$10k DAC in a 3k system?

@dla123,
Read almarg's post very carefully and try to make sense of it. Will probably save you tons of money on a nice upgrade DAC and you might be able to purchase a $5-$7k loudspeaker. Good luck!

A few thoughts here:
1. Nothing is "wrong" it’s your money do as you wish.
2. That being said and all things being equal, DACs generally display the least degree or perhaps the most subtle degree of difference. Meaning the qualitative distance between a good DAC and a great DAC may be substantially shorter than with other components.
3. If you do decide to buy a new DAC buy used. The degree of depreciation of digital gear is both swift and sharp.
4. Really sit down and think about what you like or don’t like about your system and where you want to go with it. Reviews can make gear seem super tantalizing trust me I know. But taking a more measured approach and spending your money the right way in the first place can save you bundles in the long run.

Good luck and I hope it works out well for you whatever you end up doing!

Having owned a audio store the sourse CD- Turntable  is very important 
If you can afford better buy a good dac , reason being if the clean signal does
Not reach the preamp correctly everything else down stream is Lost.
This too applies to quality cables including digital the AQ Diamond is plenty good 
I just bought s Anticable 3.1 Ref to check out s bit warmer  sounding. Let's see if better then my Diamond USB cable,if not I send it back. I got s great deal on s PS Audio direct stream new under $4k with new firmware upgrade .
Doing much better always eject card after down load ,I DID not and the Huron upgrade sounded crappy , now much more uniform and detailed. 

Hi dla123,
                Here's my rule; buy the DAC you want to hear. Because your ears are tuned to your set up, the difference will be clear. Buy the DAC at a price that you can afford to sell it for and not loose much if you want. It's the ONLY way to know if you really want it or not. (However,it may lead you to want to upgrade other components in time.) My first high end system was put together by SoundEx in Philadelphia (1995) with no regard to cost ratio. It was my Snell Type B's, Krell KPS 20i CD player, Threshold T2 preamp, Threshold T400 amp and all Transparent Reference interconnects (balanced). I never heard such a glorious sound! I never knew that music could sound so good. I have yet to hear better. Good luck. Joe

Thanks guys, jond and Almarg's advice makes sense. I guess I always assumed that the source is the most important part of the chain, as that is where the signal comes from. Jond's perspective is that the speaker is where there is more variance.  Almargs post I guess would kind of support that I guess