Recommend a dac that contributes to system for tight bass

jss49 I appreciate your insight....

there is overlap between lower midrange and bass and perhaps my dissatisfaction with the chord is more in the area of the lower midrange but to my ears the chord is lean.

so perhaps my quest is for a fuller lower midrange dac....

in any event I never had any issues with the treble of the qutest nor did I think it bright.....

I have a very neutral preamp which is passive townshend allegri reference but no issues with full midrange on my vinyl setup and I am using solid state phono section .......

I previously had a pass labs preamp and found the chord similarly too lean for my taste......

I even tried the chord in my bedroom with a set amp and still found it less appealing than my current bedroom dac which is the marantz 30N.  The marantz has a better midrange than the chord qutest or hugo 2 but still not as warm and full as I would like....my playback designs mps5 has that better balance so my quest after all said and done is for a slighly richer and warmer but not not too much dac......alas I cannot afford a second mps5

The MHDT Stockholm v2 is great, clear, crisp and very enjoyable, especially with a NOS tube

https://positive-feedback.com/Issue71/reimyo_dap999ex.htm
Very good tight bass. Overall very balance. This was my previous DAC. I have replaced with a DAC cum Streamer T+A SD3100HV.

DACs are parts of electronic systems. It’s the design and components that are manifested and included in the electronic system that determine how a DAC sounds. Certain streaming decoding parameters require specific manufacturer’s DAC chips to be included in the product in order to realize the highest resulting resolution of data after the stream has been passed through the DAC. An example of this requirement is a system’s ability to convert a music stream from Tidal to its greatest resolution. Tidal’s MASTER streaming quality requires a DAC (e.g. made by ESS) that includes hardware incorporated decoding to deliver its highest resolution (e.g. 24 bit/196 kHZ). Software in DACs that do not specifically include hardware incorporated decoding will only be able to deliver a 16 bit/44.2 kHZ file for the same Tidal MASTER stream. Tidal’s MASTER stream is proprietary. Other streaming services (e.g. Qobuz) stream directly in high resolution (e.g. up to 24 bit/196 kHZ); but require a device and/or software that doesn’t down sample the high resolution stream. The noteworthy example of this is Apple. Unless you you install a subscription service to circumvent Apple’s hardware and software, a music file that is streamed to an Apple Mac, iPad or iPhone will be down sampled to 16 bit/44.1 kHZ. I stream Hi Resolution files from Qobuz directly from my router to a Lindemann Network streamer, which decodes streaming and outputs line level source to my preamp. The Lindemann’s DACs (two, in parallel, operating in mono, and delivering a stereo line output) are not able to decode a Tidal MASTER file to a greater resolution than 16 bits/44.1 kHZ; but they yield gorgeous high bit perfect streams up to 24 bit/196 kHZ as streamed over my slow-as-a-turtle internet download speed of 14 MBs. Some readers may remark that no one can hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24 bit streaming files. My ears are 67-years old. The qualitative difference between HiRes and LoRes is immediately apparent - if you have a sound system that will render the difference.