HD Mediaplayer as transport + up to £ 600 DAC

I use a Mac mini as a streamer for all media types.

It sounds just fine to me.

It is unlikely that I would ever need to upgrade my DAC, as I don't believe that it is a limiting factor. It is versatile and has all the functionality that I need. My Mac is near as damnit silent and plays my music bit perfectly (if this is of interest) and my entire library of CDs is stored as lossless ALAC files on the HDD.

I could, if I wished I suppose, rip all of my movies to HDD as well, but there would be a legality issue, aside from that, a computer makies a very compelling streamer that is more versatile than a dedicated streamer to boot.

Pc's  in mini ATX form, also have the ability to play Blu-Ray if you needed full compatibility and many are also 3D capable.

iPod Touch, iPhones or iPads also make excellent controllers for such systems.

Not a single DAC, even the most expensive and technologically advanced, can fully kill jitter and rectify poor digital input signal. A good DAC shines only with good quality transport. This is my personal opinion that is based on personal experience. Having said that not all media players are the same, some provide relatively better spdif output then the others. Which HD player you think of buying?

This is not true. Even cheap (comparitively) DACs can be audibly transparent.

A couple of reviews that you might like to read on the subject.

DACmagic Plus

Epiphany E-DAC (ODAC)

Benchmark DAC1 Pre

I can vouch for the Benchmark dac, very detailed & clear.

This is not what I meant, so please reread my post. And there is no point for me to read these reviews as I've owned both Dac Magic and Benchmark, so I know them first hand. My point was that there are no DACs that can fully clean up and restore signal from poor transport. The better the transport, the better the performance of a DAC.

I would actually advise you to go with something that is a dedicated streamer, I know from experience that adding external dacs to things doesn't translate as big an upgrade as getting a better component with a better built in dac. If I were you I would get the Stream magic 6 for music and then something like the Apple Tv, Roku or WD live tv which all cost around 100 pounds. 

Overdose, thanks a lot for the advise. But I really do not want to use PC as transport. Just don't want to mess with drivers, codecs and programs. PC's at home and at work and laptop in trips are more than enough 

Overdose, if you some day want to upgrade your setup, what would you change then first - Mac or DAC? 

dragon76, thanks,

You are not the one who has this opinion what makes me really sad , but let us focus on the aim: HD player + DAC

I am thinking of Dune HD Max which has the reachest functionality at the moment to my mind and a very friendly interface. http://www.whathifi.com/review/dune-hd-max-0

Have you tried that one? Or what would you recommend?

Thanks a lot!

Thanks, mpapo, but I am affraid this dac is not manufactured any more. Anyway it's quite a rare gadget here in Russia and it costs over £  1100. Out of my budget

May I ask why you advise it? Have you tried it with cheap media players?

shafesk, thank you. But you anyway use the DacMagic

My problem is that I want to drag out as much sound as possible from HD player because of two things:

1) I like music videos and live shows which can not be played by dedicated streamers,

2) I do not go for Oppo (what would logically be suggested from p.1) as these players frankly are not as multifunctional as media players.

To All:

Meanwhile. I heard fantastic stories about PC's + asynchronous DAC's via USB.

Can anyone explain how the hell can PCs beat mediaplayers? They are anyway designed without toroids.

Yet, a question (maybe would sound stupid): is there a chance to use HD player with asynchronous DAC via USB?

In all honesty, neither, as I don't believe that either of them are in any way a limiting factor on sound reproduction. If they were to be changed at all, then it would be for entirely different reasons than upgrading, such as aesthetics, functionality and usability.

I should perhaps qualify that with the additional info that I have had several DACs/audio interfaces. All of which sounded so similar as to be identical. Functionality was the driver for change.

My next upgrade will be my speakers, with or without built in DAC.

HERE is a good article, written from an engineers perspective. If you read the article and then on to the comments, you should find most of the answers that you need. In fact there is some good information in general elsewhere on that blog.

what do you think a mediaplayer is?  I'll give you a clue - it's a computer.  usually running custom hardware and linux or windows embedded.

Thanks indeed, Overdose,

I had chance just to look through the main post. The idea that I grabbed from it is that DAC's are more of esoteric . After I read comments, I believe I'll be wiser.

Still... you say you are more than happy with your DacMagic+. I've not gone through specs, but most probably the differense b/w your dac and mine is the Preamp. Approximately. Same team, same price range.

But I need to confess that:

1) My MagicDac does some little job pulling out music from a very cheap IconBit HD player (compared to same HD player's analoug output).

2) When I heard Rega Dac in a saloon (need to confess it was attached to NAD CD player) I really heard the HUGE difference b/w no Dac and with Dac.

Maybe you reconsider your view.

Hope very much there's no any offence. Just, please, consider.

And why I am in this forum - I hope to understand if there's some Dac that can perforn even more than Rega if I throw some more money.