Best $200-$500 DAC

Hi. I found out that the SilverStone EB01 is powered by the computer, and as that would degrade the audio, I wouldn't be interested in it. I was seriously thinking about the Sqeezebox, but I have Windows Media Center and think that buying it would be redundant as WMC offers a very good interface for playing songs from the songlist, etc., although I would still need an external dac. So far I have narrowed the field to the Scott Nixon USB tubedac, Audio Horizons TD 3.0, or Empirical Audio's USB offerings. I noticed that he is going to offer his own dac sometime later this year, I may wait for that. (Empirical Audio)

PROREC, Audio Horizons would be one dac to consider, their products have had very high praise. They will also construct a special interconnect for connecting from your computer to their dac, for a modest fee. Personally, I love the looks of their dac best, but, of course, the sound is 1st priority. Sandra

I recently purchased a Musical Fidelity A3.24 from a fellow Audiogon'r just above your price range. It's connected to a Roku Soundbridge and MF A3 integrated and provdes great results.

i would highly recommend the pacific valve ah dac lite, especially at its price point. i have one connected via mini toslink to an apple airport express wireless to my powerbook and apple lossless files. bought it as an interim until i decide which higher end dac to purchase and i think it's very musical, not harsh at all. i can't recall significant performance decrease from my former cary 303/200 cdp though i never did side by side testing.

I think Dac-Ah is inverting - I don't want to have to rewire speakers every time I change source.

Can I safely reverse polatiry on a custom interconnect without shorting our anything? Using a TAD-150 tubed preamp. Ir is there a comparable non-OS non-inverting DAC out there?

Zhaolu DAC 2.0

... hard to spell but easy to afford.

From china, to find out more, go to http://www.headfi.org and look in the source components thead to read what all the fuss is about.

for the music