$10k DAC in a 3k system?


Hello all,

Ive owned the same audio rig for 8 years or so (Rega Mira 3 amp> Rega RS5 speakers) 

My source into the Mira3 amp is a headless fanless micro windows7pc I built running jrivermc> musichall Dax 25.3

i am reading some phenomenal things about some of these Dacs in the 10K range ( Chord Dave, Ayre, Lampizator,PS Audio, etc).

My question is a simple one: the other pieces of my system sound great to me, but are at a much lower price point collectively than one of the dacs mentioned above. Do I need to be concerned about my Amp/speakers being fast/dynamic enough to facilitate a Dac like the Dave? Or could I plug a top notch Dac like that into my system and hear the same things I've heard described in the reviews (but on a relative level) ?

thanks in advance for any insight!
dla123
Speaker should be first priority, Pre-amp- & Amplifier as second. . However if you feel it can be justified by all means go for it.

An alternative choice would be buying a lower end dac which can outperform others many times its price. Some of the recommendation already made are very good choice.

If I was you and had 10K to Splash. Id be looking at a second-hand but well looked after speaker on the market.


What Charles Said:

Performance and cost isn't always a linear relationship.

This is very very true and something which one learns from years of experience.
I can only speak from my experience. I made many, many changes over the years. In my experience, changing speakers and the source has had the most impact on my system. I recently changed my music server. It's so hard to describe the differences without individuals thinking that I'm exaggerating or lying. I don't know if it's because the new component has synergy with the rest of the components, the music server that it replaced was so bad, or the new music server is just that good. The only way to find out if it's worth spending 1K or 10K on a DAC is to get a home trial...let your ears decide.  
Dragon_vibe,
Yes, my comments were precisely based on listening experiences of many different audio systems over the years. I must respectfully disagree with shadome’s post. I don’t believe that you can accurately apply a rigid cost ratio amongst audio components when constructing a system, far too many variables and exceptions to account for.

Speakers are often said to be the "most" important link in the audio chain and thus require the greatest expenditure. Yes they’re important but so is "every" component link in the audio chain. The weakest link will by default be the bottleneck.

You can develop an excellent sounding system with the speakers being less expensive than the source, preamplifier or power amplifier. The truth is that there are multiple methods to allocate money toward assembly of an audio system that results in terrific sound quality.

My contention is you have to actually listen to components/speakers rather than make determinations based on solely preconceived price points and ratios. I do believe that generally speaking  quality increases with cost, however High End audio has numerous exceptions to this rule. Successful synergy isn't exclusively tied to spending ever more money. 
Charles

I agree that spending $10k on a DAC for that particular system would not be the best way to spend that kind of money.  I would say that the buyer would certainly hear an improvement with a much better DAC, but, money spent elsewhere would improve the sound even more. 


If the OP is planning on further improvements to the rest of the system down the road, then the purchase of a really good DAC might be viewed as a really big first step in that direction.  I can see the logic in starting with really good source components first, provided that you can reasonably assess what is a really good source component when the rest of the system is not at a comparable level (a chicken and egg dilemma).  But, my own preferred approach would be to find speakers that I really like, and then build the rest of the system around what works with that speaker (e.g., efficiency and level of difficulty in driving the speaker would set parameters around the kinds of amplifiers that should be in the system).