1K dac

hi
thanks to you all for your help.

does anyone know the dac(s) compare to a red wine audio isabellina?

I think that you should look into a Scott Nixon Tube DAC any other model that he offers. These are all non-oversampling DACs, just FYI
http://www.scott-nixon.com/

Having owned some pretty good digital equipment and DACs (Esoteric, Wadia, DCS stack, Levinson, EMM Labs), I have a few DACs in this price range and below that I can recommend:

Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista = about $850 I think
Kora Hermes = about $750 I think currently

These units may not have the "latest" chip-set, but they blow out the current "hot chipset dacs" in sound quality in my experience. They have much better power supplies and analog output stages.

I have listened to several of the "highly promoted" $1K - $2K DACs with the "latest and greatest" chipsets and have been unimpressed from an overall perspective (Obviously I have not heard them all). In fact, I would hazard to guess that with a lot of these "newest chipset" DACs you won't be able to tell a difference in a double blind test vs. just running your Logitech Duet or Touch direct!

But if you buy smart, you can easily bring in a few DACs and test for yourself. You should be able to turn them at no or vitually no cost to you.

I have a Burson 160D for sale. Like Rex44 said, if you can find one used it would be nice......

does anyone know how the dacs mentionned above would compare against the satch dac?

anyway thanks for those who helped me, it's great to be in a so much "open-minded" community.