Some DACs I am Considering-Any thoughts?

@georgehifi just curious have YOU actually heard each of these dacs or are YOU basing your views on build and chip sets?

Got a feeling your not going to like what I’m about to say.

Heard the Soekris 1541, Denafrips Termi, Holo Spring L2, and Audio Note, based my list on what I heard and some of what’s used and implement in the circuit.
I’m not a believer in tubes in dacs, to me it’s a way of "sweetening" a dac that’s got problems being hard or harsh, at the expense of "lowering" other wanted parameters also, silicon does a far better "truer" "direct coupled" job if the base dac is good one. If not it will be much more revealing of it’s faults, and therefore could be sweetened some by the use of a tube used in either the I/V stage or output buffer stage after the dac chip.

Cheers George

1. Not familiar w/ the ones you list so I won't comment.
2. Based on other comments, it is valid that I don't merely shill the ones I own.
3. I would raise one question it seems no one else addressed (unless I missed it, then I apologize) but these do not seem to have balanced (XLR) connections? At your price range, it may be something you consider. 
4. Lots of opinions, but I appreciate MQA which narrows down your options. 
Happy hunting!
Dr E

I recently purchased a 3 month old Pontus before Christmas for 1K!  I was lucky and seller was wanting to move up to a Terminator.  I have a Node 2I streamer on the front end and the Pontus is connected thru optical out to a NAD 7600 which has two pairs of speakers including  Bose 901 VI's on one input and Monitor Audio Gold 100 5g speakers. All I can say is that the Pontus sounds fantastic even without having full MQA unfolding!

I have owned and modified Amber 3 , Pogota , Pontus mk2 very good if you can spend. $2800. Without any hesitation 
the Denafrips Venus R2R by a Lot much better built then any of them on your list.a 24 pound monster ,just a bit behind the Denafrips terminstor dac , very detailed and natural if you look at the build quality alone ,2 seperate levels for the digital , output  sections 
totally isolated over 240: filtering capacitors. DHL delivery within 4 days if in stock . Just do your own homework .

Have you considered the Mytek Brooklyn DAC+? Its in the price range and does full MQA decoding as well. I have one and am very happy with it.