Thanks, Lloydelee21! Actually, I am not as dedicated as all that. I've been planning to move for several years, and have a pretty clear idea in my head of what sort of house I want, but the 2.4-meter high Acapellas just add one more requirement of a large room with high ceilings. This is difficult but not impossible to find in the semi-countryside here. This will also give me a chance to move the speakers in before the rest of our stuff, hopefully making them less shocking and more acceptable to wifey, who is historically not happy with my hobby, and whom I haven't yet gone out of my way to inform of the addition of the cute little Acapellas among our audio gear.
I looked-up Audio Exotics, and it should be a lot of fun. A lot of that sort of stuff is over the top for me, for example I personally really can't hear a difference by raising $500,000 speaker wire of the floor intermittently with $1000 little wood blocks, but some people seem to think they can and are willing to spend huge sums on such things. I saw loads of such things at the Tokyo International Audio show last fall, but also many things that really improved my understanding of this hobby, and some very tempting equipment as well. I am sure you will find the same, and have fun doing it. You should have some outstanding excellent meals in HK while you're there, too.
As for DACs, I bought the one that sounded best to me from among what was available locally for listening, but I found the sonic differences among the better DACs to be subtle, and my feeling is that computer audio is very young and like other areas of computer technology we will see huge improvements very fast at ever-lowering prices, so there is no hurry to run out and get one, because like computers and other peripherals, if you wait a few months there will probably be something twice as good for half the price.
I want to thank everyone on this thread again for your advice, which really rounded-out my fundamental understanding of several basic aspects of audio, while providing a means by which I could clarify my own tastes and desires, and launched me on my way to whatever my next level will be.
