DAC upgrade

I had the Chord Dave with Luxman power/pre and Magico speakers.  The detail was excellent but I wanted a more natural, musical sound.  I tried a few others like T+A, MSB discrete-and then took a leap of faith and jumped into the Playback Designs MPD-8. For my taste - this DAC is really, really good.  It's much more natural-more analog sounding - with plenty of detail.  

I then A/B'd the Playback DAC with Luxman Pre, vs going directly from DAC  to Luxman amp. Well, the DAC directly to amp sounds better-very noticeable better.  

I’d looove to try the mpd-8

bthrb4u  I definitely recommend trying it out if possible. 

Have you tried denafrips terminator? 

It's your speakers...they have a sterile sound. D’Agostino is also a bit of a sterile boy.

Some simple fixes to attempt....

Get a dac with peq capability like an RME and put a low Q...0.5-ish Q bump around 1500hz by 2 or 3 db...see what happens. That region being recessed w.r.t overall tonal balance can bring you  clinical sterility. Changing dacs and cables for ever and ever is not the fix.

Raise the crossover on subs a bit (drop level if needed). With dual subs you won't localize anything.

D’Agostino HD Preamp, M400 amps, Aurender W20 with their Master Clock. Wislson Benesch Resolutions with two REL 32 subs. Great interconnects.

Have a Chord DAVE DAC. It sounds good. Still a little clinical and sterile.