Is there anything other than a Benchmark DAC?

You might want to try the Wyred4sound 10th anniversary DAC It's about $4,500 US, great reviews, one of the reviewers put it up against his VPI turntable with a $5,000 Japanese cartridge and he said that the 10th anniversary DAC was every bit as analog sounding on that review I bought it and I totally agree, and it's got seven different filter adjustments on it and you can also adjust the jitter as well for your transport and they offer a 30-day trial period, can't beat that.

@soix Do you have any suggestions in the 8 to 10 k range (new) that you would perfer to the denafrips terminator-2? Anyone else please chim in too.

thx

Whoa!  That’s quite a jump from $3k-$4k used.  Frankly DACs in the $10k range are unfortunately outta my budget realm and not much personal experience there so take this FWIW, but If it was me and especially if I was looking for something different from the DAC3 I’d look first at Lampizator if you’re open to tubes.  For solid state at the lower price point used I immediately thought R2R NOS hence the Terminator recommendation, but up at higher price levels most everything sounds great so names like Bricasti, T+A, Weiss, Rockna, etc. are all worth a look depending on which has sound characteristics most closely aligned with what you’re looking for.  Hope this is somewhat helpful, and I’m sure you’ll get many more great recommendations at this price level.  Best of luck in your search!

Audio Research Reference 9 (tubed… wonderfully musical and detailed… in no way Benchmark like)… my personal favorite

Berkely Alpha 3 Solid state… neutral and natural without the hot top.

At $10K (as a discounted price), i suggest considering the Bricasti M1 Series 2, the Lumin X1, the Meitner MA-3, and the Weiss 502. All of theae are of a different league than the ones youhave been thinking about up to now.