How old is too old for a Dac?

@jond , I really should have stressed that entry-level, or budget units have had the greatest improvement. I’ve heard Esoteric and Naim CDPs years ago and they have always had superior sonics. My friend’s digital in the 1980s rivaled his analogue setup.
IMO, there has been a "trickle-down" effect of technology that in the past was only available to high priced digital.

@lowrider57 ah well that makes much more sense and I would agree in fact generally speaking I think budget gear, not just Dacs, do sound better than they used to. Cheers.

@jond , yeah, sorry about that blanket statement. I should have reread my comments before posting them.

Hi Jond,
I gave very serious consideration to buying a used Audio Note DAC. At that particular time the then Yamamoto U.S.distributor (Venus HiFi) had been a longtime Audio Note dealer. He was extremely impressed with the new Yamamoto YDA-1 DAC. He told me that you’d have to get a AN level DAC 4.1 to equal the Yamamoto.

I trusted him and got the much less expensive YDA-1. I suspect that I’d been happy with the AN DAC as well. That was 8 years ago and I’m still very satisfied. Your mentioning the AN 3.1 Signature DAC brought back that episode. No doubt your AN DAC is terrific! I did install Duelund CAST output capacitors about 6 years ago. It went from excellent to superb 😊
Both companies pay much attention to the power supply and analog output stage quality. Both also avoid using opamps in their circuits (for the same explanation, no negative feedback wanted). Both DACs have stood the test of time.Jond I  don't believe that it's coincidence that both of these manufacturers also built SET amplifiers.  They applied the same principles to their respective DACs with obvious success. 
Charles

Charles,
Glad you chimed in and its pretty funny I wasn't looking for a new dac, love the YDA-1, and still do, I put what I thought was a silly low bid in on an auction here and was totally shocked when I won and had a new dac on the way! So I want to do a shootout, I love the AN dac its been in the system a few days, it sounds a lot like the YDA-1 with a touch more richness and a bit more sustain to notes and perhaps a bit more tone color. I haven't put the YDA-1 back in to compare yet, the AN is so physically deep I had to put it in my rack sideways and re-arrange cables,  so getting the YDA-1 back in will be a chore for this weekend. I hope I can really decide which is better but I've always lusted after AN so we shall see! Thanks for the kind words!