What outboard DAC do you use with Squeezebox?

[paulster]

All Squeezelite sources now (hardware players retired), into modified Cambridge DacMagic via Peachtree X1 async USB-SPDIF, Wyred4Sound DAC2-DSD, Wyred4Sound DAC2-DSDse, and a couple of HiFiMe U2 DACs.

[Man in a van]

Anybody actually obtain one as a regular commercial product?

Looks like they have been vaporware for the better part of a year.

Actually, I have two, actually

[marflao]

Geek Pulse Xfi

[callesoroe]

I'm currently feeding my Linn Unidisk SC a steady stream of flac files via toslink, and it works fine. The performance is - to my ears - on par with playing the original disks in the Unidisk. As an aside, a second squeezebox feeds an analog signal to an older Rotel/B&W set-up in the kitchen/dining room, and that works fine too.

Seeing all the recent reviews of DAC's with asymmetric (apodizing) filters - like Ayre and Meridian - and hearing the new Linn DS units makes me think there's still potential room for improvement.

So, as a poll, what kind of outboard DAC do you use with your squeezeboxes?


Secondly, has anyone switched from 'my' setup to something else, and had an increase in performance? If so, what did you try?

Thanks,
JBC

Don't need a external DAC. Got this one

[th00ht]

Hifiberry DAC+ don't waste you money on anything else.

[leadears]

Current setup unchanged > 1 year so I like it, but of course it will change.

Transporter -> ifi tube 2 -> Denon AVR 4306 -> Kef iq9
Cambridge Audio Dacmagic -> audiolab 8000 -> B&W 685
Touch -> Little Dot Dac_1 -> Little Dot mk3 headphone amp
IQaudIO Pi-DAC+ currently unused, v.nice headphone out, 'lively/exciting' presentation, I find the Dacmagic and Transporter more detailed.

[Apesbrain]

[ALW]

Recently purchased a Chord Mojo and am blown away by how good it is.

Currently I'm using it with a Transporter, but I'm building a touch screen digital only player, using PiCoreplayer so I have something capable of 24/192 natively.

[bencat]

As i have a number of sytems around the house there are a number of solutions so sorry for the list that follows .

Music System Raspberry Pi 3+ , Allo Digione Digihat feeding a MiniDSP DDRC 22D then feeding a Denafrips Pro-8 DAC into Musical Fidelity Pre then Croft OTL amplifier to Quad ESL 57 speakers

Spare room System - Raspberry Pi4 2GB , HiFiberry Digione pro Digihat feeding a MiniDSP DDRC 24 as part of an active system so the DDRC 24 is the Digital Crossover / DSP using DIRAC Live 2.0 / DAC / Volume Control directly in to the two stereo (Quad 405) power amplifiers in to a stacked pair of KEF 103 reference speakers (1973/4) .

Bedroom System - 02 Joggler as Squeeze Player - Feeding Micromedia DAC 2

Kitchen system - Justboom Amphat - directly in to speakers

Front TV room - Raspberry Pi 3+ , Justboom Digihat feeding Onkyo AV Reciever as DAC .

I am very happy in all cases with the results each being very listenable even the kitchen sytem which is used as background when cooking . Most musical is the main system which was much improved with the Denafrips DAC . Sadly just before the lock down was implemented it developed a fault and is now currently away being repaired. Metrum Octave DAC is filling in and sounds very good as well .