Best DAC ?

Nickodavidoff,

You are going to get some good suggestions here, but I would urge caution
when considering high priced DACs. "High priced" is clearly a
relative term, but I think anytime you are going to spend as much as you
might on a car, caution is in order.

My ears and experience indicate that spending more than $5k on a DAC
in 2014 is a risky proposition if you want to maximize bang for the buck.
Consider this: John Atkinson of Stereophile recently wrote that he was
"hard pressed" to hear much difference between hi-res files on
the latest $3500 Marantz streaming DAC and the $43,000 MSB flagship
DAC. He wrote that it was "uncomfortably close."

He is not the first respected reviewer to acknowledge the hair splitting
differences between DACs once you reach the $4k summit. I do not mean
to suggest here that there are *no* differences, just that the differences get
smaller and smaller the higher up you go and are often no more than a
matter of personal taste and system synergy. There is also the pace of
change to consider. I predict that there will be DACs unveiled in the
coming months that will embarrass some very high priced competitors: it's
the nature of computer advancement.

If anyone here writes that one respected DAC "literally blows
away" some other well-reviewed DAC, take that view with a very, very
large grain of sea salt.

People will have very justifiable preferences and you may find a DAC that
satisfies those tastes, but you really need to share what sort of
"sound" you like in a system. For example, some DACs are
highly revealing, while some are quite romantic in their presentation of
music. Other designers strive for neutrality. What do you prefer?

John Atkinson published a rave review of the MSB this year. I suppose the
$3500 Marantz DAC embarrassing the MSB in the same publication
*might* mean the MSB sucks, but others might come to an entirely different
conclusion.

But who am *I* to argue with the AUDIOORACLE. He has spoken. ;-)

In the meantime, it's worth reviewing the writings of Anthony Cordesman,
which appear in the Absolute Sound. On at least three occassions during
the past three years, he has commented in print about how close the
humble PS Audio MKII DAC comes to products from the much vaunted
houses of Boulder, Meitner and other justifiably famous digital designers.
Robert Harley, Cordesman's publisher, continues to sing the praises of the
Berkley DAC.

While both writers acknowledge that the Meitner flagship belongs at the top
of the heap, to their credit, neither reviewer waxes on about how many of
the uber expensive DACs are leaps and bounds better because (with a
very few exceptions) they are simply not.

You want to hear leaps and bounds? Spend $100k plus on something like
the latest dCS stack. You still might wish you'd spent that money on a
better room or better speakers.