniet DAC mainly used for TV through Optical. As I only play CDs and SACDs from very good players (DCS, Wadia, high end Sonys) I have had little use for a DAC so far.

Yes I understand, All my components are good enough too, but....
But I needed this DAC for television (Optical) to get lip sync, I have an analogue amplifier, and the BR player, (Coax) since I stated that although the player is a high end machine, but already 8 years old, the DACS were not up to scratch anymore, hence the TEAC DAC. I am looking out for a good 4K player, but since there are only two on the market at this moment, ( Samsung 499 € & Panasonic 799€) I rather wait a little before upgrading my Denon player. The Panasonic got rave reviews though, especially for picture quality and all the connections. The upscaling goes well too. I have a cheap Samsung Blu-ray player, able to upscale to 4K  in my workout room, and I see clearly that the upscaling does wonders to DVD and BR discs alike.


My beard, well yes, due to the warm weather I got some infections under it, so I was obliged to take it off, but it will be back in a few months. So in the winter months it should be back again.

[Daverz]

I have a couple DACs in use, one in the big rig and one in the bedroom.  In the big rig I have an Auralic Vega



That's fed via USB from a Squeezebox Touch. 



I can play back my own ripped CDs and the Tidal lossless stream through the Touch.  The playback of RBCD files through the Vega is so good, I'm not sure I really need hi-rez files.

What I need now is some way to feed in the Naxos ClassicsOnline stream to the DAC, something like Apple's Airport but that can handle hi-rez (96/24 and even 192/24).  I can run a USB from my laptop to the DAC, but that takes up the USB port, and I don't like having a computer with a fan in my listening chair.  Not sure it's possible to share the USB, or what sonic effect that has.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

I'm going the other way soon--getting rid of my Pioneer CD-Recorder (a stand alone component, not a computer drive) I use to make CDs from my LPs: Oracle Delphi/SME V -> Audible Illusions Preamp -> CD Recorder. I am investigating good Analog to Digital Converters (and associated software) for use in saving FLAC files directly to my laptop. Any ideas? (I am not looking to drop a ton of money on this BTW).

[71 dB]

Well well, no one on GMG has a DAC, or cares to say anything about it.

My CD player has digital input and can be used as a DAC. I use it for my TV sound. That much I care to say. 

Generally this type of threads are basically bragging. All of us do not earn as much as you do. Some people just can't buy everything they want. Well, actually I could, but I want to save money for my pension and future.

[The new erato]

I have a couple DACs in use, one in the big rig and one in the bedroom.  In the big rig I have an Auralic Vega

If I'd wanted to go the DAC route, an Auralic is something I would seriously consider.

[Holden]

I have two devices I can use as a standalone DAC but they are for portable headphone listening. Both are from Fiio and the E7 resides with my PC connected to a Fiio E9 and in that way acts as a Pure DAC. So to compensate and having something that I can use as portable I have another Fiio product, the Q1. Both do an excellent job in improving the sound of my IEMs (Sennheiser and Flare) and also my Sennheiser HD580s.

[Daverz]

I'm going the other way soon--getting rid of my Pioneer CD-Recorder (a stand alone component, not a computer drive) I use to make CDs from my LPs: Oracle Delphi/SME V -> Audible Illusions Preamp -> CD Recorder. I am investigating good Analog to Digital Converters (and associated software) for use in saving FLAC files directly to my laptop. Any ideas? (I am not looking to drop a ton of money on this BTW).

This might be of interest:

http://www.analogplanet.com/content/analog-digital-converter-files-identified-converters-profiled

Note that the $300 (street price) HRT Linestreamer seems to hold its own soundwise with units costing up to $2500. 

Negatives: it has no way to adjust input level.  Normally taking input from tape-out should work fine for most records, otherwise you'll need to use the pre-amp out so you can lower the volume of an overly "hot" record.

Pluses: doesn't require an extra power supply. 

I've been thinking of getting one to replace my ancient M-Audio Audiophile USB box.