$1000 should be spent for a NOS DAC or a turntable?

What's the rest of your system? 
What have you listened to(analog and digital) that moved you and made you want to listen more? Cheers,
Spencer

Then headphones and a tube headphone amp/dac. :)

Looking for a source, what is rest of your system? 

A DAC alone is not a source, must be fed a signal. 

Not having a record collection already, I would think digital.

Look into MHDT DACs.  

Or save the grand, until you are living in a bigger place.

I travel a lot for business and have spent months at a time in hotel rooms or long stay rented rooms.

Now, I use a good set of headphones and occasionally an outboard speaker.  Alternate between a MacBook Pro or a Chrome Book.  20 years back it was a CD boombox that saw many miles.  Foreign TV if I am desperate for background noise.  

Does the trick, then again I am working most of the day.  I am tired at night.  Will see live music whenever I can.     

Rich 

1) Some DACs that upsample take care of intersample overs and reduce jitter. A case could be made for NOS vs a poor upsampling implementation, but I fail to see any case for NOS vs oversampling. I don’t think NOS DACs adjust the noise floor when doing digital volume control either (I could be wrong), so you lose resolution unless you keep it’s output maxed out.

2) DACs have very fast diminishing returns, a $100 DAC vs a $100,000 DAC sounds magnitudes more similar (if you listen to them double-blind, level-matched, and quick switching) compared to a pair of speakers that are $500 vs $5000.

3) If you don’t have a vinyl setup, I wouldn’t start one now. Maybe down the road once you have your system fledged out.

4) For $1100 the RME ADI-2 DAC is probably unmatched, and very versatile with the EQ. However, the $250 SMSL SU-8 is excellent for the price. If you have the funds, buy both and return the one you think isn’t worth it.

@mesch 
 
He’s stated that he’s looking at NOS because they are more “organic”, I highly doubt he wants the coloration tube DACs add.