"Best" DAC for a grand or less

how about refining the question to include only tubed dacs under $1000. The minimax is one. i own it.

the paradisea is another. any others ?

A Benchmark DAC1 could be your answer. I've heard, and have had, many dacs and love the Benchmark, as do numerous pro and audiophile reviewers. Use a good source and a fine digital cable, add an upscale power cord and use a power conditioner, and you will be rewarded with outstanding results.

I've heard many DACs at $1k and under. Not all, but many. I chose the Rega DAC. It was easily the best DAC I've heard in that range. Contrary to what was said about it earlier, it does NOT have XLR - in or out. Someone in another thread mentioned high-res through USB. Doesn't do that either. It does high-res through coax and optical though.

I owned the Rega Apollo and looked for a $1k DAC that would beat it for a long time. No surprise that the Rega DAC does everything the Apollo did, but on a higher level across the board. I haven't owned a Saturn and didn't hear the DAC and Saturn side by side, but by all reports the DAC is equal to it. A little different, but equal in quality of sound.

The Rega DAC isn't the most detailed DAC out there. It won't knock down the walls and ceiling in soundstaging. It does an average to above average job with that stuff. What it does best is make sense out of music. Call it PRaT or whatever you will. Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing is a great song, but sonically it's a mess. Sounds jumbled and thrown together. Not so with the Rega DAC in my system. I had to listen to it 3 times in a row the first time I heard it through the DAC, because I've never heard it sound so good. The DAC sounds like a great turntable to my ears. Not some warmed over and overly smooth turntable, but a great turntable without the pops, clicks, and groove distortion.

The Benchmark DACs are excellent IMO. They just sound too thin, lean, and a bit bleached to my ears.

The Arcam rDAC is great for the money. I don't think there's any competition for it at it's price. But it's no where near as good as the Rega DAC. Heard them side by side when I bought the Rega. If my budget wouldn't go past the rDAC's price, I'd very happily own it. Far better than the DAC Magic and V-DAC IMO.

The Simaudio D100 is excellent too. I briefly heard it, so no long opinion of it. It didn't do anything wrong, and was very musical. Definitely worth looking into IMO.

Just some thoughts. I haven't heard any tube DACs. I stay far away from tubes, as my OCD wouldn't get along with constantly wanting to try new tubes and wonder how much tube life is left.

Jafox--

No, dead serious. The question is whether you want "accuracy" or some other sound output. If you like sound coloration, that's all well and good. I'm sure there are numerous tube DACs, for example, that offer that. Extreme accuracy may come off as "brittle" or "sharp-edged." But it's simply a mirror of the recording, rather than an interpretation.

The advantage of the DAC1 is it uses the LM4562, which has vanishingly low distortion and noise levels. Benchmark has assembled the unit with extraordinary care so that the only sonic degradation is from the gain stage--and even that is so small as to be immaterial.

Chicagojtw, opamps like LM4562 use tons of negative feedback to get low distortion levels. Vanishingly low THD ( 110 dB) really doesn't correlate with accurate sound according to many makers of high end DACs, although they are compelled to have really good numbers to satisfy people like you. I have to agree them. I have a tube amp where you can adjust the negative feedback; up to certain point, negative feedback can be a good thing (may be up to 20 dB on my amp), but if I go higher, the more congested and thin the sound gets and the harmonic information gets lost. Now my understanding is some opamps use over 100 dB of negative feedback. The thin bright sound usually used to describe the Benchmark probably has a lot to do with opamps in the output stage. I attend live unamplified concerts and play acoustic guitar. DACs like Benchmark do not sound natural/accurate to me. A DAC with a simple discrete or correctly executed tubed output stage sound more natural/accurate to me. All DAC manufactures make components that measure very well (flat FR, vanishingly low THD, high S/N (usually >110 dB for most DACs). I really don't hear a correlation between these measurements and actual sound quality, as I have heard piss poor sound reproduction from DACs with extremely good specs.