[Copyright]

Thinking of getting away from sound cards and goign back to an external unit.  I was looking at the new asus one but 550$ is pretty pricey.  Trying to stay closer to 300ish.  I had a Zero Dac with opa627 upgrade years ago that I liked but wouldn't mind findnig something a little better.  I am driving some Denon AH-D2000 headphones and will need pre-amp out for my Klipsch promedia speakers.  Thanks for any advice.

 

[Uberbob102000]

Around $300-ish you've got the Matrix Mini-i, Audinst HUD-MX1/MX2, Audio-gd NFB-11.32 or Audioengine D1 off the top of my head. All of these should offer both a good DAC, headphone amp and volume controlled DAC outputs.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Is there a particular reason you want to go the external DAC route?
 
Also, what do you mainly do with that audio setup? Music? Movies? Gaming?