I am wondering if we could make a list of DAC’s with EQ options. I know of two, The Wiess DAC 501 and the RME ADI-2. Does anybody also the difference between the REM ADI-2 FS vs REM ADI-2 Pro FS R vs RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE?
The 2-FS is a 2 channel D to A converter
The Pro is a 2 Channel D to A and A to D converter
The 2/4 Pro is a 4 channel D to A and 2 Channel A to D converter
For playback of stereo all you need is the 2-FS.
The general consensus on the RME is if you need/use the features, it can be a value, but it doesn’t compete head to head with quality as a pure DAC with others in it’s price range.
@Andy77 had one on his journey, he might have posted about it here.
If I were looking for a digital EQ solution without a computer, I’d be more tempted to using something like a MiniDSP as a digital to digital processor.
I do it in the digital domain with roon, as long as the adjustments are minor and you leave the ‘headroom’ management’ option off, i don’t hear any negative impact on sound, only positives.
The ‘headroom management’ option is only for when I’m tweaking the EQ. I set the adjustment to 0dB and enable the clipping indicator. This will show if your adjustments are causing clipping. You would be surprised how easy that happens. Once happy I disable it again.
Aside from the rme and weiss those are the only 2 that come to mind immediately, but there are more options if you get a streamer that has built in dsp (anything with roon, dirac live streamer, minidsp shd dsp, I want to say auralic, sforzato, grimm might have dsp standalone options) and then feed it to the dac of your choice which will open more options. You could do that through something like roon as @esmse mentions, although I can’t really say much more than that since I don’t really mess with that stuff
One rule I’ve seen others use is to EQ down vs up. So if you want to 4db boost something instead of putting that up put everything else down. This helps avoid bandwidth and headroom issues. Easy to do if youre just putting in a shelf vs very intricate EQing.