Best Vintage Dac??

genez and infection: sure, modern DACs have impressive numbers on paper. However, the best SOUNDING dacs are all vintage. Here they are:

Forsell Air Reference, Melos MAX-1, Meitner Bidat, EAD DSP-9000, dcs Elgar plus, Levinson 30.6, Theta Gen.VIII, dcs Delius, Sonic Frontiers SFD-2, Metronome C20 Signature, Theta Gen.5, Nakamichi Dragon.

Some good modern DACs:
Nagra HD-DAC (if you’re not on welfare), NAD M51 (if you are)

I would highly recommend looking for Audio-gd DAC-19MK3.
About 10-12 years old now.
It uses the now unavailable  micro DF1704 digital filter and PM1704UK chip set. It sounds terrific. Very musical!
Good luck.

Agree on the Trivista 21 DAC. Wonderful sounding, built like a tank and the tubes last several lifetimes. I’ve had mine new since 2004 and it sound wonderful.

only problem with most vintage DACs is that they don’t play high Rez files, like MQA or DSD or 24/196. They play red book and that’s about it. Not an issue if you have a transport, and they will still play regular Tidal and Qobuz files, just not high Rez.

theres no such thing as a vintage dac. in hifi, vintage is pre-digital, pre-bpc. eg, the last vintage pioneer was the sx-3700 and the like.