Battle of the Older DAC

And to answer the question that I missed above, budget would top out at USD 2k realistically. Came into this upgrade path wanting a new amp, but that is another story.

I have to disagree I think older Dacs can sound just fine and even really good. Older multibit chips seem all the rage and not much in the way of advances in power supplies or analog output stages so what really improved in the last 10 years? My Dac was built in 1995 and sounds fantastic.

@jond +1

These observations by Vlad, of Audio Mirror, make much sense.

OP: No DAC, by itself, is a silver bullet to fantastic SQ. It takes a system. And a system takes time to build. Stay within your budget. Take your time. And no - streaming is not simply 1’s & 0’s.

OP,

Most of us had a moment early on in the pursuit of high end audio where logic said something shouldn’t matter and the actual sonic difference was huge. It becomes clear that numbers and measurement only tell a very small part of the story. That’s when listening becomes the number one tool, and you spend lots of time honing it.

OP for around $2k put Bryston BDA-3 on your list. Also don’t shy away from the older PS Audio DSD DAC.