In my system and this may only apply to me but after trying 5 different dacs I keep going back to the Auralic ARK MX+. I will tell you straight out some of the other dacs were better in certain areas but I just could not push myself to spend 3 times what I paid for the Auralic to gain small improvements; sorry I am a little cheap that way. The Auralic is breaking in nicely and at $2000 I like how it works with my system.