Hey Moonshot. I feel ya!
My one general piece of advice is to ask yourself every once and awhile: IF I HAD TO STOP NOW, WOULD I BE HAPPY? If the answer is YES or I THINK SO, then, Pencils down. You're done. The level to which you can tweak and optimize computer audio is going to be limitless. Because the rate at which PC technology evolves is limitless. High end audio is becoming more subject to Moore's Law, which has every audio company licking their chops to build DACs and other computer audio devices. Just as computers become redundant after 3 years, the thing to get music off those computers will also become redundant. So just remember to relax and enjoy the music.
Three other things:
* What you get out of your DAC is also dependent on the rest of the chain. If you don't have a system that's capable of picking up what your DAC is putting down, then spending a lot of dough doesn't make sense. I agree with advice you've been given that the higher priced you go the more nuanced/smaller the differences get. But that can be said for a lot of things in high end audio. I have the Ayre DAC, and to my ears, I couldn't do better without tripling the budget. And in that price range, there are many other audio things I'd rather put money into.
* What kind of files you have are important. If you have large number of lossy files, then that's going to play into your choice. Some DACs are not kind to crappy files.
* To that end, I would take a serious look at the Peachtree Audio stuff. For the money I preferred their sound over the Musical Fidelity DAC.
My one general piece of advice is to ask yourself every once and awhile: IF I HAD TO STOP NOW, WOULD I BE HAPPY? If the answer is YES or I THINK SO, then, Pencils down. You're done. The level to which you can tweak and optimize computer audio is going to be limitless. Because the rate at which PC technology evolves is limitless. High end audio is becoming more subject to Moore's Law, which has every audio company licking their chops to build DACs and other computer audio devices. Just as computers become redundant after 3 years, the thing to get music off those computers will also become redundant. So just remember to relax and enjoy the music.
Three other things:
* What you get out of your DAC is also dependent on the rest of the chain. If you don't have a system that's capable of picking up what your DAC is putting down, then spending a lot of dough doesn't make sense. I agree with advice you've been given that the higher priced you go the more nuanced/smaller the differences get. But that can be said for a lot of things in high end audio. I have the Ayre DAC, and to my ears, I couldn't do better without tripling the budget. And in that price range, there are many other audio things I'd rather put money into.
* What kind of files you have are important. If you have large number of lossy files, then that's going to play into your choice. Some DACs are not kind to crappy files.
* To that end, I would take a serious look at the Peachtree Audio stuff. For the money I preferred their sound over the Musical Fidelity DAC.