IMO, the PS Audio DS jr dac surpasses most of the dacs listed on this thread. You get around 80% of the SQ of the DS sr dac for 1/2 the money. I owned 1 for 2 years and moved up to the DS sr.
A word of caution when people are negative about this dac:
1) ask them what firmware release they used. Every new release increases the sq, and the last release by a lot.
2) if they used usb, then get the cheapest dac out there because no dac sounds their best with usb
3) did they use ethernet or i2s input? if not, go back to 2
4) there is a long break in time, did the user understand this?
5) there are tuning tips to get the best out of the DS dacs and that involves attenuation settings and volume settings. Ted Smith goes over these.
Its been a few years now but when I was comparing dacs like the MSB and Bricasti at double the cost to the ds sr, the DS was far better with better specs like mqa, i2s, fpga, and ethernet.
A word of caution when people are negative about this dac:
1) ask them what firmware release they used. Every new release increases the sq, and the last release by a lot.
2) if they used usb, then get the cheapest dac out there because no dac sounds their best with usb
3) did they use ethernet or i2s input? if not, go back to 2
4) there is a long break in time, did the user understand this?
5) there are tuning tips to get the best out of the DS dacs and that involves attenuation settings and volume settings. Ted Smith goes over these.
Its been a few years now but when I was comparing dacs like the MSB and Bricasti at double the cost to the ds sr, the DS was far better with better specs like mqa, i2s, fpga, and ethernet.