High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.

The Benchmark DAC3 L and Chord Qutest are both more transparent. Now, you may not like hearing what your music sounds like, you may want distortion or coloration, in that case I would look at tube DACs or some poor measuring DACs from Audio-GD or similar. But if you want to hear the music as recorded, the DAC3 L and Qutest are the best for the ~$2000 price range.

nickecb, i agree with mzkmxcv on these two DACs on my short list as well -- so are the Mytek Brooklyn and iFi Audio Pro iDSD.  Depending on unit/config some are slightly above the $2k range but probably still worth a listen.

@bri14mac 
 
I would only get the Mytek if you want MQA. I don’t see any technical benefit from it, so I don’t need such a feature. The iFi has a ton of THD & IMD.

I would only get the Mytek if you want MQA.

I have a Mytek. It sounds fantastic, and I never use the MQA feature. I don't feel it changes my cost/benefit equation. It's still a fabulous DAC for the feature set.

We own close to 2,000 CD's which we haven't been listening to for years--mainly because we were falling back into vinyl and it was a pain to get a flashlight to search the bookcases for specific CD's. My wake up call that DAC's had come a long way was after purchasing a Bluesound Vault 2i, mainly to archive all of the CD's. I have about 1300 ripped so far (as native resolution flacs). I set up an Intel NUC running the Roon Rock OS and the Vault connected to my Audio Research preamp with Transparent Audio interconnects. After being blown away by listening to just a few of the flac files I realized that the 6-year old DAC just didn't have the mojo the new ones do. Now digital and vinyl are enjoyed at about 50-50 rate. It's like getting all new CD's.

@erik_squires  
 
The Mytek DACs aren’t bad, they are better than average, it’s just the DAC3 and Qutest are a tad cleaner.