Looking for a DAC that has..

Have you thought about listening below that level and using a passive?

benchmark just introduced a new dac - pretty feature rich, though below your price range:

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac/dac2-hgc

Hi Srosenberg, thanks for the info on Benchmark DAC2-HGC. I wouldn't have known. It indeed is a feature rich product. I will be keeping an eye on this for the next few months.

My initial budget $3-4k USD is based on the assumption that there's a product that can replace my Pass Labs XP-10 pre + my current dac. But somewhere along the way, I learned that I should improve the clock jitter of the transport first (currently waiting for Empirical Audio Synchro-mesh, time goes by so slow). Once SM is in the chain and after I get myself familiar with the sound of SM+my current dac, I will be auditioning for a new dac. So far, these are on my list to audition in the coming months:
- Metrum Octave
- W4S DAC2
- Benchmark DAC2 HGC
- PSAudio Perfectwave DAC II (only if this is on par with XP-10+dac mentioned above, I cannot afford having both XP-10 and Perfectwave II)

@ Kzhtoo...

i've owned your preamp in the past as well as the Wyred DAC2. depending on the gain in your system and your listening levels, my guess is that you're going to have a very hard time replacing the pass labs preamp with any of these - especially if your system is reasonably revealing and you listen at average to low levels. these matters are SO VERY system dependent, it's impossible to know, but that's my guess. please post back with your findings.

i have - for now at least - given up on the idea of replacing my 2 channel preamp with a DAC offering volume control, although some of the empirical audio offerings look really good in that regard; i'm presently awaiting delivery of an Octave and Audiophilleo interface.

Updates:
I guess I will be keeping Pass XP-10 for now. I feel it opens up a lot more options in the dac search with a pre (with analog volume control). Plus I always wanted to experiment power cords on XP-10 other than my Shunyata Venom3.

Synchro-mesh arrived 2 weeks ago. Very very good purchase. It costs $600 but I feel it brings out a lot more $$ that I've already invested in my speakers, amp and pre. ECD-1 dac sounded a lot more glorious than before. Too bad, I didn't get to keep ECD-1 for long after Synchro-mesh arrived. Out of boredom, I posted an ad on A'gon and it was sold within 2 days.

I went ahead and got Metrum Octave. So far breaking in at about 200 hours. I will wait until after 2 weeks (of continuous play - 336 hours) to post a personal review. The comparison with ECD-1 has to be from memory. But so far so good.

One other thing, I'm intrigued by Eastern Electric DAC Plus with Dexa opamps. During my Oppo-95 days, I remember how much I was fond of wide soundstage and airy presentation of Sabre dac. I'm interested in comparing
Metrum Octave + Synchro-mesh vs. EE Plus with Dexa opamps + Synchro-mesh