Worlds best DAC

DAC's have improved greatly over the last few years, it's most noticeable from the highest end of the industry. Although the differences may at first seem small, the removal of many digital artifacts makes the overall event much more relaxing and musical, not to mention the extra openness and air that accompanies it.
Of coarse all the best gear in the world won't sound right without proper system synergy, including cabling. It's taken me years and more money than I care to think about to create digital thats comparable to my analog rig. I hope this won't influence an analog verses digital debate, the mood I'm in usually determines which I prefer.

Everything else in the system being the same... same room, same calble, same power supply, same ambinet temperature, etc., I am not sure how anyone can play a CD on a std. CD player and not hear a pretty decent difference between that and a nice DAC.

Once you take away the spinning disc itself, motor, laser pickup, power supply noise, jitter, etc. and just send data to a DAC and let the DAC do its thing, you will have a big difference ion sound. Not with all DACs... if you are still connecting to a DAC with USB, toslink, etc., you are missing out still. The LINN DS units connect to your network via CAT5 and just send "data" to the DAC for it do "go to work". If you are using a PC, laptop, etc. and a connection like USB or wireless to some other device, then through a cable, you are missing out.

My LINN Akurate DS will compete and usually sound better than CD players in excess of $10k. Not to mention that my entire library of music is at my fingertips via and iPad.

i agree with bflowers assessment of the zanden, but in its original version, rather than the current version.

the original had more of a classic tube sound. another dac worthy of consideration is an early version of the wavelength cosecant.

I would suggest finding a DAC that allows for opamp swapping. I have found that swapping out stock IC opamps for Discrete opamps (such as Dexa or Burson) really makes a big difference. While I still prefer analog, I have found that my digital listening experience has been greatly improved. I also like having the option to switch between SS and tube output. The more flexibility I have to customize the sound to my tastes, the better.

I have been invited to listen tothe Metronome Kalista Ref SE Thursday with the new Wilson Alexandria XLF and the D'Agostino Momentums. Will post.

Meanwhile, the more i think about it...the more i think hi-res has some ways to go...particularly on the music selection side. Since i already own the Zanden and have been exceptionally happy with it for the last 5 years...i might just look for a 2nd hand Zanden transport and be done with it for a few more years. While i think computers have done an incredible job of trouncing transports on a 'dollar per pound' basis, i still find the best SOTA transports (particularly ones designed to go with specific DACs) preferable to my ears. Plus, i am not a fan of trying digitize my whole collection...deal with crashing computers, backup files, etc...i just like to drop in a cd and push play and go back to work.