Decent DAC for c£100?

[liner33]

Can anyone suggest one ?

I have a Topping MX3 elsewhere in the house and also like the Cambridge Audio DAC magic but would prefer to spend about £100

[stevoknevo]

What are you going to use it with? Topping, SMSL, Schitt, Loxjie all have DACs around that price point, plenty of reports of the Topping E30 having issues with optical connections and also with certain CD/DVD players over coaxial (I've got an older version with no issues - they used to be the darling company on Audio Science Review but they've been taking a kicking recently; new E30 II just come to market but is above budget)

[liner33]

Sitting between pc and amp

[Herr Schnell]

I have a DAC Magic picked up as an open box clearance for just over a £100 from RS which connects to a CXC transport. Works great.

For the PC I use a Dragonfly Black which is fine for what it's used for.

[liner33]

I need something with a optical input and audio output to my amp , usb devices won’t work for me

[Herr Schnell]

In that case...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234657315566?epid=30508...

[OutInTheShed]

liner33 said:

I need something with a optical input and audio output to my amp , usb devices won’t work for me

I have one of these:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302828718397?

A Prozor DAC. SPDIF/Toslink or digital Coaxial to phono.

192kHz.

Mine appears to have a Burr Brown chip or two in it, it sounds fine to me, running off the optical output of an Intel PC MoBo.
I think I paid about £15. Ages ago. I also have a BlueTooth version.

An audio DAC is a $1 chip these days, the rest is mostly packaging and fluff.

[liner33]

I’m currently using the same one by the looks of it but not very impressed with it

[OutInTheShed]

liner33 said:

I’m currently using the same one by the looks of it but not very impressed with it

That's a shame.

Is it branded 'Prozor'?

These things have been discussed elsewhere, a couple of things I recall:
They don't drive low impedance loads, like headphones instead of earphones.
They need a reasonably clean power supply
Some of the 'clones' had inferior DAC chips in

No doubt there are just plain faulty units out there.
And if the bitstream coming out of the PC is not what it should be, the end result won't be great.

These days I'm sometimes using a DAC 'hat' on a Raspberry Pi, it's needed some attention on the power supply side to get the best out of it, but as far as I can tell it's not worth spending more for streamed music.

My original reason for getting an optical DAC was earth noise, so obviously I powered the DAC from a separate USB charger not the PC's USB port.

[liner33]

No mine is techole and I guess what I’m getting is earth interference

[nyt]

liner33 said:

No mine is techole and I guess what I’m getting is earth interference

If you mean an annoying hum then I fixed that with: https://www.amazon.co.uk/AV-Link-Ground-Loop-Isola...

[OutInTheShed]

liner33 said:

No mine is techole and I guess what I’m getting is earth interference

You could try powering the DAC from a double insulated USB phone charger.
Some of those are a bit noisy themselves, I have an old cheap ebay one which seems OK, you may just have to try different ones, there's usually a choice in most houses.
Or buy a Cambridge DAC or something, where someone else has done a fair job of sorting these issues.

It may be the DAC itself, if you've got a CD player or TV with optical out, you could try it on that?

Eventually I changed the PSU in my PC and that made a difference to the audio out of the headphone jack on the PC.

[OutInTheShed]

nyt said:

If you mean an annoying hum then I fixed that with: https://www.amazon.co.uk/AV-Link-Ground-Loop-Isola...

That kind of thing may help, to narrow down the problem if not cure it.

Sometimes you'll find a lump of ferrite on an old computer lead, wind the audio lead through that a couple of times, see if changes anything.
Not that I'm too tight to buy the ready made thing from Amazon of course!

But years ago before Toslink was a thing, I first used fibre optic in industry for electrical isolation, so, to my way of thinking, part of the point of it is that it doesn't need a ground. That's the difference between 'light' and 'electricity'. Even radio waves need a ground....

[liner33]

I have some of those clip on noise reducers for dash cams , would it be worthwhile trying those as well if so where ?

[OutInTheShed]

liner33 said:

I have some of those clip on noise reducers for dash cams , would it be worthwhile trying those as well if so where ?

I'd try around the audio leads.
Possibly around the power lead to the DAC too.

[liner33]

OutInTheShed said:

nyt said:

If you mean an annoying hum then I fixed that with: https://www.amazon.co.uk/AV-Link-Ground-Loop-Isola...

That kind of thing may help, to narrow down the problem if not cure it.

Sometimes you'll find a lump of ferrite on an old computer lead, wind the audio lead through that a couple of times, see if changes anything.
Not that I'm too tight to buy the ready made thing from Amazon of course!

But years ago before Toslink was a thing, I first used fibre optic in industry for electrical isolation, so, to my way of thinking, part of the point of it is that it doesn't need a ground. That's the difference between 'light' and 'electricity'. Even radio waves need a ground....

I have a Toslink from the pc to my current dac and then audio leads from it to the amp and conventional hifi set up, i put the ground link in these and an tried and the hum and interference does seem to be much improved

Thanks for the help all

[Crackie]

SMSL have been making consistently good DACS for many years. https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B07J9JP5S...