DAC vs. Preamp

I'd highly recommend you check out the Ayre QB-9.  The downside is it's USB only, which is fine for your Mac - but if you want to use if to something like your cable box, it's not going to do anything for you.

Another budget option that I've used for years and still really impressed by is the Micromega MyDAC.  A steal at around $250 brand new.  It's a very impressive unit.

I agree with Atmasphere, I've tried to live without a line stage and never found it to be as good as with a good LS.

Congrats on the JC1's... I've also owned them for many years and am very happy with them.

Thanks everybody that has answered. I'm going to go with a preamp and get the DAC. I'll check on all suggests. Has anyone used the Exogal Comet. its gotten some good reviews.

Another option worth looking into is a DEQX unit. HDP-4 replaced my prior preamp (the excellent Musical Fidelity kW which I need to get around to selling) and DAC. Gives you multiple digital inputs, 2 analog inputs, and digitally corrects for your room and your speaker. Pretty amazing unit. And very transparent. I notice no degradation of sound with my vinyl rig running the DEQX in bypass mode (which still involved ADC/DAC conversion. 

Gives you unbelievable flexibility in fine tuning the sound of your system, and you can program in multiple profiles that you can switch between at the click of a button. There is a long thread on DEQX here on Audiogon. There you'll see the super-member Almarg has also gotten on the DEQX train. 

That sound intriguing. I'll check out some posts on that.

I've tried DAC only twice; first time with a PS Audio DSD, second time with the Bricasti M1...my ears prefer the sound with a preamp in the system. I currently have a Jeff Rowland Aeris DAC and Jeff Rowland Corus preamp. It's sounds much better than a DAC functioning as a DAC/preamp.