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"Aesthetically pleasing" DAC???

Okay- I know it's going to sound cheesy, but I'm wondering if anyone can suges a reasonably priced, high quality DAC that also happens to be "eye catching". My system is in our living room, so the wife insists that components not look like components ;-) Just to give you an idea of what I mean, my system currently includes the Basis 1400 turntable, Shanling CD-T100 cd player, and Cary SLP-98P preamp. Any ideas? Any tubed units with open-tubed layouts? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
reeldude
tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
MBL not only looks good, but if you can afford it, it sounds pretty darn good as well.

KF
sufentanil's avatar
sufentanil
776 posts
 
Check out the Electrocompaniet ECD-1. If you find typical Electrocompaniet equipment attractive, you'll like this one. I hear it sounds great, too, although I've never actually heard it.

Michael
jvogt
212 posts
 
I like the Levinson 360 DAC. Some may not prefer the
"industrial" look, though I find it attractive.
lordgorian
133 posts
 
the chord is a great reccomendation, absolutely beautiful and easily one of the best dacs for the money.
ed_sawyer
588 posts
 
Hey Jax -

Josh has talked about building a DAC but hasn't got to it yet. Hopefully he'll soon have the preamp finished to go with the amps I got from him. (wait until you see this preamp...;-) The next thing I want to get him to build is a phono stage... hopefully all DHT, S&B step up and RIAA trannies, battery filaments... should be impressive if he can pull it off. He was actually talking about building a dac and phono stage into one unit.. we'll see what happens. Agreed that a dac from him would be the ultimate (in my book).

Other nice ones:

the Stax X1-T is quite nice looking, the Zanden looks pretty nice too. Or how about the Wadia 790 Powerdac? those look damn cool.

-Ed
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