Never heard the Taurus, though I've read pretty extensively about it (reviews, user comments, etc). A lot of people really like it as both HP amp & system preamp.
I have a V281 sans DAC (I have other DACs that I'm nuts about, so wouldn't use a built in DAC in V281 even if it was present). I bought my V281 used; it has the motorized 128-stepped pot.
All I can say about sound is this is truly an endgame amp/preamp. It's very powerful, and sounds every bit as powerful as it is (some powerful amps don't sound powerful, but this one does). It's impressive in just about every way, including the best bass of any of my amps (just ahead of another Violectric design, the Lake People G109-A, which also has terrific bass). It has the best soundstaging I've ever heard...a little different (wider, taller) than the very good soundstaging of the Liquid Carbon. It has unusual control & I/O flexibility. It's child's play to change inputs, volume, whether line is on/off vs headphone on/off (independent control of each). There's also extensive, granular control of gain, both the line out section and the headphone amp section. It's an amazing preamp--producing the best bass & soundstaging I've ever heard from 2 different pairs of powered speakers. Finally, the balanced output is pretty amazing (on 3 different headphones)...but the SE outputs sound quite good, as well.
I'm having subtle issues w/my motorized pot & will send it for service eventually. However, this being a used unit w/multiple past owners, it may have been abused or negligently handled in the past. For example, it's probably not wise to manually "twirl" this big motorized pot a lot, since it could affect the motorized portion (just a guess).
All to say that my little issue is almost certainly sample-specific. In all my reading about the V281, I never saw any comments about this.
Other than that, from what I can tell, Violectric products are utterly bulletproof. Both the V281 & G109-A are extremely practical, smooth, competent designs that sound great.