Best sounding new DAC under $2500?

Ml8764ag,
With all of the new "advances" in digital technology, it is so easy to be dazzled. Technically, the Audio Note DACs appear to be tired old dinosaurs, but the truth is in the sound.

J_fav, I see you went with Genesis speakers over Vapor Audio finally but picked up the BMC DAC from I'm guessing Ryan at Vapor? I think that was a smart choice :)
Those Revel Salon 2's you had prior to the Genesis 5.2's were pretty sweet too!
FWIW, I also like the BMC products and the sound from Audio Note is anything but old.

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The Wyred 4 Sound DAC-2 DSD SE with Femto grade clock is $2495. Has anyone heard anything about it?
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The Octave MkII recommended above is very musical and if you can swing just a bit more, I have been very happy with their higher end model the HEX, which has an internally powered (not BUS powered) asynchronous USB input, better power supply, and is fully balanced. If you call around and push a little you should be able to find one at just over $3K new.

Roxy: Agreed....so agreed... lots of hype with the new chipsets, (mega) times oversampling, $1000 digital cables, reclocking schemes, de-jittering, galvanic isolation...etc. but in this case...simpler's clearly better... (the tubes probably don't hurt either ; )