Please help me find perfect dac for me


Hello,

I am looking for a new dac, and i hope you can give me some suggestions. I find dac world is so competitive, and moving so fast... It is difficult to know where to "start"

Here are my constraints
- Budget : ~2K Euros - 2.5K USD
- No tube
- Pure dac, no preamp 
- Silver color
- Bonus : small form factor, 10" width (25cm) max would be ideal but not mandatory

Now for sonic, i want something that sound live, not too much analytical (i don't like when i heard too many details), large soundstage in width and depth, with neutral tonality
Here is a list of what i have heard / owned and what i did not like. (Unfortunaly each listen was with different system, so my judgment may be biased)

- Audio research DAC 9 : i love this dac, probably my favorite I heard, but way much out of budget. If you have cheaper alternative which sound like it and without tube i would like to know !
- Audio GD (don't remember which one 7) : Sound is too smooth and slow.
- Mytek DSD : sound is too bright and dry. maybe pro stuff is not for me
- McIntosh D100 : sound is flat. I just find it boring
- Lampizator DSD (currently owning): details retrieval is perfect, I really like the sound of this dac, except i find soundstage too narrow. higher model (atlantic, lite 7...) are out of budget. Besides i want to get rid of tube in my dac

I read lot of good thing about yggy, but i am affraid it may be too clinical for me, and seems hard to get. HOLO is black so i have to pass on this one ...

Any suggestions ?

Thanks :)




sphilia
The Border Patrol DAC. It's Non-oversampling and has a tube but it's not used in the audio path. 
PCM only is fine (95% of my collection is PCM, and i can convert my 5% DSD to PCM with HQPlayer)

thanks for the list will definitly do some research on each of them tomorrow (quite late here)

I had the ARC DAC 8, and replaced it with the Mytek Brooklyn.

The 8 was waaay too laid back for me. The Mytek is fantastic.

I've read reviews of the previous Mytek, the DSD and the Brooklyn sounds nothing like those. I highly recommend it. 

Best,

E
Chord Hugo2 meets all of your requirements or for less money the new Qutest but it only comes in black.  Reviews in UK magazine Hi Fi Choice.  
sphilia OP1 posts06-03-2018 7:44am
PCM only is fine (95% of my collection is PCM, and i can convert my 5% DSD to PCM with HQPlayer)

thanks for the list will definitly do some research on each of them tomorrow

Just be careful with R2R Multibit, do some reading/reviews/test ect.

Just because a dac may have this type of R2R Multibit conversion, isn’t an automatic thumbs up for magic PCM/Redbook sound.

As after that R2R Multibit converter circuit (chip or discrete), there is an I/V stage (current to voltage stage) and after that an output buffer. The I/V has also got to be a good one to allow the R2R to shine through and give it’s best from PCM/Redbook music.

Here is an AD844 I/V stage I started, an it’s been very popular especially approx half way through it’s 120 pages, when I started to parallel (stack) them up.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/227677-using-ad844.html

Cheers George