Best $200-$500 DAC

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