A moderate priced dac

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...

Mojo Audio V2 Plus 

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.

I got a used Rega DAC for just under $500, and have been loving it. 

I agree with Mahgister. Here's a good example. The AZ AV Club recently had their DAC-It-Out at a local audio store. The team in charge did a really outstanding job; meticulously set up with precise level matching, etc. Very nice room with $118k system. Out of the ten DACs, even though highly reviewed with impeccable specs, the Benchmark came in dead last, consistently. The Chord Qutest, mentioned above, was in the top three.