Parasound DAC 1000. You can pick it up used for approx. $250. Killer sound and very well built. It has Dual push-pull, Burr-Brown PCM 63K chips with 20 bit res per channel and a CS 8412 clock for low-jitter. Outputs 1 toslink, 1 coax and 1 ST (AT&T). I have recently upgraded but owned this same model DAC since 1994 with great satisfaction. While I am NOT selling mine (sorry), I highly recommend you consider one. I found the sound to be very detailed with great channel seperation and a more focused stage. This is compared to what I had before (an Audio Alchemy DAC-in the-box). Good luck in your quest!
Best DAC under US$300
I want to bypass the stock DAC on my mass-market Marantz CD4000, using only the quality Philips trasport. This will hook into an Arcam 6+ integrated amp. I live in India and am looking for ideas on quality DACs under $300 that will work with my humble set up. Gracias, Raghu P.S. I am anticipating grand improvements via this? Do I really need to spend a lot more?