A DAC that can make digital sound analog?

depth of soundstage is compressed, the glass between me and ‘the event’ seems thicker and performers more pressed up agaianst it. glare cuts through at moments, glare also enlarges and distorts the scale of instruments....

I suggest you use reference quality CDs for your evaluation. Chesky Records offers one for testing system performance. Or use a known high quality source recording; it should sound spacious and transparent. 

The fact that you experience glare on playback points toward the shortcomings of your DAC or DAC/transport. The other flaws you're hearing may also be attributed to the DAC.

I feel like there needs to be some Cohesity between your system and DAC. I recently went all ATC pre/amp/speakers and tried the Bluesound and absolutely hated the sound. My wife nailed it by saying it was so bright it was obnoxious. I pulled out my old Slimdevices Transporter with the AKM4396 DAC and it does a great job converting to analog. Throw a hi-Rez file at it and it is like a warm drink on a winter day. 
I can tell I will need to audition future DACs on my system or it will be an expensive case of musical chairs.

Fwiw, I prefer 24 bit files via my Ayre QB-9 to my vinyl rig (Kenwood 500 with Benz Micro and Ayre PX-5 phono).

Can you share your full digital chain Beetle? 

OP, 

I had the same issue and question on two threads. I see splenty of great recommendations above. I seriously considered 3 of them. Unltimately I went with a Doge 7 tube DAC.  I’m not a pro reviewer and so much of this is subjective so I can’t tell you it’s a panacea. But it has gotten me very very close to my vinyl rig. 

My vinyl is played through a Technics 1200GAE with an ART9 MC cartridges, fed to a Manley Chinook—if that gives any indication of my analogue quality.