Outboard DACs

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller | Jul 21, 2024 | First Published: Jul 20, 2024

Hailing from the shores of Lake Constance in Germany, Violectric offers a wide range of headphone and combined DAC/headphone preamps. We dip our toes into its waters...

The Violectric name may be new to you, as it was to me, but behind the brand is a company getting on for four decades in business, principally in the pro audio field, where it operates under the rather unusual moniker of Lake People – inspired by the company’s location in the Lake Constance region of Germany. Like many an audio brand from that country, the company designs and manufactures its products in-house, and is proud of the ‘Made in Germany’ label.

Outboard DACs

Volumio Preciso Desktop DAC

Review: Jamie Biesemans, Lab: Paul Miller | Jul 29, 2025 | First Published: Aug 01, 2025

Streamer specialist Volumio claims ‘maximum audio integrity without excess’ in its first standalone USB DAC. With this elegant dual-mono chassis, it’s off to a fine start

The standalone Preciso DAC is the latest offering from Florence-based Volumio, which was founded ten years ago by CEO Michelangelo Guarise. With the Preciso, the company has opted to deliver a USB DAC at an affordable, rather than more rarified, price point. And while the congenial £699 tag fits into Volumio’s broader strategy of accessible products, it could not practically be achieved without outsourcing its PCB build to China. That said, there’s no mistaking the Italian flair on offer here!

Outboard DACs

Weiss DAC204/PSU102

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller | Apr 23, 2025 | First Published: Oct 01, 2024

Compact yet highly capable, the DAC204 may look like a simple USB device, but within is a host of its Swiss manufacturer’s focused engineering and precision construction

Today’s digital audio world, having largely switched from the playback of physical media to files stored on computer drives or streamed from the Internet, seems populated by products of ever-greater complexity. They may still be DACs, but they have built-in network streaming interfaces and often volume and preamp functions so they can drive power amps, or active speakers, directly. Sometimes they do all that and more, thanks to Bluetooth, Chromecast and even integrated voice control.

Network Audio Players/Servers Outboard DACs

Weiss DAC501 USB/network DAC

Review: David Price, Lab: Paul Miller | Dec 01, 2018

Packing a high quality DAC and streamer into a half-size box, this new digital converter also features powerful user-configurable DSP. It's a potent combination…

With this new DAC, for the first time in my design career, I have the chance to make an impression that has people saying “wow”', Daniel Weiss told HFN. 'Designed by our team here, it is different – but not radically so – to our earlier products.' He's being a little modest because the new Weiss DAC501 is more than a little diverting in any number of different ways…

Outboard DACs

Weiss Minerva (£3000)

Keith Howard & Paul Miller | Apr 17, 2009

As the tone of my reviews of the Linn Majik DS and dCS Scarlatti Upsampler/DAC may have hinted, I am beginning to see hard disk – rather than optical disc – as my audio source of choice in the near future. If you have been thinking along similar lines, your mind may have boggled at all the different ways of achieving this. A single-box music server solution is not for me, if only because for review purposes I’m likely to require a component rather than integrated solution. And streaming players are out because I insist on having multichannel capability.

Integrated Amplifiers Outboard DACs

Yamaha HA-L7A headphone amp/DAC

Review: Jamie Biesemans, Lab: Paul Miller | May 27, 2025 | First Published: Nov 01, 2024

A fusion of Yamaha’s hi-fi audio technologies with the proprietary Sound Field modes debuted on its AV hardware decades ago, the HA-L7A is a headphone amp with a twist

For a brand name that appears on very diverse products, from grand pianos to outboard motors, it’s amazing that Yamaha has little in the way of high-end head-fi – the company was a very early adopter of planar-magnetic headphone technology, after all. The HA-L7A DAC/headphone amp is the second product launched to address that deficiency, following on from the YH-5000SE headphone, which garnered an EISA Award last year and is a spiritual successor to the legendary HP-1 from ’76.

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Outboard DACs

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