DAC - DCS Bartok or the new Berkeley Alpha DAC 3

@mgrif104

+1. Very definitely over fifteen years I fiddled with streamers of all types: PCs, $100, $500, $1000, Auralic Aries G2, the Aurender 100n… and quickly Aurender N10, and finally Aurenders flagship WE20SE… the last initially seemed ridiculously expensive at $22K until a few seconds in my system when my impression immediately changed to what a great bargain it is.

I have a Node2i, Pi2AES (roon endpoint), NUC (Roon rock), and Innuos Zen Mkiii. No contest, there are definitely improvements as you go up the chain. Look into a Innuos Zen MKIII as I think for the money, it's hard to beat. 

Thanks for all the great thoughts,  I am certainly willing to spend more on the streamer side but I need multi-room capability but I do not want to use roon.

I think simaudio/moon, naim and auralic all have multiroom.

Are there any other brands I should consider?

Just to be clear the Berkeley I am looking at is the new Alpha 3 (11K) not the reference (25k).

OP @efoo 

Both of your choices are great. 

IMHO, I think you should check out the Holo May Dac. It isn't a chip DAC. It is a NOS R2R DAC. I'm leaning towards one myself. 

Either Level 2 or penultimate KTE. 
http://https//www.kitsunehifi.com/product/holo-audio-may-dac/

Best of luck. 

I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I will never understand how some of you spend tens of thousands of dollars on glorified networking equipment (e.g. a streamer)