Will getting a DAC converter improve mp3 playback

I think you would notice a substantial increase in quality, even of your 128 kg/s mp3's, if you bypass the dac on your sound card and use a reasonably priced external DAC. I haven't heard the Blue Circle but it's from a well-regarded company and the strictly utilitarian design of it is appealing. I use a Valab DAC, available for $200 on ebay, between a MacBook Pro and a Nuforce Icon amp and it sounds quite a bit better than going analog from the MacBook to an amp. Even the internal DAC on the Icon is an improvement over the sound card in the laptop with mp3 files.

To Scottlanterman's suggestion about converting your music and using an iPod, you'd have to re-rip everything at higher resolution, not just convert your existing files, assuming you even have the high-res originals. In addition, unless you have a Wadia iPod dock with digital output, you'd be using the DAC and amp inside the iPod and that might not be much of an improvement over what you already have.

The newer iPods have much better DACs now, but Sfar is right, I use a Wadia 170i out to a Peachtree Nova. It sounds really good, but it is about a $1,500 set up and all my stuff is lossless CD quality rips on an old iPod.

That USB Thingee might just be the thing for you, it looks it is worth a try. I would still re-rip your favourite music lossless and do some comparisons to the low rez MP3 files to see if you get more enjoyment out of it.

A better long term investment might one of the Camebridge Dac Magics on sale for about $350 on the site. This is a well reviewed component that will hold its value and should do a very good good with whatever digital system you end up with.

Best of luck.

Acura1947 You should check out Scott-nixon.com. He makes both solid state and tube Dacs. I have the tube Dac with coaxial out but he also makes it in USB. Just last week there was one with both toslink and coaxial jacks. Scott also has an extensive background on what you are doing. Visit the web site given above and give him a call. Every now and then one shows up here on Audiogon but they don't last long. The pricing is great but the performance is even better.

If you are using a PC I suggest you upgrade your sound card to a Creative Labs Audigy. If you are using computer speakers that is. The power is clean and the distortion is very low. To me the sound cards built in most computers don't sound very good. And when you send sounds from your computer to your main system via a DAC you will be pleasantly surprised also. You will get a quieter background and lower distortion. Visit his site and see what he has to offer.

FWIW... From my experience, most definitely, a DAC will improve your MP3 playback. It should get rid of lots of harshness. I'd get a glass toslink cable and connect it out of your computer.

If you're using a Mac then it's even easier. Set AudioMidi to 25/96 and you're good to go. Mac's however, outputs through "mini-toslink". You can get a Vandenhul Optocoupler II for $100 (as good as it gets for optical cables get from my understanding) with a mini on one end and a regular toslink jack on other end. Or if you need a longer one, Parts Express has a 12ft glass one for $65.

Or, if it's MP3s anyways, you can simply get an Airport Express and stream your music. It has a DAC in it, and from my experience with a NAD 325bee, it sounded noticeable better through the AEx then a Y-cable straight from computer or ipod. It's $50-90 (look on Craigslist) and you can always return it...

This is your cheapest route.

For $300-350 used you can probably get something very nice these days. I'd go with a tubed DAC if I were you, so you could tube roll later (change sound for cheap) and "color" the MP3 sound. I'd probably look for these ones, as you could re-sell them easily if you don't like it:

-MDHT Paradisea+ (older version)

-Channel Islands vDAC (or something like that)

Hear lots about this one on another forum, but never tried it:

-VALAB Dac (sold on ebay for $200 new).

-the DAC Magic mentioned also gets a lot of mention in other forums as well. No experience.

I really like my Monarchy M24, it's a tubed DAC with a separate tubed linestage/preamp (2 power supplies), but it's $700-800.

I've been very curious about the Paradisea and Valab though.

You might want to lurk around this forum:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Help-DACs-please

People on Audiogon seem to think MP3s are an abomination.

Also try to get 320 kbps files at least... try mininova.
And I don't think there is any point in converting MP3 files into large "CD Quality"-full bit-rate files, other than wasting storage space. As far as I know, once the bits are compressed and gone, there is no way to restore them.

Good luck. Send me a PM if you have any questions.

Acura1947,

If you listen to mp3, an external DAC or Blue Circle USB thingy will be an absolute overkill and a waste of money! Such things are for lossless formats, not for compressed one. On the other hand, if you have no access to lossless files (which seems strange to me), I can understand your desire to get the best out of mp3 files. I was myself in the same situation 5 years ago. Here's my advice to you: find an old Sony DVD player DVP-NS330 or newer models of the same series. I have NS330 and I can tell you that the quality of this Sony's inbuilt mp3-decoder is magical. I don't know what this Sony does to mp3, how it converts it to pcm and how it treats it further before it finally comes out of its analog outputs, but the result is just stunning! In the true blind tests, I and my friend compared the audio-cd tracks, played by cd-player NAD C521BEE against the same mp3 files (lame, 320 kbit/s) played by Sony DVD player DVP-NS330, and in 50-70% cases we couldn't tell the difference! The amplifier used was NAD C320BEE and the speakers were Acoustic Energy Aegist Evo 3. This Sony just refines mp3 sound somehow, making it sound rich, full-bodied, etc. The drawback was that this dvd-player could read mp3 from a dvd media, only from a cd.

When tried to play mp3 files through my current $700 DAC, $1000 preamp and the same NAD amp, it sounded worse than that Sony NS330.

Another curious thing about this NS330 is that it played Audio-CDs noticeably worse than mp3 made from the same CDs! I am not kidding, we also confirmed it, together with my friend, in blind tests.