peber;442001 Wrote: > > Now to my question... I have noticed that some users of the SB use an > external DAC to improve the sound. How much do I have to spend on a DAC > to get a clear improvement over the internal DAC? I do not want to spend > a lot and only get a subtle change... Do you have any suggestions for a > DAC that is known to work very well with the SB and is a real > improvement? >
You'll find as wide a range of opinion on that as is possible. Some will tell you all modern digital sources sound the same unless they're broken, others will talk about "night and day", "veils lifting", etc. I'm pretty much in that first camp, but nevertheless I own a Benchmark DAC1 (but for reasons that don't have much to do with sound quality per se). One thing I can tell you is that the SB3, at least mine, has a relatively high noise floor associated with the display - I can hear it clearly through my not-so-typical setup when no music is playing - and the headphone out is pretty bad. But if neither of those bothers you and you don't need the additional functionality an external DAC can provide, I doubt you're going to notice the difference. If you're in doubt, borrow a DAC and run a simple blind test - have a friend switch and try to identify which is which. That will give you a very good idea how important the differences are (if they exist at all). -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=65771 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
