[Torq]

Update (5/11/17):

While I mentioned it in the thread at the time, I should point out that I am no longer pursuing this process - nor am I updating this thread going forward.

This means sending suggestions/requests for DACs to be included in the list is unnecessary. It also means that any units that are already on the list, but that I didn't get to yet, won't get covered here.

Edit: Adding this update has corrupted the primary table with all the reference information and links in it. No idea why, as I didn't edit any of that. The embedded markup is completely screwed up with a large number of redundant tags etc. I've spent all the time I'm going to fighting with it. Given the myriad other issues here since the site re-platform, I have no faith that it won't get borked again anyway.

So if you want to see the table, which is pretty much required as it indexes all the impressions posts, you can make use of this web archive link (courtesy of @landroni)

--

I already have one Yggdrasil in my office listening rig, paired with a Ragnarok. So far it is the best DAC I’ve had the pleasure of listening to, even compared to much more expensive gear – including my Linn Akurate DSM. Having just bought a Woo WA5 LE for my main music room, I am needing another dedicated DAC to feed that, I find myself wondering what else I should seek to audition. Originally I just figured on buying a 2^nd Yggdrasil, and absent finding something better that's still the plan … it’s a bloody marvelous device, but before I spend the money I thought it worth asking what else I should be considering.

Also, despite the Yggdrasil being as good as it is, it might be interesting to have something else as well “just because”.

On my current list to go spend some time with I have the MSB, TotalDAC, Chord and maybe PS Audio products, but not sure if there are other DACs I should be trying to spend time with.

It’s worth noting that I have no interest at all in Lampizator, Light Harmonics/dCS or the Merging stuff (since first posting this, I did add both dCS and Merging DACs to my audition list). And beyond that, I’m not terribly interested in products that couple $50 off-the-shelf DAC chips with $10,000 clocks, $5,000 PSUs or $2,000 network interfaces.

I’d prefer R2R (or some other discrete, unique/custom or FPGA-based implementation), though that’s not a hard requirement. I have no need for DSD – nothing against it, but my music collection is all lossless PCM.

So ... are there brands/models that I’m missing or have I managed to isolate the options already?

Thanks in advance for your input!

---

Please note that as of today, 7/25/16, (and, actually, haven't been for a few weeks now) I am NOT looking for further recommendations for DACs to listen to. In fact I will actually, likely, be removing some that are on the list but haven't been auditioned yet.

---

DAC List & References:

Adding the list of DACs that wound up on my audition list (subject to future revision). Color coding is as follows: Units in blue have been auditioned already, items in red have been removed from the list for some reason (difficulty of getting an audition, other discoveries about the DAC/company) and items in orange are in danger of being dropped from the audition list (for similar reasons to the items in red).

After each DAC is an indicator that shows whether it has been eliminated on sonic grounds after comparison to Yggdrasil (-), was eliminated for other reasons (~) (the per-DAC notes will indicate why), has some special considerations to resolve and I haven't decided on if it makes the short-list or not yet (*), or has performed sufficiently well to rival/better Yggdrasil and has moved on to the short list (+).

Items that I think are an "upset" ... i.e. probably not an expected result I will comment on in the individual notes and will, where I remember, mark them here with an (!) by the above indicator.

DACs not annotated with an indicator just mean that I haven't posted any thoughts about it yet.

The comments links will take you to the post in which I've written my thoughts for that particular DAC.

DAC​ ​	Indicators​ ​	Price​ ​ ​	Comments​ ​	Manufacturer/Product​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
(-)​ ​	$3,495​ ​	Link​ ​	Manufacturer's Site​ ​
(-)​ ​	$1,795​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)​ ​	$3,250​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
(-)​ ​	$8,995​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)​ ​	$3,495​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)(!)​ ​	$1,795​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(+)​ ​	$13,300​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)(!)​ ​	$2,195​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)​ ​	$4,795​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(!)​ ​	$599​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
(-)(!)​ ​	$3,499​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)​ ​	$4,800​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(+)​ ​	$2,399​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
(-)​ ​	$8,200​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)(!)​ ​	$9,300​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)(!)​ ​	$23,500​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)​ ​	$4,990​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)(!)​ ​	$4,500​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(-)(!)​ ​	$8,900​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
(+)​ ​	$4,799​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
(-)​ ​	$28,000​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
(+)​ ​	$5,999​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(+)(!)​ ​	$3,999​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(+)​ ​	$2,299​ ​	Benchmark​ ​	Product Page​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​
(-)​ ​	$11,000​ ​	Link​ ​	Product Page​ ​
(*)​ ​	​ ​	​ ​	​ ​

