Anthem AVM 20 or Integra DTC 9.8

I have the AVM20. I can't hear if the DAC's are in or out of the loop. If you feed
it Toslink then it is fine for movies and good for music although you may get
some audible jitter depending on your setup. I found it benefited from a Power
Conditioner (the only item I have that does -so certainly not a world class power
supply in it).

It does not have auto room EQ but comes with three programmable notch filters
which can be adjusted using a test CD and RS meter. The biggest advantage of
the
AVM20 is flexibility (a huge number of inputs and outputs and extremely
sophisticated programmable input gains and paths for every input - separate
music and cinema configs and excellent quality volume control). Of course it
does not handle all the codecs but if you get the V2 upgrade it covers most
what you'll come across)

I also have Benchmark DAC1 which I prefer for music. The AVM20 is fine for analog music but I do detect a slight improvement on a digital input using the DAC1. So the AVM is perhaps "adequate" at jitter rejection (good enough for TV and movies ) but not as good as a dedicated DAC for critical listening to music.

I can't comment on the other pre processors but I have read that the Anthem D1 or D2 is more likely to be more competitive with a separate dedicated DAC....of course the price on a D2 is in another league.