A moderate priced dac


I borrowed a musical fidelity tri vista 21 dac from a friend and I was very impressed with the sound compared to my parasound p5 pre. This dac is over 10 years old. Has the technology changed enough that a moderately price dac can compete?Any suggestions?
audiomaze
I like the PS Audio nuwave dsd. I think they were about $1200US  when new. Now they are an obsolete model I understand. I bought a refurbished unit for $700 and am very impressed with it Performance and build quality wise it's a winner. Very robust and lively sounding. Sure one can spend heaps and get decernably better sound but it's all relative to system and your budget. 
Yes.
+1 for the Chord Qutest, fpga based dac.  Get a used one and u will b happy u did.

Choosing a dac is the most risky and costly and deceiving task in audio, more difficult than to buy an amplifier and some speakers by far....No review can be trusted at all...The price has less indications than for other kind of gear of the level of true quality in sound, the price for a dac is most of the times more and indication of research and engineering cost than of quality sound "per se"... And the customer pay for that research and engineering, it is usual and normal, but the research and engineering are not synonymus with the ratio -sound quality/cost-, the law of diminishing returns eat you all......I am glad I dont have this task before me now... Good luck with all these advice...
I went through this awhile ago. Bought a Hegel HD12 which bettered anything else I could find at the price point ($1400, IIRC).

Another one you don't see much press on is the Monarchy NM24 preamp/DAC. Look up Dick Olsher's review in TAS a few years ago. You can find those for a few hundred used now.

DACs seem to depreciate faster than anything else - I have on in a third system that cost $6000 new and probably would bring $600 today.