[JohnR]

Anyone here played with / listened to one of these? Seems to fall into the Cheer and Cheerful mission. I'm thinking of trying one, since my DIY Nixon DAC kicked the bucket.

Couldn't find a website for them, here is an example ebay listing.

[jtwrace]

John,

Yes, I bought one and then modded it with the cap upgrade.  This DAC is really good. 

Mine was about 1.5 yrs ago.  I don't know if they've changed since.

From another forum where Steve (Empirical Posted)

The Valab is a simple DAC with no digital filtering. It literally has no output stage, just a stack of D/A chips. It is great sounding with a low-jitter input and even better if you upgrade the output coupling capacitors. For modding I recommend:

3.3uFd V-Cap oils bypassed with .22uFd Sonicap Platinums. These require some weeks of break-in BTW. This will be a world-class DAC with these caps. Not as good as my Overdrive, but beating most DAC's in the $10K range.

An I dont sell them either.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

[jtwrace]

mod parts:

http://www.v-cap.com/oilcapacitors.html

http://www.soniccraft.com/sonicap_platinum.htm

2 of each.

[PSB Guy]

I have the "Mark 1 Luxury Version" of this DAC, a newer one than the one in your link. It has an upgraded power supply. I think it's a great DAC, on par with the Promitheus DAC it replaced, for less than half the price. I love the sound NOS DACs give, they just sound "right" to me. Even though they ship from Taiwan, I got mine in about a week (Canada). Highly recommended and definitely cheap and cheerful.

[Mariusz]

I somewhat agree when it comes to characterization of NOS (non over-sampling/upsampling) digital to analog conversion - DAC.

Do not get me wrong guys (those pro 44.1kHz +), it has to do with preferences and taste then anything else I guess.
Just like tubes v.s SS - purely matter of taste.

Thank you guys for your impressions. 

Cheers
Mariusz