Which DAC? Arcam rDAC opinions and quotes?

[oyeindia]

I desperately need a USB DAC. Looking at what's available, I am currently considering an Arcam rDAC (the plain, non-wireless one). A member here who's a dealer quoted Rs 28,000, and the Delhi dealer said the MRP's 27,700 (which probably indicates some room for discounts).

What does the forum think?

1. Are there other USB DACs I should be considering?

2. Is the 27.7K price for the rDAC the best I can get?

3. Is anyone interested in a group buy?

4. Also, I plan to get a good CDP soon. Is there anything I should take care of when buying the DAC?

Do let me know.

 

[pjashish]

Count me in for a group buy:clapping:

 

[Hassan Khani]

I desperately need a USB DAC. Looking at what's available, I am currently considering an Arcam rDAC (the plain, non-wireless one). A member here who's a dealer quoted Rs 28,000, and the Delhi dealer said the MRP's 27,700 (which probably indicates some room for discounts).

What does the forum think?

1. Are there other USB DACs I should be considering?

2. Is the 27.7K price for the rDAC the best I can get?

3. Is anyone interested in a group buy?

4. Also, I plan to get a good CDP soon. Is there anything I should take care of when buying the DAC?

Do let me know.

I have recently purchased Arcam rDac for 28K/- in Bangalore. Very good sound and have all the options available including USB input.

1. Emotiva XDA-1, but you have to order online and need to get shipped from USA.
2. That would be a good price.
3. N/A
4. Since rDAC has coax and optical digital input and hence you only need a decent cd player as transport if you are planning to use dac functionality of rDac along with cd player.

 

[oyeindia]

I have recently purchased Arcam rDac for 28K/- in Bangalore. Very good sound and have all the options available including USB input.

Thanks for the input. I just purchased an Arcam rDAC for GBP 250 (around INR 18,000) from Ebay UK, as I also wanted to try out the Aramex UK to India shipping option.

Will probably work out to the same price after shipping and duties.

 

[vasishta.sushant]

Care to post the links ?

Also did you check Cambridge Audio DAC Magic ?

 

[oyeindia]

Care to post the links ?

Also did you check Cambridge Audio DAC Magic ?

Which links? Ebay.co.uk? That's was an auction that's ended, but there are more out there.

I liked the rDAC specs and reviews more than the DACMagic, so I went for it.

 

[spirovious]

Care to post the links ?

Also did you check Cambridge Audio DAC Magic ?

Arcam rDac Digital to Analogue Converter New | eBay UK
ARCAM rDAC - HiFi Digital to Analogue Converter DAC | eBay UK

 

[oyeindia]

I finally received my rDAC today. Plugged in, and the difference over my M-Audio Fast Track USB is immediately noticeable in the soundstage and detailing.

For those of you thinking of ordering from ebay.co.uk, this is how the process went:

21/4 - I won the auction (GBP 250 + shipping GBP 5)
22/4 - I paid for the device
27/4 - Shipper's package reached my Aramex UK account
29/4 - Package reached Mumbai
30/4 - Package reached Gurgaon
02/5 - Package reached me.

Aramex charged Rs 1,170 for shipping (1.1kg). Customs duty was Rs 1,453 and Service Tax as Rs 121.

So in total, a brand-new rDAC, retailing in the UK at GBP 300 and in India at Rs 28,000, cost me Rs 21,551.

 

[vasishta.sushant]

I bought the HRT Streamer II for myself, along with the Monster 400i interconnect cable.

With my setup (Cambridge Audio 550A + Polk Audio TSi 300), I thought rDac/DACMagic would have been an overkill.

What other components do you have man ?

 

[oyeindia]

What other components do you have man ?

Nothing very fancy. My stereo is a Cyrus 8vs2 amp with Monitor Audio Silver RS6 speakers. The rDAC feeds the Cyrus from a dedicated netbook, which reads my music, mostly FLACs, off a NAS, a DNS-323, over my wi-fi network.

The Onkyo HTS-3300 that I bought with you is in my bedroom, and has a PS3 and an Xtreamer plugged into it. The Xtreamer also picks up media from my NAS over wi-fi.

 

[vasishta.sushant]

Yupp I am also thinking on the same lines. Would be getting the HT system later (first priority is to get myself a home....which would fall like 4 years from now....so essentially no HT system).

Even I am using a netbook (doubles as my download rig as well) for the music. But no NAS for me. I've updated the netbook with a 500GB disc already.

Just curious on how you control your music ? I like to play stuff on foobar but managing foobar remotely using my android phone is not so comforting. At the moment I use XBMC to with a harmony remote control. Somehow works but nothing great.

 

[oyeindia]

Just curious on how you control your music ?

After experimenting with a great variety of apps (XBMC, Mediamonkey, Foobar, VLCand so on), I'm currently on Winamp as my player.

Winamp has a web-based remote plugin, which I can control from any phone or laptop handy.

 

[vasishta.sushant]

I remember I tried that as well. But somehow winamp stands nowhere when compared to foobar, in terms of audio fidelity.

Will give it a shot again

 

[oyeindia]

I remember I tried that as well. But somehow winamp stands nowhere when compared to foobar, in terms of audio fidelity.

Will give it a shot again

How so? It's just piping the FLAC to the rDAC for decoding.

 

[Hassan Khani]

I finally received my rDAC today. Plugged in, and the difference over my M-Audio Fast Track USB is immediately noticeable in the soundstage and detailing.

For those of you thinking of ordering from ebay.co.uk, this is how the process went:

21/4 - I won the auction (GBP 250 + shipping GBP 5)
22/4 - I paid for the device
27/4 - Shipper's package reached my Aramex UK account
29/4 - Package reached Mumbai
30/4 - Package reached Gurgaon
02/5 - Package reached me.

Aramex charged Rs 1,170 for shipping (1.1kg). Customs duty was Rs 1,453 and Service Tax as Rs 121.

So in total, a brand-new rDAC, retailing in the UK at GBP 300 and in India at Rs 28,000, cost me Rs 21,551.

Congrats. Give couple days and it will start sounding sweet. If possible buy a good usb cable, am planning to get the wireworld ultraviolet usb cable.

 

[vasishta.sushant]

How so? It's just piping the FLAC to the rDAC for decoding.

I dont know. Its all I felt. Placebo may be but there indeed is some difference. The stuff played over foobar sounds much more detailed.

 

[spirovious]

I remember I tried that as well. But somehow winamp stands nowhere when compared to foobar, in terms of audio fidelity.

Will give it a shot again

Its not so.Even foobar site says that they dont claim its better than others.
Winamp can output as asio too.Sometimes winamp sound fuller.

 

[oyeindia]

Its not so.Even foobar site says that they dont claim its better than others.
Winamp can output as asio too.Sometimes winamp sound fuller.

After seeing these comments, I installed foobar and compared to Winamp. Both output ASIO with asio4all. Honestly, I can't make out any difference. Maybe my hearing is not up to the task.

 

[vasishta.sushant]

There is indeed some difference. And its not only the streaming that winamp/foobar does. Can you not control the sound signature by using the equalizers ? Since you can, you can be very sure that some kind of processing is going on inside both the players.

All I feel is that foobar sounds at least 10% better. At least I can make out the difference.

 

[binoymehra]

I have tried musical Fidelity M1 dac , it is quite good with balanced output but costlier than rdac.
Earlier I was using EMU dac for sometime , it is much better .