Probably stating the obvious on a forum like this, but what I tell people who aren't yet indoctrinated in hifi......If you're on a tight budget or simply want to be frugal and looking to get the most bang for the buck I think upgrading headphones will be better in most instances....especially if you already have the RME. Through my evolution I found that two things made a massive difference in listenability....better source files (going to lossless/hi-res from 128mp3) and better headphones. Either one of those makes a big difference both both combined are game-changing. Once I had both of those and added a decent DAC (started with the Mojo) the incremental differences I've found with various components is subtle and maybe even indiscernible if truly a/b'ing blind. I think at that point it boils down to finding the product that suits your tastes and sound style vs actually making it sound better (detail, sonically, etc). Granted, I've never heard some really top of the line DAC's like a Chord DAVE, but for my (lack of) critical listening ability I find it really hard to believe that it's worth 11x the RME. Certainly for my system, which is simply fed from my pc to the RME/THX and using a great but not insane set of headphones (Fostex TH900 mk2). Given I buy used I'm all-in at less than $3k. If someone has thousands, or even tens of thousands, worth of components and speakers, then maybe it's noticeable. But they've also spend a college fund's worth of money on a system....it better be.