Need a DAC Recommendation.

Chord qutest. Brand new 1400. Fantastic dac. 

Nice to see I'm not the only one that finds the RME great bang for buck and a keeper. I tried the Chord Qutest it was nice but found it a little bass shy and hifi sounding. One thing I enjoy with RME is the balanced output along with rca output. 

I run a Audience au24 se balanced to one input on pre and a Acoustic Zen silver ref 2 rca to another input on preamp and can switch inputs on the fly to adjust to the sonic quality of recording. The AZ comes across a little softer. I run all settings on RME flat. 

As small as it is it responds very well to footers. 

Get the Denafrips Pontus ii 
Excellent Dac. I have Pontus with Iris DDC and using is2 connection.

Check out this R2R dac for $1195, it’s Very natural sounding 

https://headphone.guru/audio-gd-r2r-1-fpga-pcm-dsd-dac-done-right/

Hard to go wrong these days.  Features like usb input, balanced outputs, linear power supply, volume control options are probably what set apart dacs in this price range.