iDAC

The Peachtree Audio iDAC was one of our favorite DACs at anywhere near $999. In addition to sounding great it has a digital-direct iPod dock that allows an iPod, iPhone and iPod Touch to connect digitally right to the iDAC without going thru the iPod's analog circuitry. This allows Internet-direct payback of virtually all radio stations as well as sites like Pandora and Rhapsody. We have compared the iDAC to DACs selling for twice its price and it holds its own. Even without the iDock it is superb and one of our our favorites at its price.

It features a 32-bit Sabre DAC to dramatically lower jitter on all sources. There are 5 digital inputs in addition to the dock. There are 2 coaxial, 2 optical and one 24/96 USB input to play back high-resolution downloads. Hook up any CD player or inexpensive DVD player for a superb digital playback system ready for the new hi-rez computer downloads. There are transformer-coupled digital inputs and the USB input is galvanically isolated to reduce ground noise from the computer's switching power supply. These are very important features many DACs omit. We love this DAC and have designed a mod to make it compete with DACs that sell for over $3000.

The following details our Level-1 mod to the iDAC [$750 retrofit + freight]. The mod was designed by Chris Johnson, founder and former president of Sonic Frontiers:

• 1 x pair of Vampire gold-over-copper RCA jacks 
• 26 x Elna RFS–Silmic II series and Nichikon KZ–Muse audio-grade electrolytic coupling capacitors in the output stage and power supply. These are all super low ESL & ESR.
• 2 x Burr-Brown OPA-627AU op amp (regarded as the best IC monolithic op amp made) replace the stock dual opamp. These are soldered to a custom dual DIP adapter.
• 10 feet of WBT solder
• The mod takes 3.5 hours of labor 

Sonic improvements with the Level-1 mod are amazing:
Bass and dynamics are dramatically improved. It is now smoother (caps), more transparent (connectors, wire) and imaging and 3-dimensionality are brought to a near world-class level.

Our mod takes this excellent DAC to a level that will allow it to compete with DACs that sell for $2000-3000 plus it has the iPod DAC that makes it a world class tuner with the addition of an iPhone or $200 iTouch.

The following details our Level-2 mod for the Peachtree iDAC [$990 retrofit + freight].
This creates more transparency, dynamics and resolution over the Level-1.

• 1 pr. of WBT-0210-Cu gold-over-copper NextGen RCAs 
• 26 x. ELNA RFS-Silmic II series and Nichicon KZ-Muse audio-grade electrolytic coupling capacitors in the unit’s output stage and power supply for super low ESL & ESR
• 1 x DEXA Audio dual discrete op amp module featuring 68 discrete parts on each – far better than any monolithic IC op amp along with a special vertical surface-mount-to-DIP-thru-hole adaptor 
• 10 ft. of WBT solder used throughout
• 5 hours labor