DAC is it worth it?

hydrostream
hydrostream Posts: 549
edited January 2009 in Electronics
For the most part i'm happy with my family room system. I have
a adcom GTP-500II and a adcom GCD-600 powered with a adcom
GFA-555II and energy C-500 speakers. Now if i were to pickup a
DAC would i notice a big improvement and as far as hooking it up
i would use a toslink between the player and the DAC?
thanks jerry
Main- GTP-500II,GDC-600,GFA-555II and energy C-500s
Basement-Audiosource pre/tuner,GFA-545,Onkyo
DX-1400 and RTI10s
Garage-GTP-450,onkyo M-282 and R50s with RTi55
drivers and X-overs.
My baby 18' V-king Mod VP with a merc 2.4 BP.
KTM 620 Supermoto
Post edited by hydrostream on
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Comments

  • george daniel
    george daniel Posts: 12,096
    edited January 2009
    I had an Adcom GDA 600,, I sold it and opted for a better CDP,, trust your own ears,,if you can get a good deal on one,go for it.
    JC approves....he told me so. (F-1 nut)
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  • kolyan2k
    kolyan2k Posts: 259
    edited January 2009
    toslink or coaxal

    as far as differences.......only your ears can tell.

    checkout http://www.pacificvalve.us

    they sell Chinese made electronics and they are not expensive. I bought DAC-AH from them and I use it.....as far as differences i cannot comment......read some reviews
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  • fbm211
    fbm211 Posts: 1,488
    edited January 2009
    I have an Adcom GDA-600 and love it.Great DAC.You can sometimes find these for a good price too.It didnt make a huge improvement in SQ.... but enough to keep it.Cleaner more detailed highs,mids not as forward and tighter bass.Use good quality ICs like bens silver ICs on the outputs to the pre and you should see a good SQ improvement,
    SDA-2BTL with custom IC
    Adcom 565 monoblocks--Monarchy Audio M-10 preamp
    Theta Data Basic Transport--Stello DA100 Signature DAC--Camelot Dragon Pro2 MK III
    Harman Kardon T-55c TT
    DH Labs Q-10 Signature Speaker Cables With Furez silver plated copper bananas
    Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver Reference AES/EBU
    Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver i2s digital cable
    4 Furutech FP-314Ag with FI-11cu Plugs/FI-11AG IECs--- Power Cords
    DH LABS REVELATIONS ICs-amps
    Revelation Audio Labs Paradise cryo-silver ICs-Source to pre
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  • mantis
    mantis Posts: 17,236
    edited January 2009
    hydrostream wrote: »
    For the most part i'm happy with my family room system. I have
    a adcom GTP-500II and a adcom GCD-600 powered with a adcom
    GFA-555II and energy C-500 speakers. Now if i were to pickup a
    DAC would i notice a big improvement and as far as hooking it up
    i would use a toslink between the player and the DAC?
    thanks jerry
    only if the Internal DAC's are not as good as the External DAC's. So wherever the better processing is , is where the better sound quality most likely will be.

    You may like the internal DAC's better then the external.

    As far as coax or Optical? As long as you use high quality properly terminated cables, use which ever one you want. It doesn't matter.

    Dan
    Dan
    My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time.
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  • ben62670
    ben62670 Posts: 15,969
    edited January 2009
    A major part is the analog section of either piece. I like the design of my GDA-700 even though the digital is only 44/48/96. It was a huge improvement over the analog section of my lower end Sony. I definitely prefer cox. There is two less conversions with coax. One thing I like about a good external DAC is you can feed it with more than one source.
    Ben
    Please. Please contact me a ben62670 @ yahoo.com. Make sure to include who you are, and you are from Polk so I don't delete your email. Also I am now physically unable to work on any projects. If you need help let these guys know. There are many people who will help if you let them know where you are.
    Thanks
    Ben
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  • hydrostream
    hydrostream Posts: 549
    edited January 2009
    I have my eyes on a GDA-600 i did want to start looking at
    upgrading to good ICs and with so many choices i don't even
    know where to begin. The setup sounds pretty darn good but
    can't stop thinking what if.
    jerry
    Main- GTP-500II,GDC-600,GFA-555II and energy C-500s
    Basement-Audiosource pre/tuner,GFA-545,Onkyo
    DX-1400 and RTI10s
    Garage-GTP-450,onkyo M-282 and R50s with RTi55
    drivers and X-overs.
    My baby 18' V-king Mod VP with a merc 2.4 BP.
    KTM 620 Supermoto
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter