[Tetsuma]

Not due to sound improvement to price ratio, but due to the amount of available DACs.
 
Had my eye on the rDAC, due to some of the commercial reviews i've read about it (The aesthetics don't hurt either.).
Other Contenders are Musiland 02 US, Xonar ST and Dac Magic. The former two are apparently great 'bang for buck', and the latter pops up when the rDAC is mentioned.
There aren't a lot of reviews here about the rDAC, for whatever reason- but I quite like it. Audio-GD NFB-12 looks like a nice deal too.
 
Gear is currently Xonar DX > Heed Canamp > AKG K701
 
What would you guys suggest and why?
Thanks.

 

[hedrick]

I haven't heard it, but Arcam does a good enough job generally that I assume it's good. The only disadvantage I see is that it seems to be just a DAC, not a headphone amp. I have a Benchmark DAC-1 from several years ago. I has a fairly good headphone amp built in.
 

 

[Tetsuma]

I've got a headphone amp. I'm just looking for a solid dedicated DAC.

 

[Tetsuma]

Boomp

 

[shipsupt]

I've got a headphone amp. I'm just looking for a solid dedicated DAC.

I can't be any help with a personal comparison, but I can offer that the DacMagic is a solid dedicated choice. My time with one has confirmed most of the general praise it gets and it has plenty of input options and output options including balanced if you ever decided to go that direction.. Some folks feel that the fact that it always up samples is a draw back.

Good luck. As you said there are a lot of options to consider, but for the most part you can't go too wrong here.