What's the greatest bargain in DAC's these days?

Shubert,

In live in CH and have gone to the Zurich and Montreux shows, as well as the Warsaw shows. German brands are well represented at all except Montreux...Swiss only.

Germany has some great brands like Fisher&Fisher (slate speakers), AvanteGuard, MBL, Bermester, German Physics,Kaiser, Lansche, Acoustic Plan, Manger, Lindemann,Back & Muller, Voxativ, etc (many I can't even recall), but so do the French (Focal, Devialet, etc) and Italians (Viva/Serblin, Sonus Faber, Angstrom, Onda Ligera etc). they all have great names that many have not even heard about. So yes, I have TOTAL respect for these guys...

BUT

For a tiny country, the Swiss are a powerhouse that punches above their weight. The NUMBER ONE high end audio company in the world is Goldmund of Geneva. The Swiss also have vaunted FM Acoustics, CH Precision, Dartzeel, Stenheim, Nagra, Soulution, Sound Kaos, SwissSonor, Illusonic, Audio Consulting, Tron, Eternity Jo, Vovox, Studor/Revox, Colotube, Rowen (only sold in CH), Boenicke, Heil AMT, Piega, LumenWhite, Weiss, AktivAudio, and many others I cant even recall now.

For phonostage, I cant see anyone beating FM Acoustics. The theoretical best TT of all the the LumenWhite Mystere (read up on it and see why its an all out assault on the SoTA...a bargain at $60K. LoL).

I planned on making Munich this year with a couple pals, but it seems like family priorities may get in the way. I hope to do a demo on a soon to be released Dartzeel product that will be surprisingly affordable and will have the audio world buzzing.

After this mini-treatise, I hope you go out and do a little digging and start dreaming in Swiss. Absolutely droolworthy stuff here. LoL

Anyway Schubert, on refelection this could be a good thread to start...ie the relative prowess of countries in Audio..Many have a lot to be proud of indeed.

In line with the thread, are any of those bargains?

Well, if the Parasound Z-DAC is as good as some of you say it is, it should
be a steal! And that Simaudio Moon 100D is also very well priced at Music
Direct. But just to point out that the really cheap one at Music Direct is the
v.1. The v.2 is also on sale, but it's $1150. :-/

You might want to check out the Arcam irDAC. It's been well reviewed. I have the predecessor to it, the rDAC, and have been very pleased with its performance and function.

The Arcam player that used to license the DCS ring DAC technology was definitely a bargain at the time but my understanding was that arrangement ended a few years back?