I recently bought a Dragonfly Cobalt Dongle DAC, which I use to play my headphones connected to my iPhone and Macbook Air. The DAC does make a noticeable difference to the sound quality.
I have now connected my Macbook Air and cobalt DAC to my NAC 282 preamp, to stream music. Understandably, the sound quality is nowhere near as good as my Naim CD player or TT.
How could I make it sound better? I would imagine a more competent DAC would improve things. Any suggestions?
It might help to post details of your system in your profile or put them in your opening post. Advice on a suitable DAC might depend, for example, on what CD player you are using.
I used the Qutest for quite a while with 82, and 252. Excellent product I thought, so good I had three of them for a while on different systems, all fed by Bluesound Node. I have no experience of streaming via Mac though.
I would like to buy an NDX2, but the 6k asking price puts me off. I only listen to streamed music to expand my musical knowledge and then purchase CDs or vinyl, which is my preferred choice for critical listening.
Streaming from my computer doesn’t sound that bad, although a better DAC should improve things.
The Bluesound Node is a bit of a budget default streamer and has a DAC built in. The streamer and operating system are very good but the DAC is a just bit average. Stick it with an NDac or Chord DAC and it really is a very good front end.