PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC vs DirectStream Dac vs DirectStream Dac Jr.

The Jr. has been discontinued for over a year so not an option unless used and the SGCDand the DS Sr.are not even close and for the price difference are not supposed to be. With your current living and family situation be happy with what you have. 

 Are you saying the PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC  is better/much better than the Anthem str integrated dac? I'm looking at the Anthem or other options of higher priced dacs, but was wondering if the dac inside the anthem or pre would be my bottle neck. If a $1700 dac would "wow" you compared to the Anthem str, then I should really be looking elsewhere. I don't want to put words in your mouth, can you please clarify? I'm sure the amps had something to do with it as well.

Just trying to get a handle of the different levels of sound quality of the different pieces.  I've also been looking at the Lumin T2, Cary DMS 600, PS Audio DS Senior...  and trying to see how the Anthem measures up to them. While surely the Anthem will not be up to par, I wonder if it is 90% of the way there to save me some boxes count and cables, etc... 

Good luck.

Is the Anthem 90% of the way to the PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC? I'd say yes.  It's very hard to A/B compare of course so I would need more time to adequately compare.

I also want to see if my Furman power conditioner makes a positive or negative difference.  Again, very hard to do an unbiased A/B test.  I've recently heard that power conditioners can suck the life out of a system.  Which is why I'm considering the PS Audio P12 regenerator instead of a conditioner.