DACed and Confused here...

The Orchid is a real musical piece. The base unit is good but with the grannyring mods it in another league altogether. Well worth the extra price and used modified ones do show up online. A few months ago I tried to unseat it. Tried the Pontus II, Musician Darco and the Qutest. I tried and tried to warmup the the Qutest but it never sounded quite right. More detail than the Orchid hands down but also kind of uninvolving I could not connect to it. It was a sigh of relief when I put the Orchid back in my system. After auditioning the above DAC’s I realize I prefer R2R implementation. 

Hello saulh!  There are an enormous number of DACs out there. Most of the sub $1k units sound similar. I have eight of them so far. The used Yaggi sounds like a good move. I'm writing because you may not be aware of how important the cable is if you are planning to use a USB link to the DAC you choose. The USB cable that many use for their printer is not going to do the job for audio. Wireworld Silver Starlight 7 cables are available used at very reasonable prices. Furuteck makes good cables too. The best I've found is from Canada and begins (I think) with "Z." I can't be more specific because I do not have access to my gear right now. My home got flooded and we are living in a hotel for a while, waiting for the home to be repaired. You won't be able to hear the difference between units without a good cable if you are using USB.  Enjoy the music!

I have the rme dac. You don’t need an upgraded external power supply. I connected a good one and there was no difference. The rme engineers talk about not needing one. I tried anyway. There are lots of options on the rme. You don’t need to play with any. After a year I started to adjust the parameters and grew to appreciate them. I enjoy the dac quite a bit but can’t give you a/b tests with the other dacs mentioned above.

+++1 for Denafrips Pontus II 12th Anniversary, price is a touch over your price range at $1,820. Beautiful DAC with a slightly analog sound signature. Makes me want to listen to it all day. Eventually you'll probably add a dedicated streamer (plugged directly into the ethernet output), but the Pontus will NOT be a weak point for you.

If you are a "detail" animal the Chord works.....too bright for me, couldn't listen for more than an hour or so; but for some might be perfect

Wireworld Silver Starlight 7 cables are available used at very reasonable prices. Furuteck makes good cables too. The best I've found is from Canada and begins (I think) with "Z." 

Zavfino?