Recommendation for DAC needed.

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.