Performance of $1000 DAC's

I once had a Bel Canto Dac1...it was well under $1K used, and it was most definitely not thin-sounding - in fact it was a joy to listen to, and one of the best value pieces I've owned.

I would presume that at the $1K pricepoint, there will be compromises made...if you want high detail, you'll give up a bit of body...if you want a liquid midrange, you'll give up a bit of detail, etc. It's all about system matching - you just don't wanna go too far in one direction.

Going up in price will yield units that will work with a wider variety of equipment (and obviously sound better for the most part, as long as you buy a well-respected unit), but I am of the belief that anybody's system should be able to accomodate a $1K DAC quite nicely. It's just a matter of which $1K DAC.

Brianmgrarcom, I have been wracking my memory to see if I can be of any use and I come up with this. I am presently using an Esoteric P-10 transport with an Atlas Opus cable (1.5m) and a battery-powered Apogee Mini-DAC. This DAC with a battery PS would sell in the $1K range.

Now I think way back to the first time I heard a P-10. Thanks to a very generous pal, I was comparing four digital sources: an Ensemble Dirondo/Dichrono, the P-10 with an Apogee DA-2000, a TEAC T1 with an Apogee DA-1000E-20 and a Shanling CD-T100.

The order I've listed them in was the order in which I perceived their quality. The top two were very close (in the top 3 I'd heard up till then with the Linn CD12), and now I am trying to recall that experience so I can give a rough idea of how my present setup compares to those.

I would say that the Mini-DAC on a battery is very surprising. With a P-10 it would take the middle spot in the lineup above, and perhaps sit very close to the second. My impression is of a bit less liveliness and punch than the DA-1000E, but also less congestion on complex passages, and more openness and air.

For tone and body, all five of the sources did very well. I wouldn't call any of them thin-sounding.

Why would thin sounding be correlated with price?

I just acquired a Modwright Sony NS 999ES with the Platinum Truth Mods, Signal Cable umbilical cord and NOS Mullard rectifier and Tung Sol 5881s, and it is just simply a truly amazing player. That being said, I still have my Bel Canto DAC 2 and Benchmark 1 DAC that I have directly compared to the Modwright 999es and while not completely its equal both are phenomenal for their price points and definitely in no way thin. Until I got the Modwright the above two DACs were by far the best digital I have had in my system.