Neither. This is a purely personal project, and I’m using as much off-the-shelf as possible. The dac itself doesn’t have to be top of the line, just decent. The PCB itself I’ll probably just have printed, rather than trying to breadboard it or make some ungodly wire mess.

Some stuff I can get for almost pennies, like a USB-C controller and the actual sockets and plugs, so this is a non-concern. The actual dac chip though, I’m expecting (or at least hoping) to find something around the £30-£40 mark, although this may well be aspirational. That said, this is something I can theoretically transplant to my next device, and the next after that, assuming I create custom housings for them.