How do you make a final decision on a DAC

Even the reference DACs that are not mentioned here can be upgraded with better parts.  Just finished upgrading a $40K DAC and it was a pretty big improvement in frequency extension, speed, clarity, dimension, separation, etc.

Depends on what you are looking for.

Happy Listening.

Your budget will determine what dac is on your shortlist .

my rule of thumb is $5-6k is for most a reference quality dac such as 

the new Denafrips Terminstor-2, or Rockna , or Holo Springs KTE msy dac 

or Bricasti 3 dac streamer , that being said there’s respectable dacs like the Denafrips Aries2 dac for under $1k that is very good ,Schitt audio, Topping for a small example.and plenty of excellent davs over $6k ,

digital is well over $100 k if you want to spend that ,just as many justify 

 multi $$ 1,000s on a turntable  !!

Why don’t you wait until your new equipment arrives, you set it all up, and you both settle in before you start upgrading? As others have said, the Benchmark DAC is pretty good. It may well be good enough.

The biggest thing is to be able to demo or at least have an at home trial from one of the online vendors.  I ended up listening to a bunch of different DACs before deciding on the Simaudio Moon 280d.  I wanted something brighter to offset my very warm sounding system and can also function as a high quality streamer.  The Moon fit my requirements and sounded amazing.  

I agree with the above poster that there are really no shortcuts when it comes to digital audio, i.e. DACs.  I went from the DAC in a $168 DAC/Amp to a $99 standalone DAC to a $360 model to a $3500 unit to my current $11,000 DAC and there was an improvement with each step, so you usually get what you pay for.  That being said, I was surprised at how close in sound the $3500 DAC was to the $11,000 unit, so I guess Stereophile was correct when they described the ever-increasing importance of the ever-decreasing difference.  When you think about it, getting what you pay for is really intuitive.  DACs generally have two sections:  digital and analog.  For digital, better processors, filters, power supplies, and other components cost more and sound better.  Same with analog:  larger and better power supplies, circuitry, capacitors, resistors, inductors, and other components cost more.  I have found through auditions and purchases that DACs in the same price range generally sound similar although there are some differences, but they are not great.