What's the greatest bargain in DAC's these days?


Hi, Gang,
I am currently running my Music Hall CD 25.2 CD player as a transport through my Musical Fidelity M1 DAC. I also have the Musical Fidelity V-Link 192 for playing hi-res files from the USB port on my laptop.
DAC's are such a fast-moving market segment that I started to wonder whether there was a "stupid good" DAC, even better than the MF M1 DAC, that could be had for well under $1000.
I started a thread in the Amps/Preamps forum called "What's The Greatest Bargain in SET These Days" that yielded tons of great info. I hope this thread does, as well!
rebbi
Asynchronous is a USB mode. If its USB to DAC, then you definitely want a good Asynchronous USB implementation that allows the clock designed for high performance on the DAC to be in control. Its becoming more common with USB DACs to operate this way in recent years.
Teredak Chamelion. This is a non oversampling dac with 16 parallel chips. Sounds like great analog. $500
Alan
The Wyred Dac1 is a superb Dac with all the latest and greatest. It is upgradeable which is a huge advantage with the rapidly changing technology.
I had the Parasound Z Dac, the Musical Fidelity V Dac with pagea p100 power supply and the Musical Fidelity M1 dac all at the same time and did thourough a/b/c testing. I preferred them in the order I listed them. Interesting that the v dac with pangea p100 beat the M1 dac in my oppinion.

Musical fidelity offers the worst customer service I have ever experieced. Changed the whole way I buy audio gear now.

I've had my eye on the schitt bifrost uber lately... There may be better sounding dacs from china or japan but I wont take another over seas custom service gamble.

I like my cars German, my audio gear American and my Women European :)