dac recommendations for turntable listener?


hi everyone, kindly asking for your dac suggestions. im almost 100% a turntable listener, but recently picked up a DirectStream Dac for those times I cant find the vinyl, its too expensive, or it simply doesn't exist. im looking for suggestions as im not happy with the DirectStream dac, its just not to my liking. its too sharp up top, too thin in the lower midrange, other than that everything else is pretty great. id like to get, if possible, a dac that sounds more like my turntable. I feel like I would get mostly there if the midrange was fuller, and the top end was softer. 

my current system is marantz tt15 , dynavector 20x2, icon audio ps3 mk ii, primaluna prologue premium, and elysian 4 speakers. 

the current dacs I was looking to switch to were lab 12 dac, primaluna evo 100 dac, lampizators entry model, or Merason DAC 1. does anyone have experience with these and can recommend them? 

thanks a lot! 

Anthony 

128x128palutena

@audphile1 that's very interesting, the only other external dac ive ever had is the denafrips aeries ii, I thought it was nice sounding and relaxed, but still lacked midrange body compared to my entry level turntable at the time with a 2m blue cartridge. the ps dsd is very shouty in comparison to the denfrips and my turntables, it doesn't have that effortless sound to my ears. the high frequencies are very sharp and I cant listen for more than an hour at a time. I feel like I always have to turn it up in order to get that lower midrange presence, and then the highs are too loud by that time. there is also a lot of sibilance with female vocals, going from sunlight to the one before it reduced this sibilance a tiny amount, and also going from usb input to optical also helped a tiny bit too, but its still there. my turntable throws a huge soundstage not only is it 3d but the images within that soundstage are 3d, this is where the dsd sounds flat in comparison (even though its soundstage is deeper than my turntable, the images themselves are very 2d). the turntable is also very effortless like music just flows out of the speakers (its really a hard thing for my to describe so please bare with me) and all the details are there they're just very smooth. the dsd is lacking that body and weight. 

im streaming from Qobuz mostly, and regular cds, as well as some local dsd files. rcd's are bluejeans or silver serpant, and power cord is ps audio ac5. I will look into the bryston.

What are you using as a streamer? Is it just the network card in the dac? If that’s the case it’s not the best. 
I had a pretty good analog setup - MoFi Ultradeck with Hana ML into Sutherland 20/20 with LPS and it was nice but it didn’t match up to my Bricasti M3 DAC that I had at the time. The PS Audio DSD DAC actually sounds warmer than the M3 did. I’m using Aurender N200 streamer. 

@audphile1 mostly laptop for streaming Qobuz, I tried Qobuz via Airplay just to test the optical with something other than cd player, and I actually preferred the sound this way. however its still night and day different compared to my turntable set up, I don't think ill be able to achieve the sound im looking for in my room by changing things like cables and transports/streamers. 

its certainly interesting you've had a very different experience than me, maybe due to differences in room, or perhaps personal tastes. I feel like your analogue setup of that caliber would blow away this dac in almost every way.