big_greg's thoughtful post is very well taken (though I'd not want to draw any inferences from the SQ from my Yammy HT receiver ;))
Certainly, a wide range of implementations could work very well at your price-point.
It does sound like this is early days for you, klimt,; if so, the first and best advice is don't hurry. First, shopping and learning is fun, and second, you'll save yourself grief.
(Eg., Fairly early on, I sold a nice preamp, because PS Audio said you could get better sound just running the volume control on their then brand new Perfect Wave DAC (thanks Paul!). I did this without listening (maybe I used the pre to finance the DAC). Turned out most ANY preamp sounded better in my system than the digital volume in the Perfect Wave, including the ancient ADCOM that had gathered dust in my garage for years.)
Second, keep doing what you're doing, and talk to folks. COVID makes it's it a bit more challenging, but if things open up, try to get to one of the Spring shows, where you can hear lots of stuff, and talk to lots of helpful folks.
And if you haven't already, do a "Any Audiophiles in [My Area]?" post. Not only did this help a ton with my system, and lead to a lot of great listening, I've had two good friends for the past 15 years.
