Nak

I'm considering what you said about the Arcam rdac. It does have everything I want and nothing that I don't. Just costs a lot more than I was originally planning. It's £300 without the wireless option, I just need to read some info and opinions before I save the pennies for it.

Thanks for the input. I had looked at the Aune but I wasn't wanting to sink any of my relatively small budget into stuff I didn't need, like a headphone amp. After reading a bit more of what Tipper has said about the Music Streamer I'm thinking about just taking a shot on it and if I'm not happy, take a bit of a loss and sell it on.

After a bit more digging, I'm starting to wonder if I will get a huge jump in sound quality from the DACs in my current budget. Will something in the v-dac or hrt range give a a very noticeable increase or should I really be looking at something more "fancy", or be happy with the prelude?

Thanks ever so much for the lengthy and informative reply. I had a quick search and it seems my motherboard can put out "bit perfect" through SPDIF and so can my soundcard. This is something that I hadn't looked into before. About modding options, it does sway me a bit, but as I've little to no experience I think I should put that aside for now and really focus on it's "out of the box" sound and functionality. I do plan on getting some soldering equipment and seeing how I get on with simple things, make a basic cable, recable some headphones etc, before I move on to building or modding a dac. I already have a few headphone amps, so something with an amp isn't going to be the best bang for buck in my case, at least that's how I'm looking at it. After reading your much appreciated post, I've come full circle, as my original two options were the V-Dac and Music Streamer 2.

Thanks for the tip. I had thought that Beresford was quite a bit out of budget. It seems that the only way to get it is from the manufacturer on eBay(none on the site) and it's £162 all in. It doesn't sound like a huge jump from budget, but £150 is already is already a stretch and I'm going to struggle to justify it over the ones on budget or under. I don't suppose it helps that I've done all of this completely backwards. Buying expensive headphones, then an amp and then a source. Live and learn!

It's my first post here and I'm a bit clueless when it comes to buying a DAC. I understand what it is and the some of the benefits, but the amount of options and opinions I've taken in over the last week or so is dizzying! I hope bumping this old thread isn't too offensive, but it's really put a spanner in my works. I'm on a very small budget and thought I had narrowed it down to HRT Music Streamer 2, V-Dac, or Valab NOS and I was leaning towards the Valab. It seemed like something that could grow along with me, but doubt was put in my mind because it didn't have asynchronous usb, something I'm not sure I fully understand. Then I stumble across computeraudiophile and options from m-audio, edirol and e-mu are now on the table. To try and give this post some sort of direction, I'm just looking for a nice little DAC that will give me a better source than my Auzentech prelude internal card and of course within my humble budget. The Valab being around my maximum, £150/$200ish. Upper end of the budget: E-mu 0404 edirol ua-25 Valab Nos DAC HRT Music Streamer II MF V-Dac Lower end: M-audio Transit edirol ua-1ex nuforce udac If it at all helps, most of my listening will be done through my headphone amp and akg 702s. I'm not hoping you guys will make a decision for me, but any advice on what I should be looking for to help narrow it down would be brilliant!