DAC comparison

DACs have come a long way in the last couple years. No longer is it necessary to trade off detail/resolution for naturalness/musicality or vise versa. I recently picked up a Meitner MA3 that I feel does a superb job at both: https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2022/07/08/meitner-ma3-dac-review/

https://www.stereophile.com/content/meitner-ma3-integrated-da-processor

And is has a great network streamer to boot.

Roon rock core Intel NUC >optical lan>PS audio network Bridge II >PS audio Perfect wave DAC Mk II. Such an eloquent solution.. perfect I2s integration without the need for cables. The whole streamer DAC problem is the connection and how the DAC can handle it. At least in my opinion. For what it's worth...

Get an RME ADE2 and get a pro quality transparent, solid build quality, no nonsense German component. It lives up to DACs five times its price that have "audiophile" fanfare etc. 

@ghdprentice 

 

You have an amazing dac in the refcd9se. The Dac8 is nowhere close. In fact, if you heard them both in your system you might wonder what was going on at ARC at the time. It was a reasonable dac if fed a low jitter signal through spdif/aes but its usb implementation was ill conceived.

Aside from ring dacs (i.e. dCS)  I wouldn't touch a DAC more than 10 years old. 

How about the well-known Philips TDA 1541A S1 or S2?  Very analoguously musical even it can only decode 16 bit.