DAC finalist please help


Hi all,
hope everyone is doing well this holiday season.
I’m back on the DAC hunt and I have narrowed down to these different but compelling DAC’s.
Unlike a lot of you guys on Audiogon I’m not a millionaire : (  My budget is only 1,500 bucks but I think there are some good choices in that range.
If any of you folks have experience with any of these pieces I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.

I’m replacing a McCormack DAC-1 that I have owned since new.
I still listen and continue to buy Redbook CD’s so something that would be kind to those is important.
I’m trying to make the determination on overall what would work and sound the best.
NOS with tubes is intriguing as is R2R as is just a good chip set.
I’m looking at a Aragon D2A used $600 for redbook playback and maybe teaming it up with a Xiangsheng 05B to handle modern formats DSD etc, less than 500 bucks the two together would be just north of a grand.
On the NOS front the Audio Mirror Tubadour III NOS w/tubes, new $1,500.

The Denafrips Ares II R2R used about 800 bucks, or the Musician - Pegasus, new around $1,100.
And then there is the Line Magnetic 502CA tube, used 700-800 dollars.
I love the look of the LM and it's got a great tube stage, I definitely have a bit of a crush on this one.

I realize I’m a little bit all over the Map here, but again if anyone has thoughts or has /had one of these DAC’s I’m all ears...Many thanks and Happy Holidays!HG
grossman616
Hopefully I don't sound like a used car salesmen since I originally recommended the dac, but I may have a used AM-T3se for sale in a month (upgraded with solid core 99.999 silver signal wire, wbt pure silver rca's, and copper shielding for the analog section). I've got a Holo Audio May on the way. Double the retail and most certainly not double the sound quality. Very curious to see how they compare. One of the two will be up on usam by the end of January. Just thought I'd mention in case you were getting frustrated by the lack of used AMs for sale.
+1 on the British audiophile youtube channel

Also, I recently found this channel, and I believe that the following video is one of the best DAC shoot-off reviews I've heard: https://youtu.be/sCP63G8MYOI

First time listening to this youtube channel. He does a great job talking about the differences in these DACs. I once heard someone describe audio gear as a spider graph. Sometimes you can get improvements across the board, like when moving up in price point, and other times you give up some some traits for other traits, like when deciding between competing gear at the same price point. I haven't heard such precise descriptions for the trade-offs in DACs as I have in the above video. See what you think!
Like you, I'm all over the place in my search. Chip based DACs have been great so far, but I think the future of DACs will move toward FPGA units and R2R arrays. 
You could do a whole lot worse than that MHDT Atlantis post on USAudioMart.  
Chord cutest. 1500. Lights out awesome. 
Fpga will never need updating. Such a full, analog sounding dac. Love mine.