DAC for entry level system

I am sorry that sterophile review was comparing Musical Fidelity M1 DAC to the Rega Dac not the $379 Musical fidelity V-DAC MKII.

The MF M1 DAC sells for $799.00. Much closer to the price of the Rega but still cheaper for people who want to buy new.

I just got my Rega and I still need time to really get a good grip of the dac as a whole.

First impressions so far this DAC leads me to believe that many of the reviews on the web are dead on. It has added some new details that my Marantz 5004 CDP missed ($350). Though clearly the added details are small.What it does do is add alot of body and fullness to music. Room filling body. It also throws a nice sound stage which is a big improvement over the Marantz on all recordings. Much less digital sound and the the way it presents music is nice and very cohesive. You can clearly hear voices and instruments yet they flow together instead of hearing things separate but don't seem to come together and make a song come together(Marantz).

I do think the bass is a little much. It does add bass that is not as tight. The bass was terrible with a cheap digital cord from Best Buy. A blue jeans cable has helped the bass and I guess a better cord would do more to help improve the bass. Note that I am in a small room which always held back my bass.

The problem for me has been to find a quality DAC that has 2 coaxial SPDIF inputs. I don't like using Toslink optical. As 'quality' is budget dependent, and given that you have a nice system , what are you willing to spend on a DAC? Are you willing to buy used?

Thank you all for you responds.
Mesch, I want to spend around $500(need to buy digital cable and power cord). Yes, I'm willing to buy used unit.

The Rega does have 2 coaxial inputs but would put you over bugets $50-130.

Another Dac that people suggested for me when I was the looking at the same price point used was the Parasound Z Dac. It has good reivews and you can buy new for $500.00 and try it out in house for 30 days through audio advisors.

I ended up going over my $500 budget by $70 getting the rega + shipping. A lot of the used DAC that were priced between $800-$1200 are still above your price used. So you end up having to strech a little or look into buying new $500 DACS.

aLot of good reviews for MDBT Havana (tube) but they don't seem to come up for sale as often.

If you would like to have a very musical dac that is inexpensive and fun to use, I would recomend the Jolida tube dac. It is about 500.00 new and comes with 2 12ax7 tubes. It is well constructed and uses premium parts ( such as Clarity caps). Tube rolling is easy and it has USB, coax, and optical inputs. It is so very musical. I use mine off of my Apple TV (mostly the radio channels) and my XM/Sirious tuner ( before I got rid of it).
It is a very good quality unit.... Very open in sound, good bass and huge soundstage.

My 0.0263 cents
Tubeears
FYI: I am using the new Mullard re-issue at the moment with fantastic results. The Tung- Sols are great as well.