Can't help on DAC choices, but would like to share a couple of experiences with salespeople! By way of background, I live in Canberra, have lived in Melbourne, and visit Sydney a lot. In Australia, distance is usually measured in driving-hours and these places are 3, 7 and 10 hours apart.
One day in Canberra, my trusted universal disk player failed and I only had a couple of spare hours to find a replacement. There are really only a couple of dealers worthy of the name. I told the first I was looking for a universal player that could handle SACDs. He said "SACDs are no good, don't bother with them" and pushed vinyl. I watched him demo some electro-techno noise, getting him a cheap speaker sale. I did not bother to tell him I had 70 or so SACDs in my motorhome, and hundreds more at home.
The second dealership asked me about my setup, and said they had just got the new Reavon players which looked like Oppo clones. I'd never heard of Reavon, but walked out with one. I was in a hurry!
There are a couple of world class dealers in Sydney. One let me trial Krell gear on a full refund basis, even though I lived in Melbourne at the time. Recently they had a trade-in offer on Sonus faber where the full price you had paid on your trade-ins would be refunded. I called in to see what the gotcha might be. OK, the new speakers had to be at least 2.5 times the original price of the trade-ins, which in my case were Quad ESL-2905 electrostatics. I asked if I could listen to some candidates, even though they were outside my price range. Nothing was too much trouble. On my way out, I mentioned that I was really looking for some cheap speakers like KEF LS50s as standbys while I repaired my Quads. The dealer does not sell Quad, nor KEF but mentioned that he had just traded a pair of KEF Reference 1s on the Sonus faber offer!
Next day I auditioned KEF and other speakers at another dealership, who asked me absolutely nothing about me or my system, I phoned my original dealer to see if I could hear the Reference 1s. When I got there, they were out of their boxes, properly positioned and the music I audition with was already cued on the streamer. After a few minutes I said it was a pity they had to take them out of the boxes - sold!
In many ways they are better than the Quads, so I think this was a win-win.
A good salesperson will ask questions to find out what his prospect really needs, and a good prospect will help by being open and honest in his answers. I hope I am not being sexist here but there seem to be very few hi-fi sales ladies, or female buyers. When my partner goes looking for hi-fi with me, I have a hell of a job persuading salespeople that she is their prospect! In fact, one dealer won't give me a price anymore because she bought a complete system elsewhere. The dealer assumed she was a price shopper, but she paid much more to get good service on the same items. Come to think of it, she bought from a female!
