Hi @barrista 0611
Streaming means you're ultiamtely limited to the quality of the stream. That said, my experience comparing my own TT (Simon Yorke S4+arm) to my dacs (MSB Select-II & Ideon Ayazi) using an external HDD rarely yielded comparable sonic results -- and, going against the grain here, both DACs came close.
In this regard, either my Ayazi, or a Benchmark or similar could do the trick within your budget limit.
My brief experience: I wanted natural-sounding instruments, clarity, and explosive dynamcis. No compression on large passages - classical orchestra for example.
R2R: I think that many R2Rs offer a romantic sound (i.e. naturalness coupled with a drop at frequency extremes) unless you go for the top of the line which are very expensive. IMO they will not satisfy your requirements. (My MSB probably would and you could even use its inbuilt pre as well--but at an exhorbitant price).
A well-designed, chip-based DAC like the ones I mentioned (there are many others of course) along with one reclocker or two (daisy-chained) will offer surprisingly good sound.
Streaming means you're ultiamtely limited to the quality of the stream. That said, my experience comparing my own TT (Simon Yorke S4+arm) to my dacs (MSB Select-II & Ideon Ayazi) using an external HDD rarely yielded comparable sonic results -- and, going against the grain here, both DACs came close.
In this regard, either my Ayazi, or a Benchmark or similar could do the trick within your budget limit.
My brief experience: I wanted natural-sounding instruments, clarity, and explosive dynamcis. No compression on large passages - classical orchestra for example.
R2R: I think that many R2Rs offer a romantic sound (i.e. naturalness coupled with a drop at frequency extremes) unless you go for the top of the line which are very expensive. IMO they will not satisfy your requirements. (My MSB probably would and you could even use its inbuilt pre as well--but at an exhorbitant price).
A well-designed, chip-based DAC like the ones I mentioned (there are many others of course) along with one reclocker or two (daisy-chained) will offer surprisingly good sound.
