Looking for DAC suggestions

DO a search on Agon this topic has been recently covered and in the past.

Happy Listening.

IMO you should spend a bit less on the dac itself, and buy a real transport instead of the NAD CD player you intend using. It would make a far bigger difference. Theta Data Basic II is an excelent "starter", you can pick up a mint example for 600$.

Start here http://www.ack-industries.com/

Take the free home trial and your not out if you don't like it. This little Dac gets great user opinions and the price is right.

Dave

From my personal experience, I think Elberoth2 has a point worth checking out. I paired a MF Tri Vista 21 DAC with my existing Arcam FMJ 23 CD player. With the amp I had at the time, I thought it was a great all around improvement. However,when I upgraded the amp to something with greater power and detail, I found a lot of high treble glare. At first, I thought it was the amp, or poor synergy with new speakers. Taking some advice,(quite counter-intuitive, might I add), I took the DAC out of the system; problem solved.

On the other hand, running the DAC with an old Theta Data Basic transport sounded great. The knowledgable retailer who advised me sells both separates and single box CD players, but is very leery of combining a DAC with a single box player.

Benchmark DAC-1 at $975 and 30 day money back.But since your 502 is about 10yrs old(mine is)how about a Creek CD50-MKII.