Quote:
Originally Posted by 2fastdriving
What is the rest of your system? When figuring out a budget, you should aim to keep it in line with the rest of the rig. I wouldn't pair a 25k dac with a system that is running $5k speakers, personally. There's a general pecking order, with speakers usually at the top of the component expense breakdown (for most people).
That said, I've owned dacs/spinners from McIntosh, ARC, and Esoteric. Esoteric is in another league in my opinion. It's true they seem to be mostly known for their spinners, but remember that the spinner is not very useful if they don't also have class-leading dacs in them! I use the K-01x, which is technically a SACD player but I rarely use it as such, I stream via USB about 95% of the time. Sounds fantastic. So, you could get a combination player and still use with streaming, no problem.
Of course, you'd need a streaming source, but that can be done fairly inexpensively. I use an intel NUC that i've loaded the Roon OS on.
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right now, C1100/611s/B&W800 d3...I don't know how those pieces would be considered in a digital setup...but something about sticking a 2k-5k Lumin/Mytek/PS/Auralic/Aurender - just didn't seem as 'sexy' to me as thinking about some of these other pieces...but maybe that is more silly of me than not!
yes, the logic that for a spinner to be excellent it must have an excellent DAC is why I am still attracted to the Esoteric brand even when looking for a DAC. I just wasn't sure if spinning really wasn't any sort of factor if there were other brands/platforms (being more purpose built and/or more of my spend dollars just going to the streamer/DAC functionality vs a spinner/DAC) that could do better with the questions solely oriented that way.