Recommendation for DAC needed.

At the risk of sounding like a non-answer, I agree with the sentiment to consider the front end before the dac, although the improvements can be dac-specific, and it honestly depends so much on the level of the rest of your system.  

For instance, if using USB, consider a better usb cable, a reclocker like an iso-regen, some linear power supply upgrades for anything in the chain not using them, and power supply improvements in general (balanced power or well-reviewed filtering).  Sadly, any dac upgrade may not be as noticeable of an improvement without a lot of that already in place.  This takes a lot of research and a lot of experimenting, but the yields can be significant.  Read as much as you can.  Try them one at a time, but some won’t yield improvements unless in conjunction (linear power supply combined with reclockers, for example).

I use an Yggy with a lot of SoTM, Uptone and Sonore network and USB gear in front, and the gains have been very significant, but the costs have been too.  I had an Aqua Formula for 3 weeks, but by itself, it wasn’t a giant improvement over the Yggy plus upgrades (the latest with analog 2), although it would have been better likely with all those other upgrades in front.

just suggesting the dac upgrade needs to be considered with the other opportunities.

You could sell your transport and use the extra cash to upgrade to a Marantz SA-KI Ruby.  Incredible DAC, fantastic transport. Absolutely wonderful.

Just a couple that I've demo'd recently (I went with the PS Audio Junior $2,800 after trading in a Marantz 8005)

exa sound e32
M2Tech Young DSD

both benefit from LPS

Hello peeps,

I notice there is a hell of a lot of recommending one bit of DAC gear over another based on graphs and scientific measurements. 

I am no expert at all on this, but surely how it actually sounds, what the DAC Chip DOES with the digital information, how it turns it into analogue is more than simply the lowest distortion, noise, best this or that? I would have thought that the manner inwhich the information is INTERPRETED and converted is all important.

I know the CD player I am busy selling has some kind of valve-like output stage (Musical Fidelity A5) - surely it is things like this which make the sound more musical, rather than things that can be shown on a graph?

I'm interested in hearing your views on this! Thanks,

Mark.

For what it's worth, my steps up the DAC ladder went like this, each one led to noticable improvements in SQ, the biggest step-up by far was the last one:
1) Oppo 105
2) Oppo 105 -> PS Audio Digital Link III
3) Oppo 105 and PC -> PS Audio PWD
4) Ethernet -> PS Audio PWD via Bridge II, Tidal as primary source; SQ much better than Oppo 105-> DAC, so Oppo player went back to the midfi HT in the basement.