$1300-1500 DAC

Second the MHDT Orchid. 2 months in w/my new one, it's a love affair...

Used Schiit Yggdrasil. Hands down.

Thank you vougeot for your kind words.

I think most of us here learn a LOT from each other. There are also other forums with nice people helping and advising like head-fi. 

One of the things I've learned, and I'm only been a few years on this "hobbie", is that you don't have to spend multithousand dollars to get a sound that can compete with almost every system out there, you just have to spend it right. Of course it cant be done with a cheap system, but you don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars. 

Jim Smith, the author of the book "Get Better Sound", once said something like this: "if you have a nice system and you hear better sound at a dealer's shop or at a show, you have work to do at home improving your system's voicing and installation" and I couldn't agree more. By the way, I totally recomend his book and his articles about subwoofers installation.

Andrew, if you want a top dac then just hold out a bit more, or find a second hand example of this: Matrix Audio  X-Sabre.  I was previously using a top W4S dac and also the Oppo 205, but the Matrix Audio is better than both.  
Another dac that I would love to try is the Gieseler Audio Groß.  They are based on the AKM4497EQ chip.  

@vogueot i too learned a ton in this thread. The orchid DAC looked amazing to me. But I got a great deal on the Gumby and it sounds great. I have fully balanced tube preamp so I like that the Gungnir is also fully balance, and some of the cold exactness of a Multibit DAC is rounded and warmed buy the tubes. 
Dacs and tubes can be very synergistic