Best budget DAC

All out assault:SMSL "M8"DSD/DXD $250.00.DSD/DXD 32/384 off USB.
 Budget DAC:HiFiMeDIY "SABRE DAC2" UNDER $100.00.24/96 off USB...

Emotiva XDA-2 fit’s your budget $200ish and is very good.

With that said, I highly highly recommend the DC-1 at $400ish. That is not a budget DAC, it’s a top of the line DAC + great reclocker + top of the line preamp + headphone amp (never used it though). The bang for the buck is out of this world.

A few people mentioned the ZDAC and I disagree with that recommendation. I picked one up for $300 a while back and sold it after a few months. It was replaced by an Arcam irDAC which I purchased off Ebay for $409 (there was a seller in Italy who sold a bunch of them at that price). The irDAC smokes the ZDAC and there's no comparison. If you're looking for something you will simply enjoy listening to, consider a MHDT Paradisea+.

I found the ZDAC to be too bright on the high end.

I recently bought the V90-DAC and run FLAC files from a NAS drive via both Mac and PC. I also run a digital out from an excellent Sony CD player into the DAC. McIntosh and B&W Nautilus to give an idea of the quality of the sound. I did some blind A/B testing before deciding to keep the DAC. Conclusions: DAC sounds great. Brought extra airiness to the highs and substantially improved the depth and warmth of the bass - that's probably the biggest gain. Both from the computers and the CD player (you can run both line and digital out from your CD player and A/B test easily.) Buy from a reliable place that allows returns and try it out. I also blind A/B tested a high-end USB cable and sent it back - no difference. Regarding ripping CDs, use EAC or XLD and get bit-perfect FLAC copies. They should sound same or maybe better than live CD playback because of no read errors & reduced jitter, plus gives the infinite advantage of a digital library/player setup.

Schiit Bifrost Uber. It equals or betters my older Benchmark USB DAC1.