DAC upgrade

Thank you all. I will certainly try to audition the Benchmark and the Denafrips dacs.

@malacka

I have no statement on whether the Deanfrips will sound better or not (spec wise the Benchmark wins), but Denafrips has some business practices that I don’t like, such as not stating what DAC chips they use and even going as far as to scratch off the labels (photo is of the internals of their Terminator, which I am pretty sure uses the AKM 4493), whereas a lot of the Chi-Fi brands (and some American/European) even go as far to show the measurements they achieve with AP gear, just showing how confident they are in the products, that they not only hide nothing, but also let’s you see the performance. Even Schiit shows measurements of their new Modi 3.

Ayre Codex. Can be purchased "pre-owned" for around 1K. Transparent sound, great resolution without sounding etched. 

I wonder if you even need to spend your full budget to achieve hapiness.

I was searching for a tubed DAC to add to my solid state system over the last few months and considered the Jolida for its attractive price. While reading some of the other forums, I came across many positive reviews for the Musical Paradise MP-D2.
They were just getting ready to release the MK3 version and had a really great Black Friday deal on the MK2 model, so I jumped on it. 

The beauty of the design (if you have the rack space for it) is that it's offered with a choice of 3 dac chips, is tube rectified, and has 4 tubes in the analog output stage. Output caps are also hand swappable since they're connected with binding posts.

All of this variability will allow for a lot of tuning (if you're into tweaking). If you're a set and forget type, this might not be the DAC for you. But, the ability to tune with tube and cap upgrades could be less expensive then riding on the DAC merry go round.

I landed at the AKM4497 chip, NOS BEL E88CC tubes, and Psvane 5U4G rectifier for an all in price around $1100.  The stock tubes are pretty terrible...I would consider aftermarket tubes a neccesity.

If you're dead set on spending the full budget a used Lampizator would be worth looking into.

Tube DACs aside, IMO the best values in quality DACs are those available by direct import from Asia.  If you're interested you need to take time to do a lot of research on many forums as well as this one.  The information is out there.