For posterity, here's my experience with digital-to-analog conversion. It's been a long road to nowhere, but since my primary source was analog anyway it didn't concern me overmuch.
Audio Alchemy DAC-in-the-box. Cheap and serviceable, I had no complaints at the time ... which was a very long time ago now.
Onkyo SE-200 PCI soundcard. This was my digital front end for long time, and I really liked it. Lack of hardware support for PCI bus, and lack of driver support for modern Windows meant I had to give it up. Don't knock this card - it has some serious engineering prowess under the hood.
47 labs Treasure 0247 headphone amp, which happened to have a little USB DAC add-on board. The DAC itself was a complete afterthought, a single chip affair that promised nothing and delivered very little.
Objective2 ("O2") or ODAC. Very briefly ended up with one of these for evaluation. Distinctly meh.
nuForce uDAC. Yuck.
Onkyo SE-300 PCIE soundcard. The short-lived successor model to the SE-200 sporting not only a PCIe interface but a completely new chipset based around an audio processor from Creative (aka Soundblaster). The switch was a mistake in my opinion. The overly processed sound had none of the magic of its predecessor.
Orb Jade-1. A low-mid-range artisanal Japanese headphone amp / DAC. Tight, pinched, cold sound. Didn't care for it.
Asus Xonar STX soundcard. This replaced the Onkyo, and has been my reference for some time now. Not the last word in resolution, nor does it have the musicality I would like, but it has enough swing and verve to keep me engaged.
[For color, I'll add this one too: the Lenovo USB-C -> 3.5mm dongle that came with my Duet tablet, which I use with my Sony MDR-1A headphones. Is it wrong that I have no problems with this sound? Because it's surprisingly fine. Then again those headphones sound okay plugged into anything. Never superb mind you, but never terrible either.]
Korg DS DAC 10. This was expensive enough for me to think it might be worth trying but cheap enough for me to actually give it a shot. Unremarkable. Grey and lifeless.
Ayre Codex. I like the DAC, but I can't extract the signal before it gets muddied up by the dual-purpose headphone/line output circuitry.
S.M.S.L. Sanskrit 6th. Rare that such objectively good sonic characteristics - very low noise and exceptional detail resolution - should end up so plodding and incoherent, but this is the case here.
And now, the latest attempt: last week I bought a Chord 2Qute which will arrive shortly. Fingers tightly crossed that this will be "the one" to outshine the Asus Xonar.
Audio Alchemy DAC-in-the-box. Cheap and serviceable, I had no complaints at the time ... which was a very long time ago now.
Onkyo SE-200 PCI soundcard. This was my digital front end for long time, and I really liked it. Lack of hardware support for PCI bus, and lack of driver support for modern Windows meant I had to give it up. Don't knock this card - it has some serious engineering prowess under the hood.
47 labs Treasure 0247 headphone amp, which happened to have a little USB DAC add-on board. The DAC itself was a complete afterthought, a single chip affair that promised nothing and delivered very little.
Objective2 ("O2") or ODAC. Very briefly ended up with one of these for evaluation. Distinctly meh.
nuForce uDAC. Yuck.
Onkyo SE-300 PCIE soundcard. The short-lived successor model to the SE-200 sporting not only a PCIe interface but a completely new chipset based around an audio processor from Creative (aka Soundblaster). The switch was a mistake in my opinion. The overly processed sound had none of the magic of its predecessor.
Orb Jade-1. A low-mid-range artisanal Japanese headphone amp / DAC. Tight, pinched, cold sound. Didn't care for it.
Asus Xonar STX soundcard. This replaced the Onkyo, and has been my reference for some time now. Not the last word in resolution, nor does it have the musicality I would like, but it has enough swing and verve to keep me engaged.
[For color, I'll add this one too: the Lenovo USB-C -> 3.5mm dongle that came with my Duet tablet, which I use with my Sony MDR-1A headphones. Is it wrong that I have no problems with this sound? Because it's surprisingly fine. Then again those headphones sound okay plugged into anything. Never superb mind you, but never terrible either.]
Korg DS DAC 10. This was expensive enough for me to think it might be worth trying but cheap enough for me to actually give it a shot. Unremarkable. Grey and lifeless.
Ayre Codex. I like the DAC, but I can't extract the signal before it gets muddied up by the dual-purpose headphone/line output circuitry.
S.M.S.L. Sanskrit 6th. Rare that such objectively good sonic characteristics - very low noise and exceptional detail resolution - should end up so plodding and incoherent, but this is the case here.
And now, the latest attempt: last week I bought a Chord 2Qute which will arrive shortly. Fingers tightly crossed that this will be "the one" to outshine the Asus Xonar.
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