[td][/td]​

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[tr] [td]Aqua Audio La Scala II[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Aqua Audio Formula[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Auralic Vega[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Ayre Acoustics Codex[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Ayre Acoustics QB-9 DSD[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Berkley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference Series 2[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Bricasti M1[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Bryston BDA-3[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Chord 2Qute[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Chord DAVE[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Chord Hugo[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Chord Hugo TT[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Chord Mojo[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]dCS Debussy[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]dCS Rossini[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]dCS Vivaldi[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]EC Designs Mosaic T[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]EMM Labs DAC2X[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Empirical Audio Overdrive SE[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]exaSound e22 Mk II[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Hegel HD30[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Holo Audio Spring DAC - Level 3[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]K&K Audio RAKK DAC[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

[td][/td]​

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[tr] [td]Linn Akurate DSM[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Linn Akurate DSM/1[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Linn Klimax DSM/1[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Luxman DA-06[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]McIntosh MHA100[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Merging NADAC[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Metronome C8[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Metrum Pavane[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Mojo Audio Mystique V2[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]MSB Analog[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]MSB Diamond DAC V[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]MSB SELECT DAC[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]MSB Signature DAC V[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Nagra HD DAC[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Phasure NOS 1a[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]PS Audio DirectStream[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

[td][/td]​

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[tr] [td]PS Audio DirectStream Junior[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

[td][/td]​

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[tr] [td]Schiit Yggdrasil[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]SimAudio 780D[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Soekris ApS dac1101[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]T+A DAC 8 DSD[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]TotalDAC Dual[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[tr] [td]Wagner Audiolab Series II[/td] [td][/td][/tr]​

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[td][/td]​

​

​

Note that just because an item has been auditioned (is marked in blue) and I've not made a final choice yet, does not mean that that DAC has been eliminated from contention (only the newly added indicators tell you that). When I'm ready to start posting impressions/results, I'll do so, until then all this is is a list of what's on the list and how far through it I am!

---

Reference Links:

1. General Audition Notes
2. Audition Playlist

Prior Short List Units, Since Removed:

Items in this list were previously on the shortlist and have since been removed for various reasons (not necessarily related to how they sound).

DAC​	Indicators​	Price​	Comments​	Manufacturer/Product​
Chord DAVE	(+)​	$13,300​	Link​	Product Page​
PS Audio DirectStream Junior	(+) (!) ​	$3,999​	Link​	Product Page​

Current Short List:

These are the DACs that are currently on the short list for re-audition/final comparison once I have completed the initial pass on all of the DACs in the master list, above. Collecting them here to make it easier to keep an eye on the front-runners:

DAC​	Indicators​	Price​	Comments​	Manufacturer/Product​
Holo Audio Spring DAC - Level 3	(+)​	$2,399​	Link​	Product Page​
Metrum Pavane	(+)​	$4,799​	Link​	Product Page​
PS Audio DirectStream	(+)​	$5,999​	Link​	Product Page​
Schiit Yggdrasil	(+)​	$2,299​	Benchmark​	Product Page​

 

[Torq]

dave

Chord's DAVE is definitely on the list, particularly given how impressed I've been with their Mojo!

 

[yellowblue]

I had the Totaldac dual with reclocker and was really impressed by its natural sound signature. I never thought it could be much better than that. I even liked the fantastic customer care of Vincent at Totaldac. But my Dave which has nearly 200 hours on it is clearly better - by a wide margin (which I never thought was possible).
You get a worldclass headphone amp with the Dave that easilly drives my HD800 and Ether C. And you get a device which is immune to sources, so you can save money on Aurender and stuff. Just a Sonic Orbiter SE (I use it as a Roon endpoint) or a Mac mini or laptop with cheap cables.
That´s why I sold my Totaldac and my Master 9.

 

[listen4joy]

emm labs dac2x and Metronome C8, big boys cost a lot...

 

[Torq]

I had the Totaldac dual with reclocker and was really impressed by its natural sound signature. I never thought it could be much better than that. I even liked the fantastic customer care of Vincent at Totaldac. But my Dave which has nearly 200 hours on it is clearly better - by a wide margin (which I never thought was possible).
You get a worldclass headphone amp with the Dave that easilly drives my HD800 and Ether C. And you get a device which is immune to sources, so you can save money on Aurender and stuff. Just a Sonic Orbiter SE (I use it as a Roon endpoint) or a Mac mini or laptop with cheap cables.
That´s why I sold my Totaldac and my Master 9.

 
Nice to see a second recommendation for DAVE.  I probably won't use the headphone output on it initially, but might as I reconfigure systems over time, so that wouldn't be a bad thing to have by any means.  I certainly won't complain if the DAVE works out to be better as it's cheaper  too!
 
I've gone down the Roon path myself (and love it) and will be giving the Sonic Orbiter SE a try when I can get my hands on one - it seems to be perpetually out of stock!  Right now I'm using it with a Mac Mini as the Core and then various Macs and an Auralic Aries as endpoints ... but the Aries will get pricey if I add a few more.
 

  emm labs dac2x and Metronome C8, big boys cost a lot...

