Weiss DAC2 or W4S or PWD or Zodiac + or . . .

I have been reading lots of stuff about the Antelope but haven't seen anyone mention "issues" with them.The only complaint is the $5 wallwart power supply which is ridiculous on a $2700 dac.

I own the PS Audio PW DAC and Trans. I do not run a network set (aka Bridge option for the DAC). IT's a great, very natural sounding DAC with little in the way of harsh digital artifacts. It will handle all bit depth's, sampling frequencies. I have found whether playing 16/44.1 or 24/192, the unit sounds best playing in Native mode. By selecting that mode, you bypass the sample rate convertor. It does allow you to upsample source files if you want. Bridge still has some bugs like gapless play for Flac files. They are working on a fix. Do some reading in their forum where issues regarding bridge are being discussed. What I like most about PS Audio is their product support. Even the President of the company responds to inquiries in their forum located here.
http://www.psaudio.com/ps/forum/viewforum/6/

The Berkeley Audio Alpha DAC is another worthy of consideration.

I still haven't decided. Was leaning heavily toward the PWD but interestingly the shop where I auditioned it primarily uses a Sonos ZP90 as the network streamer for demonstration. Apparently many of the employees have Sonos in their personal systems. As I mentioned in my original post I have a Cullen Circuits modified ZP80 that I've been using into my Benchmark as a "temporary solution" in my hifi rig. Since the vast majority of the stuff I listen to isn't available in hi-rez I'm thinking of sticking with the modded Sonos for awhile and if I do that I'm not sure the PWD is the best overall DAC choice.

The guy I got my Sonos from spoke highly of the Redwine Isabellina DAC with his only complaint being that it couldn't do hi-rez which was important to him. I've also been quite intrigued by the Audio Note DAC 3.1/4.1 kits but I REALLY wish I could hear one before buying.

It might be easier if the Bridge were a bit more mature but as of now the Sonos user experience is so nice and not having to deal with fiddly gear is important to me at the moment.

Bud, there were also issues with the volume control.

It may be above the OP's budget, but the Metric Halo is also worth checking out.

I've received quite a few emails regarding the Z+ VS DAC2, so I might just post my opinions here as well :)

Yes, at such price point, the Z+ power supply does look ridiculous . However, even with such power supply, it still manager to sound better than the W4S DAC2.

I now have over 400 hours on the DAC2, I gotta say the improvement is big after the burn in period.

However, the Z+ does still sounds more dynamic, more details, better imaging and smoother than the DAC2.

The differences become more obvious with 24bit music.

Just FYI, my conclusion are based on my following setups:

1. itunes+ Amarra > DAC2/Z+ > Threshold 10e monoblocks > M&D mini+ with omni-harmonizer

2. itunes+ Amarra > DAC2/Z+> Threshold SA1 monoblocks > Gallo Ref 3.0

Both of the setup are connect with stock USB cables, the speaker, jumper and RCA cables are from Connexaudio (pure silver). I'm using both DACs as pre-amps.