I think your instinct to go with Schiit is good. I helped a friend get his first high end DAC. It was a Yggi. In the process I bought a Gungnir multibit (for my office system). I highly recommend the Gungnir Multibit... it gets you close to the Yggi... all of which are simply screaming deals in high end audio. You would have to pay twice as much for another brand to equal the sonic performance. Check out the reviews.
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Just a word about really inexpensive DACs... you get what you pay for. Many years ago I poked around with a Dragonfly and a couple others... it was a complete waste of money for me. I finally bought a $4K DAC... holy cow... different experience completely. I made fun of Schiit a long time. Who would name a company that? But after extensive research and buying a couple... this stuff is the way to get into the high end.
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I recommend doing the multibit, in the long run stretching the extra $ is worth it. But if you can’t then the Gungnir is within your budget. It takes more than 200 (400) hours to break in... so it will sound good right away but not as natural and a bit flat until you get hours on... run music through it for the first month non-stopped and it will be broken in.
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Just a word about really inexpensive DACs... you get what you pay for. Many years ago I poked around with a Dragonfly and a couple others... it was a complete waste of money for me. I finally bought a $4K DAC... holy cow... different experience completely. I made fun of Schiit a long time. Who would name a company that? But after extensive research and buying a couple... this stuff is the way to get into the high end.
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I recommend doing the multibit, in the long run stretching the extra $ is worth it. But if you can’t then the Gungnir is within your budget. It takes more than 200 (400) hours to break in... so it will sound good right away but not as natural and a bit flat until you get hours on... run music through it for the first month non-stopped and it will be broken in.