Best sounding new DAC under $2500?

The Octave MkII recommended above is very musical and if you can swing just a bit more, I have been very happy with their higher end model the HEX, which has an internally powered (not BUS powered) asynchronous USB input, better power supply, and is fully balanced. If you call around and push a little you should be able to find one at just over $3K new.

Roxy: Agreed....so agreed... lots of hype with the new chipsets, (mega) times oversampling, $1000 digital cables, reclocking schemes, de-jittering, galvanic isolation...etc. but in this case...simpler's clearly better... (the tubes probably don't hurt either ; )

My guess is that the Modwright will be well over $2500. Their new phono head amp is north of $7k

The BMC sounds interesting. Has anyone tried it directly into the amp via it's preamp function? The Chord Hugo is also intriguing considering it's raved about sound and MAC and iWhatever friendliness. They're both about the same price too.

Given I'm just looking to use this for a dedicated 2 channel rig might the BMC be the better choice given no power chord on the Hugo?

I second Dtc's recommendation for the Chord. I own the Qute HD with Teddy Pardo power supply and I love it. Previously had a Wyred DAC 2 (not the SE upgraded version, so that is probably worth a look as well -- Wyred folks are great to deal with). When I bought the DAC2, I liked it better than the Benchmark in my system. But the Qute was the largest upgrade (next to speakers) in my system (especially for redbook CD). And as Dtc mentioned, the Hugo is supposed to be better than the Qute in every way.