 
Those are two I'd not even heard of, and that's exactly the spirit of what I was looking for with this post, thanks!
 
That said, the Metronome seems to use AKM DAC chips at its core, so probably off the list for now.  That's not because I have anything in particular against AKM DACs (the 4490 in my Bifrost at work sounds lovely), I'm just wanting to steer away from solutions that tie relatively inexpensive off the shelf DAC chips with very expensive chassis, power supplies, and interfaces.
 
...
 
Appreciate both your input!

 

[murphythecat]

EC designs Mosaic T Discrete multibit DAC. http://www.ecdesigns.nl/mosaic-t.html
 
Christiaan Punter sold his reference dac, the 12 000 USD Jeff Rowland Aeris DAC, for the Mosaic T DAC. 
http://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/ec-designs-mosaic-t-dac/
 
Punter had replaced his 6k

 PS Audio PWD MKII for the Jeff rowland Aeris and now replaced his Aeris for the Mosaic T.
 
Ec designs offer free home demo.
 
John Brown, the designer of ec designs, is very known in diy community. he is the OP of the longest thread at diyaudio that started in 2006! http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/79452-building-ultimate-nos-dac-using-tda1541a-573.html#post4673390
 
 
 
Theres also another Mosaic user that had the total dac and seem to find the Mosaic superior...
 
"then arrives the Mutec MC3 and later the Fiber GLASS lifatech toslink to Mini toslink cable. 
the MC3 change the game at the first seconds of listening , unfortunately can"t go back to the cheaper Airport optical output.
remembers my old audiophiles days it"s like going from a Wadia 12 to a WADIA 25 dac everything is better more image , more details, very refined highs and stronger bass too. the Mosaic was now a very very good dac one of the best i had before ( audio aero , berkeley alpha model 1, totaldac A1 , etc..) 
but at my surprise the biggest gap came from the short Lifatech fiberglass Toslink . the Mutec MC3 + the LIfatech cable put the Mosaic dac to a level i never heard before. with my Wadia compares i have now the WADIA 9 drived with a CEC TLO .

to resume , first the Mosaic dac is fantastic music player all price category . "

 

[murphythecat]

  emm labs dac2x and Metronome C8, big boys cost a lot...

thats what they want you to believe.

 

[Torq]

  EC designs Mosaic T Discrete multibit DAC. http://www.ecdesigns.nl/mosaic-t.html
 
Christiaan Punter sold his reference dac, the 12 000 USD Jeff Rowland Aeris DAC, for the Mosaic T DAC. 
http://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/ec-designs-mosaic-t-dac/
 
Punter had replaced his 6k

 PS Audio PWD MKII for the Jeff rowland Aeris and now replaced his Aeris for the Mosaic T.
 
Ec designs offer free home demo.
 
John Brown, the designer of ec designs, is very known in diy community. he is the OP of the longest thread at diyaudio that started in 2006! http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/79452-building-ultimate-nos-dac-using-tda1541a-573.html#post4673390
 
 
 
Theres also another Mosaic user that had the total dac and seem to find the Mosaic superior...
 
"then arrives the Mutec MC3 and later the Fiber GLASS lifatech toslink to Mini toslink cable. 
the MC3 change the game at the first seconds of listening , unfortunately can"t go back to the cheaper Airport optical output.
remembers my old audiophiles days it"s like going from a Wadia 12 to a WADIA 25 dac everything is better more image , more details, very refined highs and stronger bass too. the Mosaic was now a very very good dac one of the best i had before ( audio aero , berkeley alpha model 1, totaldac A1 , etc..) 
but at my surprise the biggest gap came from the short Lifatech fiberglass Toslink . the Mutec MC3 + the LIfatech cable put the Mosaic dac to a level i never heard before. with my Wadia compares i have now the WADIA 9 drived with a CEC TLO .

to resume , first the Mosaic dac is fantastic music player all price category . "

That's a really interesting approach ... all passive discrete R2R ladder, NOS, filterless and no re-clocking ... in fact, that's beyond interesting, it's pretty radical!
 
Among others, I have an MHDT Stockholm 2 which is also NOS/R2R and filterless and that is extremely musical, nicely detailed and has a very good soundstage, which bodes well for the Mosaic.  It'll be interesting trying to get an audition of one - since I'm in the US their home-demo program sounds like it may not be available - it's intriguing enough that I'd likely be willing to give one a try if the return policy would accommodate it.  Time to do some checking ...
 
Thanks!

 

[murphythecat]

 
That's a really interesting approach ... all passive discrete R2R ladder, NOS, filterless and no re-clocking ... in fact, that's beyond interesting, it's pretty radical!
 
