DAC Under $3000

Here is one I am eyeballing that fits the budget:

Weiss 204 $2,900.  Reviewers are gaga over this

DAC du jour. Gotta get in line now though.

The ANK 4.1x can be bought in kit form for $3k

and assembled for $3.5k. It uses 4 tubes and an

older AD 1865 chip. Very musical and detailed.

Good Luck!!

I've just bought a (second hand) Gustard X26 Pro.

It sounds fabulous at half your budget - but probably equals or betters DACs up to 3500, maybe 5000.

Wide image, incredible bass, dense and open mids, airy treble, great resolution. No ESS glare or "coldness" whatsoever, quite the opposite, in my system it sounds fluid and organic. 

since it is half the allowed budget, you can even add an external clock since t has a  10MHz clock input.

TEAC NT-505X is defintely worth consideration.  Nice built in streamer.  (also preamp and headphone).

DAC alone was a bit better to me in my system than my Schiit Yggdrasil A2 wrt detail and space.  Yggdrasil a bit better bass and perhaps dynamics.  (via iFi Zen Stream with ipower.)

Via its built-in Streamer, the NT-505X made a subtle improvement.

NT-505X will also accept a 10MHz clock (e.g. the TEAC CG-10M, which I use with my TEAC UD-701N and provides a very nice upgrade.)

I changed my Metrum amethyst Dac by an Gustard X26 pro, it's better!

I changed the Gustard X26 pro by an Audio-gd Master 7, it's really better and the sound is very natural, not natural with Gustard...

@facten :

Thanks for your response. I guess my answer would be that I am hoping to hear a bit more detail and spaciousness. I have seen comments in the past where folks have said their DAC allowed them to hear detail they had not heard before - "it sounded as if the artist was in the room". I have not gotten that with my current/past DACs. I realize you must take the whole system into consideration, but thought I would start by exploring a DAC change.

To everyone - thanks for all the feedback thus far!