Looking for a DAC for the Squeezebox Touch

Take a look at the Audio Note. A 1.1 in your range or a 2.1 at slightly more.

They pair great with the Squeezebox and offer as much of what's valued in analog as I've heard in a digital front end.

Ronrags,

I am also after a DAC to pair with my Touch, but funds don't allow to make a move yet. However, I am very interested in the Metrum Octave. It's just under $1k. Has only a coax and an optical input (dealbreaker for some). It's a non-oversampling DAC, with a totally different topography compared to most DACs. Take a look at the 6moons review, and from the Metrum website you can also access a HiFi Critic review. Natural, organic sound is what most people report (reviews and users). I'm really interested in this one.

BTW, Steve at Empirical Audio is working on a new device designed to be placed between the Touch and a DAC, that allegedly handles jitter from the Touch and should be an improvement. That's another device that caught my interest.

Please keep us posted. As said, I'm after a DAC for the Touch too!

I haven't heard the Burson DAC, but I own the Rega DAC. Not a hint of dryness or graininess. Not saying its the best $1k DAC to everyone's ears, but it's easily the best I've heard.

I love my K-Works Superberry DAC. It's a highly modified Beresford 7510, with two coax and two optical inputs. The retail for this is around your price point of $1K. The Superberry, in a local audio club shoot out, tied a $10K MSB DAC. I use it with my SBT and my stock Oppo BDP-93. Both sound great, but I have a much better digital cable on the Oppo, so it is not a fair contest.

Unfortunately, K-Works has no distribution, so you must buy direct, with no return option. Unless you can visit K-Works in Clifton, NJ, or locate a nearby owner willing to let you listen, an audition will be difficult. But this DAC is super-smooth, detailed, dynamic and about as undigital sounding as I've heard in this general price range.

Bondmanp, as you stated,it would be a difficult choice without a return option. I'll consider it but I need to do more research.