Buy a $40,000 used DAC for $4,000 or a new one for the same amount?

I would  rather have a 10 year old 40K DAC for 4K than a brand new 4K DAC.  It would be a leap of faith but my guess is the 40K unit even at 10 years old will still be better.  I recently compared in my home a 35K DAC setup with a 5K DAC setup and it's not even close, sorry to say but you are really missing a lot with the lower cost setup.  I didn't want it to be true but it's just magic with really nice gear like that. Guys can kid themselves all they want that there isn't a big difference but there is to my ear.  Maybe some people jump in a porsche and think it's not better than a toyota so those kind of products aren't made for those types.  

I’d take a T+A DAC8 DSD over the old DAC no question.  The majority of that $40k you paid for back then was R&D that’s been surpassed.

To be real, I bought a 3 year old $10,000 DAC for $5600 and I’m pretty sure nothing can touch it below and many $$$$$ above that.  The right model counts. 

$4000 for even a modern stereo DAC is way too much to pay.
You can get excellent professional equipment at that price point and below.But then some of you probably believe that professionals and those who make the equipment they use don't know what they're doing, never mind they're the ones making the recordings you listen to on your playback system.

I have the Audio Note DAC 5 which has the newest 6463 tube gain boards. I have tried close to a dozen new dacs and none of them except the Berkeley are in the same league as this magical unit based on VERY old school tech. It is so dynamic, textural, holographic, extended with a slightly cool balance. Sure it "only" does 96khz due to the input reciever chip which is upgrade-able but redbook and anything up to 96k is just so far ahead of the latest units I have heard it makes me wonder where the hell have things gone wrong with the advancement of technology.  This does NOT mean that any old school DAC will be a wonder child but at the same time it calls into question the difference between high tech specs vs implementation.