As a new Utopia owner I'm really enjoying the extreme upgrade they provide me, but I'm running them from a Chord Mojo, which has been good enough, while of course not the best; but now the Mojo is acting up: cutting out, acting weird. It appears my five-year-old dac/amp is on the way out, I want to upgrade to something that the Utopia will work well with. I'm OK with up to $2,000, but I don't necessarily want to spend the entire budget if something less expensive will do the same job.
My question then is: what in the 2k and under range should I consider? I'm running from a Mac Laptop so I'll want a DAC and an AMP and ideally a combined DAC/AMP due to space and simplicity considerations. I'm not necessarily seeking the last .01% improvement one gains from a separate DAC and AMP. And it would be nice to have a little left over to spend on a balanced cable, but I'll run single-ended if needs be.
Last thing. I own the Stellia as well and sometimes I listen to through them at home instead when the environment is noisy. I assume that whatever works for the Utopia will work well for the Stellia... right?