Best $100 dac?
- Thread starter sansuibutch
- Start date
My usual suggestion is what I do: the TEAC CD-P650-B, a single-play CD deck with USB input and a great DAC. I plug my iPhone 6 or iPod Classic directly into the USB where they charge and play while bypassing the internal DAC in favor of the Burr Brown in the TEAC. make a great CD player with free DAC for your phone, of a great DAC with a free CD player attached. Going price seems to have settled around $129
i have heard this is one of the best ways to go about an inexpensive DAC. when hooked to the iphone, are you able to play music from youtube and other apps or is it just your itunes music library that is accessible through the teac?
Using the standard charge cord plugged-in to the TEAC USB input, I can run any music app on my iPhone 6 and it plays perfectly over the TEAC and even through the TEAC's volume-controlled headphone jack.
Using the standard charge cord plugged-in to the TEAC USB input, I can run any music app on my iPhone 6 and it plays perfectly over the TEAC and even through the TEAC's volume-controlled headphone jack.
hell yeah ill be picking one of those up soon then
sansuibutch
Super Member
After 3 hours messing with my router settings and this chromecast junk I'm ready to return it. I cant get it to work. I love the cd player dac idea but really don't want to use my charger port on my Samsung s6 edge plus to transfer the signal. These samsung charging ports are sketchy. I've had to have about five phones replaced due to them not working. Is there a dac that doesn't need my to be a router or wireless engineer to connect to it?
My wife's S6 has a bad charging micro USB port as well. My S7 Edge has given me zero problems so I'm thinking Samsung must have redesigned it.
its either wirelessly or through the charge port as anything coming from the 3.5mm headphone jack has already been converted to an analog signal
sansuibutch
Super Member
I get that.. wondering if thers somthing like chromecast that doesn't require a wireless engineer to make work. This thing says it's paired and ready to cast, but the music is only coming out of my phone. Somthing a little less difficult to work? My phone is allready linked to my router along with 3 tvs 2 more phones tablets ect ect. I connected all of them so if this thing is that difficult to connect somthing is either wrong with It or me. I just need somthing easier
sansuibutch
Super Member
My buddy stopped by and figured it out. For some reason why IL never know but on my dual band router I had to hook my phone up to the 2.4hz band instead of the 5. Chromecast says it will run on either so I didn't think it would matter.
Interference maybe?
sansuibutch
Super Member
Possible I guess, with all the wireless stuff these days that wouldn't be hard to believe. I'm not very tech savy.
Hi BMWCCA,
If I downloaded my I-tunes library onto a thumb drive and plugged the thumb drive into the usb port on the Teac would the SQ be better than having my I-pod plugged into the rca aux ports on my receiver? Also, could I access the different playlists and tracks through the Teac?
Thanks.
You should be asking these questions of TEAC or a dealer. I've never tried it that way but here's what the link in my post says:
But if you have the iPod, why not just plug into the USB? That's the beauty of the unit in the first place. Are you're plugging your iPod into your receiver from the headphone jack?
sansuibutch
Super Member
I wouldn't recommend chromecast audio to anyone. It won't play what I want it to..only plays off apps you download to the chromecast app. And you have to to pay for the apps.
Thanks BMWCCA,
I guess I am still not understanding the internal dac bypass when plugging the I-pod into the usb port of the Teac. How does it bypass the internal dac of the I-pod and use the Teac dac? I almost seems like once the signal leaves the I-pod going to the USB port of the Teac, the signal would have already gone through the internal dac of the I-pod. I am very new to this and am trying to learn how that works. Sorry for the seemingly uneducated questions.
Thanks again.
The iPod output from the earphone jack uses the iPod's internal DAC. The signal taken by the TEAC from the USB connection at the Lightning or older 30-pin connector uses the digital form without conversion to analog. It's really pretty simple but of course we have to believe they're telling the truth. My guess is essentially the TEAC is reading the iPod as a drive and taking only the digital information, just like it would if you dragged your music files to a USB thumb drive and plugged it in, or recorded your digital tracks on a CD and played them on the TEAC.
Thanks for that very good explanation that even a newb like mean seems to be able to understand. Beings my I-pod Touch is the latest Gen 6 with the smaller charge plug, does that mean it will be a digital signal run through it's internal dac? My Sansui G-8000 is reading the signal fine by having it plugged into the aux inputs via a 3.5 to rca cable adaptor.
I have no idea what you're trying to say. If it's reading the digital information then it's not coming through a digital-to-analog-converter (DAC). I have no idea what signal your Sansui is "reading" or what you Sansui G-8000 is but it sure sounds like you're simply taking the analog signal from a headphone jack into your ??. That's most likely using your phone's DAC.
What device are you playing from? I don't have one but as far as I understand playing from Android should be supported for a wide variety of apps for free.
