Upgrade from ART DIO?

Tim,
Either a Sony 9000es or 999es modified by ModWright.
Get a Used player then have all mods done for around $2200+/-

After seeing your equipment listing I would suggest the following.

Get yourself a decent turntable, cartridge and phono preamp with that $3000. No matter how you improve on your digital it will still fall short of what you can get from vinyl.

BTW - I also have a modded DI/O and a McCormack amp (DNA .5 modded to near Rev A).

Enjoy,
Bob

Bob,

I agree with that I should get a turntable, and I am hoping to add one within the next year or so. However, I have a lot of cd's and I am looking to squeeze the most performance I can out of them so I still want to upgrade my digital.

My upgrade was a belt drive transport, have Dan Wright mod it and getting a VenHaus Pulsar cable. How about that? What the transport doesn't extract no DAC will recover. Simple law of thermodynamics...

The reason I say get an analogue rig is that, for a $3000 budget you can obtain a rig that is essentially good enough for the next 10 years (barring any cartridge upgrades that you may want to do).

With a digital change you may or may not actually get something that will be that much better than the DI/O. But I will guarantee that it will be outdated within the next 2 years, especially if the new SACD and DVD-A formats start gaining more ground. Today's really cheap units (< $300)sound far better than mid priced stuff over 3-4 years old(between $500 and $2000).

Personally I would wait digitally unless you want to experiment with modding cheap units for fun (like I am).

Enjoy,
Bob

Look for one of this:
MARANTZ DV - 12 S2
T+A CD 124 OR
ICOS Fado
PRIMARE D 30.2
COPLAND CDA 822
CLASSE AUDIO CDP - 10
MARANTZ SA 17 S1
ISEM Ego Phase 3
YBA CD 3 Delta
MERIDIAN 508

YBA CD3 Sigma or YBA Passion CD 400. They are both identical and they are the latest from YBA. A big improvement or the Delta Series.