Among others, I have an MHDT Stockholm 2 which is also NOS/R2R and filterless and that is extremely musical, nicely detailed and has a very good soundstage, which bodes well for the Mosaic.  It'll be interesting trying to get an audition of one - since I'm in the US their home-demo program sounds like it may not be available - it's intriguing enough that I'd likely be willing to give one a try if the return policy would accommodate it.  Time to do some checking ...
 
Thanks!

the new Mosaic T is not a NOS chip. They used previously in their SD-Players NOS TDA 1541/1543 but have gone another route with their new mosac t.
 
"
The heart of the Mosaic T is our new discrete multibit DAC that was developed in-house from scratch. 
This design uses some unconventional logic designs to correct flaws that exist in all existing DAC chips and derived discrete DAC designs. 
"

 

[Torq]

  the new Mosaic T is not a NOS chip. They used previously in their SD-Players NOS TDA 1541/1543 but have gone another route with their new mosac t.
 
"
The heart of the Mosaic T is our new discrete multibit DAC that was developed in-house from scratch. 
This design uses some unconventional logic designs to correct flaws that exist in all existing DAC chips and derived discrete DAC designs. 
"

Ah ... when I said "NOS" I meant non-oversampling rather than "new old-stock".  At least, from what I gather from what I've read, the Mosaic T discrete DAC doesn't oversample.

 

[icebear]

.... I’d prefer R2R (or some other discrete, unique/custom or FPGA-based implementation), though that’s not a hard requirement.  I have no need for DSD – nothing against it, but my music collection is all lossless PCM.
 
So ... are there brands/models that I’m missing or have I managed to isolate the options already?
 
Thanks in advance for your input!

If you have an open mind and ears

and don't reject ESS chip based DACs right away, maybe you check out exasound.
They don't get much love here. From my perspective the e20 MkIII does not sound spectacular in any special way, it just gets out of the way of the music. It's all there, bass, detail resolution "plankton"

, natural sound of voices and acoustic instruments and it sounds relaxed, no fatigue ... at least not for 3 to 4hrs. There are several other models, the e20 is already out of production. 30 days money back if you don't like it.

 

[Torq]

  If you have an open mind and ears

and don't reject ESS chip based DACs right away, maybe you check out exasound.
They don't get much love here. From my perspective the e20 MkIII does not sound spectacular in any special way, it just gets out of the way of the music. It's all there, bass, detail resolution "plankton"

, natural sound of voices and acoustic instruments and it sounds relaxed, no fatigue ... at least not for 3 to 4hrs. There are several other models, the e20 is already out of production. 30 days money back if you don't like it.

Oh, there's not much I'm not willing to listen to ... and I'll always buy based on what I hear rather than specs or my engineering-led assumptions.
 
I looked at exaSound when it was announced that they were a Roon partner, and when they get an end-point running I'll likely check them out again.  They're probably at the upper limit, price-wise, at what I would consider for an off-the-shelf DAC-based implementation.  They fall foul of my general issue with off-the-shelf implementations - all the engineering work seems to be in the clocks and PSU stages (and some proofing for a future that may well never come) ... with the conversion and filtering being left entirely to the chip they've chosen to build on.
 
Thanks for the input!

 

[edwardzhuang]

Metrum Pavane should definitely be considered.

 

[yates7592]

Phasure NOS1a. Best NOS DAC for redbook PCM at many times its price IMO. Wipes the floor with MSB Analog which I sold.

 

[landroni]

 
That's a really interesting approach ... all passive discrete R2R ladder, NOS, filterless and no re-clocking ... in fact, that's beyond interesting, it's pretty radical!
 

My understanding is that bit-perfect DAC playback (that avoids approximations inherent to oversampling) is only possible in two instances:
* Schiit's MB DACs with Mike M.'s closed-form upsampling algorithm
* NOS R2R
 
Since the brickwall filter is more a pain than of use, better avoid it altogether and go filterless. Of course FL will feature aliasing, but from what I see aliasing can be avoided in the audible band by using 96 kHz material. Lastly, only NOS R2R can perform native playback of PCM...
 
This is why I was going to suggest, as it was done above, looking into Metrum:
http://www.metrum-acoustics.com/Design%20Philosophy%20Metrum%20Acoustics.pdf
 
And since you're looking into non-off-the-shelf designs, this chapter by Jason S. will likely be of interest:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/schiit-happened-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-improbable-start-up/7635#post_11904537
 
Another option definitely not off-the-shelf is the recently introduced (and elegantly named) Soekris dac1101:
http://soekris.com/products/audio-products/consumer-line-dac1101.html
 
It comes with the same price tag as Bifrost MB, but only accepts USB input which is a pity. Some people seem to prefer it over Schiit's Bifrost MB... At this price, it's not much of a gamble to take it out for a spin...