Cheap Dacs? Anyone used /tested these?

[hemantwaghe]

Hi Guys seeing these cheap ( relatively) DAC's on Ebay ( US)

USB DAC (PCM2707+DIR9001+PCM1793) + Headphone Amplifier - eBay (item 170360939981 end time Jul-29-09 08:52:42 PDT)


eBay.com.sg: Mini 1793 DAC with S/PDIF Coaxial/Optical Toslink Input (item 260401162543 end time Jul 15, 2009 09:42:26 SGT)

PCM2702E PCM2702 Mini USB DAC Headphone Amp Amplifier - eBay (item 290328690771 end time Aug-02-09 03:12:33 PDT)

NEW Mini1793 SPDIF DAC Board PCM1793+ DIR9001 - eBay (item 130321225501 end time Jul-29-09 20:53:40 PDT)

Now these are really cheap DAC's ---but questions are?

1) Anyone used these? Any expereinces?( I'm intererested in 1 st)
2) Are they worth their price?
3) Will it be replacement of good sound card ? I do not have pc but have 1 new and 2 old laps..
4) Will it give good sound improvement to WDTV?( For FLAC...)
5) Are these plug and play?

6) ANY OTHER DAC'S IN SIMILAR PRICE?

 

[magma]

the first one is worth a try if you like it
its a usb dac and thats what you need witht the notebooks you have

other dacs require a spdif to dac converter which i can tell you is not a very good proposition

i presume you have a 100$ budget

if you would double that budget you could get a used PICO usb dac that is one of the most VFM usb dacs i know of
a scott nixon used dac would alsocost about that much however i would recommend the PICO 1st in that price range

you could be recommended an asus Xonar but i see no point in building a PC ( since you dont have one) and since you have some extra notebooks to spare for music duty

 

[persiflage]

I was doing this a few years ago. FWIW, I haven't heard a commercial (not DIY) DAC southwards of USD 400 that I found to be of acceptable quality. Happy to be corrected on this though; DAC technology improves every few months.

I would suggest looking for something like a used Citypulse; it's very nice especially with some cap upgrades. Not sure what Citypulse models/ lines are currently extant but am sure there'll be plenty used floating around on the web.

 

[anm]

how is the MF x24k dac?

 

[magma]

there is also a VALAB dac and a keces dac 131 mk2 you can consider seriously
the keces has a decent reputation