DAC's Streamer and Preamps

@audphile1 I am listening to recordings that I know very well, and listen for particular things. I have listened to these DACs I mentioned extensively on a number of different systems. When I refer to resolution, I am referring to aspects of the recording that I hear on my system and hear or don’t hear on others, and vice versa. I have 50 years plus of listening to good stuff and live music, so my ears are well trained. I stand by what I said- the Yggdrasil OG resolves inner detail, soundstage and impact as well as any of those DACs. I agree that what sets the higher Lampizators apart from the Yggy is an upper midrange and high end that lacks the Yggdrasil’s occasionally too sparkly high end and that has a remarkable sense of naturalness. That better upper midrange and high end comes at a cost of 10 times what I paid for the Yggdrasil.

 I mentioned those two DACs/DAC series because I think highly of them. If Schiit didn’t exist as a company, I might have the LTA DAC or cheapest Lampizator. They are very natural and organic sounding. The pairing of my Yggdrasil with a Cary ultimate upgraded SLP05 preamp with excellent Raytheon VT231 and CBS/Hytron 5692’s means that my system is less affected by the slight drawbacks of the Yggdrasil as compared with those who have preamps with brighter top ends and hotter sounding speakers. 
 

I hope that you understand my comments now better.

@yyzsantabarbara Many thanks for your links and thoughtS!

+3 on Bricasti,   very solid build, excellent sound and detail retrival.  can be had with an all metal remote and network card.  I dont use it as a preamp but have compared it my Ayre preamp and its very close. 

There are two camps: those that favor separates for everything and people like me that like the simplicity of a one box set up. You did not say what your budget would be but I have been happily using a Weiss Dac 501 for three years and that has a dac, streamer, and can also function as a preamp The software also allows room correction. however this is a $10,000 pro unit. I have the Weiss connected direct to my amp. 

@brbrock 

Unless you have a high end sound card in your computer, anything is an improvement. @elliottbnewcombjr gave you a good suggestion.  Another one is getting an Audioquest Dragonfly DAC.  There’s three different ones available with the Cobalt being the most expensive at $200. From here, the sky’s the limit.

All the best.