IS THE WEISS 204 A SUBSTANIAL UPGRADE FRON THE CHORD QUTEST

@Panzrwagn -  that analysis is based on the frequency domain. The time domain is also important.

I’m using a sonnet Pasithea and the detail retrieval is absolutely incredible. Worth a look and around your price point.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I used the word resolution to mean sound better. I understand sounding better is subjective. But generally as you go up in price the dacs do indeed sound better. For example, the Dac before my Qutest did not sound as real and as immediate the Qutest. DAC. My question was is there a DAC in my price range that would sound much better than the Qutest, and if so, specifically which ones passed your test for being a substantial improvement in overall sound quality.  Thank you. 

@kjl1065 I owned the following DACs after the Qutest:

Bryston BDA3, Benchmark DAC3 HGC, PS Audio DSD MkI, Marantz SA10 SACD Player/DAC, Chord Hugo TT2, Bricasti M3. 
 

All except Marantz (not my cup of tea at all) and Bryston (different but not better) are an improvement over the Qutest. My favorite is the Bricasti and it can be had used way under your price range if you are patient and keep an eye on the used market. I’d say my second favorite would be PS Audio (slightly noisy though but very engaging sound) and Hugo TT2. As I stated earlier the TT2 like the Qutest uses SMPS and the variation in sound quality depends on how clean your power is throughout the day. Benchmark is a good DAC as well but to me it sounds slightly cooler and dryer than the rest - you can do better within your budget.